Chapter 6 - The Principle of Śiva (1)

[Sanskrit text for this chapter is available]

Upamanyu said:—

1-2. Śiva has no bondage due to the atoms, effects, Māyā, Prakṛti, cosmic intellect, ego, mind, sense-organs,

Tanmātras or the elements.

3. To Śiva of unmeasured brilliance there is no Kāla or Kalā; no Vidyā or Niyati; neither lust nor hatred.

4. He has no keen desire. He has neither happiness nor unhappiness; neither Karmans nor their after-effects; neither_# pleasure nor misery as a result of those Karmans.

5. He has no connection with the seats of feelings nor with the impressions of actions. He has no contact with enjoyments of pleasures nor with their impressions of the three units of lime—past, present, future

6. He has no cause or maker; he has no beginning no end nor the intervening space. He has no activity or instrument. He has neither Akārya nor Kārya.

7. He has neither kinsman nor non-kinsman; he has no one to check or to urge. He has no lord, preceptor or protector. He has no superior or equal.

8. He has neither birth nor death; neither expectation nor disinclination. He is not subject to injunctions or prohibitions; he has neither liberation nor bondage.

9. He never has anything not conducive to welfare or inauspicious. He has everything auspicious since Śiva is the great Ātman.

10. Presiding over everything by means of his Śaktis, he is stationed without dropping his intrinsic nature. Hence he is known as Śiva.

11. Since the universe consisting of the mobile and immobile beings is presided over by Śiva, he is known as omniformed. One who knows him as such, is never deluded.

12. Śiva is Rudra. Obeisance to him. He is the great Puruṣa beyond the Sat. He has golden arms, he is the lord of gold.

13. Isāna is the consort of Śivā. He is the trident-bearing, and bull-vehicled lord. The sole Rudra is the great Brahman. He is the black and tawny Puruṣa.

14. He shall be meditated upon in the cavity within the heart as minute as the tip of a hair, with golden hair, and lotus eyes. He is pink and copper-coloured.

15-16. He moves about golden in colour, blue-necked, both gentle and terrible and a mixure of the both, imperishable, deathless and unchangeable. Such is the great lord, the slayer of the god of death. He is liberated from the sentient and non-sentient. He is greater than the great universe.

17. Since the knowledge and supremacy of Śiva excels those of others he excels all the lords of the worlds so say the intelligent persons.

18. In the beginning he was the instructor of the scriptural texts to the Brahmans born during the period of re-creation.

19. He is not conditioned by time. He is the lord of all. He is the preceptor of all the preceptors, subject to the influence of Time.

20. His Śakti is pure, natural and all-excelling. His knowledge is unparalleled. His physical body is eternal and built to defy death.

21. His lordship is unrivalled, so also his happiness, undying strength, power of brilliance, virility, forbearance and mercifulness.

22. Since he is full and perfect he has no selfish end to be served by creation etc. The fruit of his activities is only the blessing of others.

23. Praṇava is the word expressive of lord Śiva. Praṇava is the greatest symbol of Śiva, Rudra and other words.

24. Undoubtedly the great Siddhi can be acquired by meditation on Praṇava that is expressive of Śiva and by the performance of its Japa.

25. Hence intelligent men well-versed in the Āgamas considering identity between the word and its meaning call the lord as single-syllabled.

26. In the Upaniṣads its Mātrās are four A, U, M and nāda.

27. The letter “A” is the Ṛgveda; “U” is the Yajurveda; “M” is the Sāmaveda and the Nāda is the Atharvaveda.

28. The letter “A” is the great Bīja, Rajas and the creator, the four-faced lord. The letter “U” is Prakṛti, the womb, Sattva and the protector Viṣṇu.

29. The letter “M” is Puruṣa, the seed, the Tamas and the annihilator Rudra. Nāda is the great Puruṣa, Īśa, Śiva, devoid of Guṇas and activities.

30. Praṇava expresses everything through the three Mātrās in three ways and indicates Śivātman through half a Mātrā.

31. All this is filled by that Puruṣa than whom there is nothing else greater; than whom there is nothing smaller nor bigger and who like a tree stands steady and stiff in the heaven.^[1]

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Taittirīya-āraṇyaka 10.10.3; Mahān. U. 10.4.