GAVIN FLOOD

THE PURIFICATION OF THE BODY IN TANTRIC RITUAL REPRESENTATION1

The purication of the elements in the body, the bh tauddhi or u s dehauddhi, is an important part of the tantric practitioners sequence of s daily rites. Indeed, if any practice is characteristic of tantric traditions it is the bh tauddhi. It signies the destruction of the impure, material body u s through the absorption of the elements within it, which is followed by the creation of a divine body through the imposition of mantras (ny sa), a mental or internal worship (antara-/m nasay ga), and external worship a a (b hyay ga). One of the interesting issues in the study of the bh tauddhi, a a u s and of tantric ritual in general, is the relation between its representation in the texts, actual ritual performance, and theology or doctrine. Assuming a distinction between ritual performance and its textual representation, the present paper will rstly examine with reference to the bh tauddhi, the u s claim that tantric traditions share a common ritual substrate. This claim of ritual invariance in the face of theological divergence has been made by a number of scholars, most notably by Alexis Sanderson,2 Andr Padoux3 and Hlne Brunner,4 and the present study supports this general claim through examining the bh tauddhi in the Jay khya-samhit , but also with u s a a sanaivagurudevapaddhati. Secondly, I shall examine reference to the I s the language of ritual description in these accounts of the bh tauddhi, u s showing how a pragmatic analysis throws light on the relation of the P car tra reader to the text and has implications for the nature of a a self-identity implicit within them. That is, the language of the texts allows for the identication of the reader with the subject matter while at the same time maintaining an impersonal voice concordant with the presentation of these texts as revelation. This kind of mechanism ensures cultural replication through the generations.
TEXTUAL SOURCES OF THE BHUTASUDDHI

The origins of the bh tauddhi practice are unclear. One of its earliest u s and most elaborate representations is in the Jay khya-samhit (JS), a a a P car tra text quoted by the K smr author Utpal c rya (c. 925975 c.e.) a a a a a
Indo-Iranian Journal 45: 2543, 2002. 2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

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and so predating him.5 The purication of the elements is also found in Buddhist Vajray na ritual, although the Anuttarayoga Tantras are thema u s selves derived from Saiva prototypes.6 The roots of the bh tauddhi may, however, be much older. There are arguably two sources here. Firstly there are offerings made into the sacricial re in vedic ritual, along with early cosmological speculation of S mkhyan and proto-S mkhyan a a metaphysics. For example, the Brhad ranyaka-upanis ad describes making a . . . offerings of ghee into the sacred re to the earth, atmosphere and sky,7 although making offerings to the sequence of elements does not occur. The general idea of the identication of the body with the cosmos is, of course, ancient with textual antecedents in the Veda.8 Secondly its origins may arguably be found in early Buddhist meditation traditions with the krtsna. /kasinayatana exercises and the cultivation of the meditative sign (nimitta) . that leads into meditative absorption (jh na). Indeed, it is possibly here a that we nd the origins of the visualization methods that were to become so important in the tantric traditions, both Hindu and Buddhist. The kasinayatana are ten among forty objects of meditation (kammat.th na) . . a 9 described in Buddhaghosas Visuddhimagga, although they also occur in the Pali canon itself.10 The kasinas comprise the ve elements and ve . a colours,11 focussing upon which leads into the levels of meditation (jh na). For example, the earth kasina is a clay disc, an object of concentration . that becomes internalised. In this way the kasina is akin to the internally . arising sign (nimitta), like an afterimage, which leads into jh na.12 Traces a of these practices can perhaps be found in the bh tauddhi, particularly u s in the visualization of the vajra, possibly a disc of light that occurs in the sequence of purifying the earth element. In a Hindu context, the bh tauddhis earliest occurrences are in u s the JS and the Saiva K mik gama.13 There is a passage in the Netraa a tantra, a Saiva text, which mentions the ve elements in connection with the pots required for consecration (abhiseka) of the ac rya and a . 14 a s dhaka, although no ritual details are given. In Saiva Siddh nta a a standard source for the bh tauddhi is the Somaambhupaddhati (SSP), u s s itself based on the K mik gama and the Acintyavivas r khya which, a a s aa Brunner-Lachaux observes, in places Somaambhu follows line by line.15 s s s The Ianaivagurudevapaddhati (ISP) follows the Somaambhupaddhati s (11th cent.) as does the Aghoraiv c ryapaddhati (12th cent.). The term s a a bh tauddhi also occurs in other Saiddh ntika treatises, including a text u s a u s called the Bh tauddhi.16 Later the bh tauddhi is found in Ayurvedic u s practices within the regime of cleansing the bodys impurities.17 To demonstrate a common structure in the bh tauddhi rite, upon which are u s

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established divergent sectarian theologies, I shall take examples from the JS and ISP.
THE BHUTASUDDHI IN THE TANTRIC REVELATION

The P car tra and Saiva Siddh nta traditions maintained distinct revelaa a a tions, each regarding the other as either heretical, in the former case, or as a lower level of revelation, in the latter case. In defending the revealed a status of the P car tra Samhit s, largely against its orthodox detractors, a a Y muna argues that although they share the name of tantra, the P car tra a a a is revelation (ruti), whereas the Saiva Tantras are not and were promuls gated by Siva to deceive the world.18 Similarly Saiva theologians, both from the dualist Saiva Siddh nta and the non-Saiddh ntika traditions, a a regarded only certain Saiva Tantras as the highest revelation and relegated the P car tra texts to a lower level. The Saiddh ntika R makantha a a a a .. maintains that the P car tra only reaches the level of prakrti and that a a . the supreme P car tra deity, N r yana, is identied with this level,19 as a a aa . does the monist Ksemar ja.20 Yet in spite of the professed divergence of a . the Saiva and P car tra systems and the desire of their protagonists to a a distance their traditions from each other, there is a high degree of overlap, not only in terms of theology, but especially at the level of ritual representation. This similarity of ritual process in our texts points to a ritual substrate common to the theologically distinct P car tra and Saiva tradia a tions. Although ritual contents in terms of mantras and deities vary, the sequence of daily and occasional rites cuts across sectarian distinctions and points to an almost independent life of ritual representation in these texts. Part of this textually represented ritual substrate are various hierarchical cosmologies such as the six ways (sadadhvan), which are parallel . . ritual courses through the cosmos inscribed on the body.21 These ways incorporate the cosmological categories (tattva) and their division into ve realms (kal ). In the Saiva system we have thirty-six tattvas, which adds a eleven Saiva ones to the twenty-ve S mkhya ones, while the P car tra a a a assumes only the S mkhya categories, although it has cosmological funca tions analogous to the higher Saiva ones. There is a common overall structure here of a pure, mixed and impure creation, although for the monistic Trika Saivism, the broad distinction is between the pure and the impure creations. While these cosmologies are theologically important as can be seen in Bhojadevas linking of higher beings to different levels of the cosmos in the Tattvaprak sa22 their primary importance is as a ritual rather than theological entities; cosmology has a primarily ritual

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function in these traditions.23 This can be illustrated particularly well in the bh tauddhi sequence where the cosmos is mapped onto the body and u s dissolved, as the lower levels of the cosmos are dissolved into the higher during the cosmic dissolution (pralaya). The terminology here is that of the tattvas of S mkhya in which the gross elements (bh ta) which comprise a u the physical world, are dissolved into the subtle elements (tanm tra) a which are their source. The purication of the body through dissolving its constituent elements into their cause, would seem to be a characteristically tantric practice as its absence from Vaikh nasa ritual manuals indicates.24 a Within all tantric or agamic ritual, visualization of ritual action and deities is of central importance in daily and occasional rites, and in both the P car tra and the Saiva Siddh nta to perform a visualization is to a a a perform a mental action which has soteriological effects. Once initiated, the Saiva or Vaisnava adept into these cults was expected to perform oblig.. atory daily worship. For the P car trin, according to Gupta, this involved a a the ve obligatory acts adopted from vedic orthopraxy, characterised by Gupta as the recitation of stotras (brahmayaja), daily liturgy (devayaja), making offerings to malevolent supernatural beings (bh tayaja), making u offerings to the ancestors (pitryaja) and the feeding of (Vaisnava) guests . .. a (nryaja).25 The Saiddh ntika similarly follows the orthoprax injunctions . of the Dharmaastra, performing rites at the junctures (samdhy ) of the s a 26 day, particularly the p j at dawn (as do the P car trins). The purpose ua a a of this daily ritual, apart from its being a sign of his adherence to the cult of his initiation, was to enable the devotee to eventually destroy the limiting factors (mala) which constrain his soul (jva) within the cycle of reincarnation (sams ra), and so to be ready for liberation (moksa) by a . receiving the grace of the Lord (Siva or Visnu) at his death. In this sense .. the P car tra and Saiva Siddh nta are very different from the monistic a a a traditions of non-Saiddh ntika Saivism, as Sanderson has demonstrated.27 a The JS describes four classes of disciple, the samayaja, putraka, s dhaka, and ac rya,28 each having undergone a particular ablution a a a a (abhisekah) as part of his initiation (dksa).29 Only the initiated P car trin . . . is authorised to perform the daily liturgical rites, the broad parameters of which common to all tantric traditions are ablutions (sn nam), the a purication of the body (dehauddhi or bh tauddhi), the divinization of s u s the body through the imposition of mantras upon it (ny sa), inner or mental a worship (antara-/m nasay ga) performed purely in the imagination, and a a external worship (b hyay ga) with offerings of owers, incense and so a a 30 u s on to the deity. Chapter 10 of the JS is devoted to bh tauddhi and the spiritual ascent of the soul (jva) ready for the creation of the divinized body. Through symbolically destroying the physical or gross body, the

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adept can create a pure, divinized body (divyadeha) with which to offer worship to the deities of his system. He (the initiate in our texts is male) does this rstly only in imagination and secondly in the physical world, for as in all tantric systems only a god can worship a god. The textual representation of the bh tauddhi is set within a sequence in which the physical u s or elemental body (bhautika sarra) is puried and the soul ascends from the heart through the body, and analogously through the cosmos, to the Lord N r yana located at the crown of the head. The text presents us with aa . a detailed account of this process, which can be summarized as follows. Going to a pure, unfrequented, but charming place, the adept offers obeisance to Hari, pays homage to the lineage of teachers (gurusantati), and having received the mental command (m nas aj ) from the Lord a a and lineage of teachers, he is ready to perform mental action (m nasm a . 31 nirvahet . . . kriy m). The practitioner puries his hands with the weapon a (astra) mantra, and the place through visualising Visnu like a thousand .. suns, vomiting ames from his mouth, and the earth baked by the re of mantra.32 In this process we see the construction of a ritual body in opposition to the genetic or biological body which, in its nonritual state, is impure (malina), subject to decay (ksayin), not autonomous . (asvatantra), and made from blood and semen (retoraktodbhava).33 The non-puried body is the opposite of the Lords body possessed of the six qualities.34 The purication of the body entails the construction of the ritual body; a process which had begun with bathing and which continues with the selection of the place and the placing of a blade of sacred grass, ower or leaf in the tuft of hair with mantra.35 The symbolic destruction of the body takes place through dissolving the elements of the cosmos within it. As in the nal dissolution of the cosmos when each element or category retracts into its source, so in daily ritual this process is recapitulated within the adepts body. The actual process occurs through linking together sequences of syllables to form mantras associated with the elements, such . as the OM SLAM PRTHIVYAI HUM PHAT corresponding to the earth . element, which are modied for each element, replacing the bjas SLAM 36 with SVAM, HYAM and KSMAM as necessary. Each of the elements . . is visualized in a certain way, associated with particular symbols, and as pervading a particular part of the body in a hierarchical sequence. Each element is in turn symbolically destroyed in the imagination through being absorbed into its mantra and into the energies (aktayah) of the s . powers (vibhav h) or subtle elements (tanm tr h) which gave rise to it. For a. a a. example, the JS describes the purication of the earth element as follows:
turyar m pt bh m bh mim cintayed vajral cit m / sabd dyaih pacabhir yukt m s a a a u a a a a . n gadrumasam kul m // purapr k rasusariddvp rn avapariskrt m / samviantm a a a a a a . s . . a

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smared b hy t p rakena svavigrahe // procc rayam ca tan mantram vir ntam atha a a u a s sa . cintayet / j nvoh p datalam y vat tay vy ptam kramena tu // kumbhakena dvijares.tha a . a a a a s . . mantram rtau svake tatoh / sanaih sanair layam y t m gandhaaktau ca mantrar.t // u a a s a . . gandhaaktim ca t m pac d recakena bahih ksipet / s a s a . . (The practitioner) should visualize a quadrangular, yellow earth, marked with the sign of thunder, connected with the ve, sound etc. [i.e. sabda, spara, r pa, rasa and s u gandha] and lled with trees and mountains, adorned with oceans, islands, good rivers and walled towns. He should visualize (that earth) entering his own body from the outside with an inhaled breath, and uttering the mantra he should imagine it as tranquilized, pervading in due order from the knees to the soles of the feet by means of the retained breath, O best of twice born ones. Then, (he should visualize the earth) gradually dissolved in its mantra-form, and this mantra-king dissolved in the energy of smell. After that he should emit the energy of smell with the exhaled breath.37

This process of inhaling the visualized element that pervades a particular area of the body, dissolving it into its mantra, then into its subtle cause, and exhaling it, is followed with the other elements. Having exhaled the energy of smell into the substratum of water, the water element is then imagined as having the form of a half moon, marked by a lotus, and containing all aquatic media the oceans, rivers, the six avors (rasasadka) and aquatic . . beings. Inhaling the image, it pervades the adepts body from the thighs to the knees and is dissolved into its mantra, then into the energy of taste (rasaakti) which he emits with the exhaled breath.38 The same process s occurs with the remaining elements. The triangle of re containing all ery and bright things, including beings at higher levels of the cosmos with self-luminous bodies (svaprak saarra), is inhaled, pervades the body a s from the navel to where the water element had begun, is dissolved into its mantra, into the energy of form (r paakti), and exhaled as before.39 Similu s arly the air element is inhaled, pervades from throat to navel and is exhaled a a as the energy of touch (sparaakti).40 This merges into space ( k sa) s s which, in the same way, is inhaled, pervades to the aperture of the absolute (brahmarandhra), dissolves into its mantra, then into the energy of sound (abdaakti), and is emitted through the aperture at the crown of the head s s (brahmarandhra).41 All this is accomplished by the power of the mantras of the elements. Having left the body through the brahmarandhra, individualized consciousness (caitanya jvabh ta) has transcended the cage u of the elements (bh tapajara) by rising through the upanisadic stages of u . space, the stars, lightening, the sun and moon.42 In this way the soul (jva) ascends in imagination up the central channel (susumna) from the heart, . . through the levels of the cosmos (pada), to the Lord at the crown of the head. He is envisaged in his supreme body (paravigraha) as a mass of radiance (tejopuja) standing within a circle of light;43 a standard identication of N r yana with the sun. The joy that arises is the supreme energy of aa .

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Visnu (par vaisnav sakti)44 and results in a state of higher consciousness a .. .. (sam dhi) that is the ineffable freedom from ideation (sa kalpanirmukta a n av cya).45 a Although enjoying this state of bliss, the process of purication is not yet complete. Having transcended the subtle elements along with the gross body, the s dhaka should burn it with the re arising from his feet, a generated by the power of his mantra. All that remains is a pile of ashes which are then washed away to the quarters in his imagination by the ood of milky water arising from his meditation.46 With the universe of his imagination now lled with the ocean of milk, a lotus emerges out of it containing N r yana, whose essence is his mantra, the truth of the aa . a aa . six paths.47 The s dhakas body, identied with N r yana, is puried, freed from old age and death and has the appearance of pure crystal and the effulgence of a thousand suns and moons.48 Having created a puried body in this way, his soul enters the inner lotus of this subtle body (puryas. akakaj ntara) through the aperture of the absolute from which it a .t had earlier vacated its residence. With a calm awareness (prasannadh) the 49 adept is ready to perform worship of the deity (yajed devam), that is, ready to perform the mental sacrice (m nasay ga) and external sacrice a a (b hyay ga) described in the following chapters. a a In the texts of the Saiva Siddh nta we nd a similar process occura ring. The SSP and ISG (which quotes the former), are separated from the JS by at least a couple of centuries and their origins are in different parts of the sub-continent: the JS is probably from the Kashmir region,50 Somaambhu was the abbot of a matha in South India, himself in a lineage s . of compilers of ritual manuals,51 and the ISG is probably from Kerala.52 Considering the regional, temporal and cultic diversity of these texts, it is therefore very striking that such invariance occurs at the level of ritual representation. There is of course, a clear line of development from the SSP to the ISG, as sanaiva quotes the SSP and closely follows the text I s in ritual sequences such as the dehauddhi, but there is no such clear line s of historical development from the JS into the Saiva material. It would therefore seem likely, from an examination of the purication of the body sequences in texts of diverse lineages, that we are looking at a common ritual substrate articulated within the spectrum of tantric traditions. The ISG sequence uses the term dehauddhi and follows the account s given in the SSP: the terms used are often identical and it seems probable that sanaiva is following Somaambhus text. As in the JS, I s s self-purication ( tmaodhanam) occurs through the purication of the a s elements (bh tauddhi). After bathing, the adept (putraka) should go to u s the place of worship (y g laya), meditate upon the syllable HUM breaking a a

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the knots at the heart, throat, palate, between the eyes, and on the head, and visualize Siva at the crown of the head in the dv daanta.53 The adept a s should meditate upon the cutting of the dark and lthy knots, which are pierced with the exhaling of the breath to allow energy to ow in the esoteric channels (n d).54 He should imagine his soul (jva), identied a. with the mantra HAMSA, in the pure lotus of the heart. By the force of the air (v yu) in the central channel he should lead the soul up to Siva a located in the dv daanta at the crown of the head, seated in the centre of a s 55 a lotus. The adept then meditates upon his own body as an inverted tree whose roots are in his head, pervaded by the thirty six tattvas, dissolved in imagination, each into its cause.56 Then begins the description of the bh tauddhi and we are back on territory familiar from the JS. u s Although new elements have been introduced in the Saiva Siddh nta a scheme, namely the idea of purifying the body through breaking its knots (granthiprabheda), the terminology of the subtle channels (nad), and the use of thirty-six levels of the cosmos (tattva), there is nevertheless a signicant degree of overlap with the JS. As regards the rst stage in the process of purifying the earth element, the text reads:
bh mandalam yac caturaraptam vajr nkitam gandhagun am sasadyam / u .. s a . ghr nendriyam tat kalay nivrtty yuktam ca daivena caturmukhena // a. a a . hl mbjatah p rakakumbhak bhy m vy ptam tad p datalam sirastah / sodhyam a a a a a a . u . taduddm takapacak t sy d v yau pravis.tam paribh vayec ca // a a a a a . The image of the earth (bh mandala) is a yellow square, marked with the sign of u .. thunder bolt (vajra), whose quality is smell and associated with the Sadya mantra. It is connected to the sense organ of smell, the nivrtti-kal , and by the four-faced one a . (Brahm ). With the lling and holding breaths, the seed syllable HLAM pervades (the a body) from the soles of the feet to the head. He should (repeat the seed) ve times for the purpose of purication, and he should (then) meditate upon it as entered into the air [i.e he exhales the earth element into the air element].57

As in the JS the earth diagram (prthivmandala) is a golden square marked .. . by a vajra and associated with the sense of smell, but unlike the JS it is associated with the tattvas, with nivrtti, one of the ve regions (kal ), and a . pervades the entire body, rather than from feet to knees. But this pattern is not wholly consistent in the Saiva Siddh nta and the V madevapaddhati a a follows the JS model with the earth pervading from feet to knees.58 The other elements follow the same general pattern, using the same symbols (the crescent moon for water, a red triangle for re marked with svastikas, air as a hexagonal form marked by six drops (bindu), and space as symbolized by a round crystal). As with the JS, the adept burns the body in imagination and then oods it with the water arising from his meditation in

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order to create a pure, divine body for worship. The text follows the same pattern as the SSP on which it heavily relies. A general picture therefore emerges of the bh tauddhi as a shared u s ritual substrate that becomes identied with particular Saiva cosmologies. On the one hand the actual visualization represented in the texts has become minimalized, from the JSs elaborate visions of each element to the ISGs formal representation. On the other, more elaborate cosmological overlays have occurred. Indeed, the system of the bh tauddhi has u s become identied with an independent system of the ve knots along the central channel of a subtle anatomy, and the ve elements have become associated with the ve faces of Sad siva.59 We can therefore see here a strong continuity of ritual representation, although with later structural elaboration. But I wish now to examine this element of structural invariance through a closer analysis of the kind of language used in these texts. Particularly, I wish to argue that the use of language allows for imagination and the identication of the brahmanical reader of the text with the ritual processes prescribed. This identication is also the means whereby a text is reconstituted through the generations and the way in which its meaning is constructed through the interaction of the both the texts structures and content, and the reader.

GRAMMAR, METAPHOR AND INDEXICALITY

The verbs used for ritual meditation or visualization are from the roots smr, . dhy , bh caus., and cint. The term smr, to remember, is particularly a u . interesting, having a wider semantic eld than simply recalling something past. Although this would need to be different study to sustain the claim, it would seem that, along with these other terms, it here refers to the construction of a mental image in the imagination.60 These verbs are generally used in the third person optative, apart from gerundives, which is all-pervasive in these texts and is nothing unusual. Let us take an example of each from the JS. They are as follows: (1) In the destruction of the earth element we read, (The practitioner) should visualize a quadrangular, yellow earth, marked with the sign of thunder (turyar m pt bh m s a a a bh mim cintayed vajral cit m);61 (2) at the completion of the dissolution u a a of the water element, with the inhaled breath he should bring to mind, O twice-born one, the body as its own sacred diagram, completely lled with that (water element) (. . . sarram mandalam svakam / ten khilam a .. tu samvy ptam kumbhakena smared dvija);62 (3) in the dissolution of the a air element he should meditate upon (the air element) pervading from the throat to the place of the navel ( kan. h n n bhideantam tena vy ptam a .t a a s a

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tu bh vayet);63 and (4) in the destruction of the space element he should a visualize it (the space element) transformed in its own mantra (dhy yet a parinatam . . . svamantre).64 Again, an example of the verbs used in the . ISG simply reinforce this usage: (5) he should lead (the soul) to Siva 65 located in the dv daanta (tam dv daantasthaivam nayet); and (6) he a s s a s should meditate by degrees the piercing of the knots (granthiprabhedam kramao vidadhy t).66 s a In these examples the main verb is in the third person singular optative, a mood which, according to P nini, is used in ve senses to denote a a. command (vidhi), a summons (nimantrana), an invitation ( mantrana), a a . . respectful command (adhs.ta), a deliberation (samprana), or a request . s (pr rthana).67 All of these senses have the implication of conditions; a that the performance of certain actions will lead to certain future effects. Indeed, the optative implies action and its effects in future time, as it cannot refer to the past nor to the actualised present. As used here, the optative corresponds to P ninis analysis in that the P car trins relia. a a gious discipline (vrata) is a command from the lord (vidhi, as in you must go to the village gr mam bhav n gacchet), and is also an invitaa a tion ( mantrana, as in do sit here iha bhav n asta) or request from a a . an authoritative source (pr rthana, I would like to study grammar a vy karanam adhyya). a . The analysis of the optative mood within different schools tended to focus upon the relationship between the person or text uttering the injunction, the receiver, and the action to be performed. According to one commentator on P nini, N geabhatta, the rst four denitions (vidhi a. a s .. etc.) can be included within a fth, namely pravartana or instigation, an activity on the part of one person which leads to anothers performing an action. There is a sequence of implication in the use of the optative. Namely, that the instigation is uttered by an authoritative person ( pta); a that there is nothing inhibiting the instigation; and that the instigatee infers that the action he is being asked to perform is something he desires a s and is achievable.68 N gea denes the qualied person as being one who is free from confusion, anger and so on, and who does not perform actions that lead to undesired results. According to N gea a vidhi is a s connected with certain properties of an action, the property of being a means to something desired (is.tas dhyatva), its feasibility (krtis dhyatva), . a . a and the absence of inhibitory factors (pratibandhak bh va).69 The use of a a the optative in our texts is therefore consonant with this understanding. There is therefore an imperative to perform mental action as prescribed in these texts, in the sense that if a certain course of action is undertaken, then certain results will follow, a fact that can be inferred from the imper-

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ative coming from an authoritative source. Indeed, the terms smaret (e.g. at 10.34a), cintayet (e.g. at 10.28a), dhy yet (e.g. at 10.54a) and bh vayet a a (e.g. at 10.46a) are the same grammatical form as terms denoting physical actions, such as imposing or infusing the body with mantra (nyaset, e.g. at 10.66b). In this sense, it would seem that the use of the optative in the Tantras is akin to its use in the Vedas, as in the injunction one desirous of heaven should perform the jyotis.toma sacrice (jyotis. omena svargak mo a . .t yajet).70 There is no grammatical distinction within these texts between actions performed in the mind and actions performed with the body. Indeed the grammar points in quite the opposite direction to a mind/body dualism, namely that mental action is directly akin to physical action, and that as physical action has effect in the ritual realm, so too does mental action. This is because the hierarchical cosmology assumed in these ritual operations is a magical cosmology that enables actions (including mental action) to have effects at spatially and temporally distinct locations. One might speculate further that the use of the optative with its implication of possible future action, is related to the imagination or the metaphorical space in which events and abstractions are projected; a projection which is permitted by the very structure of languages with at least three tenses.71 While, as Lakoff and Johnson have shown, all of language is pervaded by metaphor,72 the use of the optative is particularly suggestive of the possibility of metaphor and of the kinds of mapping and overcoding onto the body that we nd in our texts. The terms ksipet and nyaset imply . that the adept should project the mantra or image into the metaphorical space of his creative imagination. This is indeed a mental action that has effect in that metaphorical space, and will have consequences for the practitioner in terms of liberation at death. Lastly, if we read these texts through a dialogical lens, the use of the optative tells us something of the relationship between the reader and the text, and tells us something about the nature of the self assumed. In structuralism, semiotics is conceived as an addresser transmitting a message to an addressee who receives it, almost in a passive fashion, and decodes it. This requires contact between the two, a code in which the message is formulated, and a context that gives sense to the message.73 In the case of the JS the addresser, the redactor of the text, sends the message of the text (the ritual representation) to an addresser, the P car trin who receives it. a a If, however, we look at ritual representation through the lens of dialogism, we are presented with a different picture. The dialogists reject the emphasis on language as a purely abstract system, seeing it rather as constantly changing and adapting to concrete, historical situations and not, to use Voloshinovs phrase, as a stable and always self-equivalent signal.74 On

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this view the meaning of words is governed by the contexts of their occurrence, so utterance can be accounted for only as a social phenomenon. Language is a process generated in the interaction of speakers within social contexts. Turning to our texts, whereas a structuralist reading of the JS and ISP presents the Brahmanical addressee in purely passive terms as the decoder of a message from the text (and from the past), a dialogical reading would see both addresser and addressee as constructing the texts meaning. That is, there is a dialogical relationship between sender and receiver and meaning is constructed between the two rather than passively received and an original meaning decoded. This general relationship between the reader and the addresser can be more closely analyzed and textually instantiated in terms of what might be called a relationship between extra-textual indexicality and intra-textual anaphora. The dialogical relationship is between the implicit (Brahman) reader, a notional I, and the characters of the text who yet can function indexically as Is. Let me explain this. In Pragmatics, deixis or indexicals, such as rst and second person pronouns and locative and temporal adverbs such as here and there, are contrasted with anaphoric terms which refer to a previous item in a discourse (such as he, she, it and they). Thus, indexicality always refers outside of itself to a context (as would be indicated by you or there) whereas anaphora does not refer outside of the utterance; the term he, for example would refer to a previously named person. The qualities of indexicality are both generalised and referential, inexorably linked to the context of utterance. When we shift to anaphoric terms, to the third person for example, discourse ceases to have the indexical qualities of deixic language. Anaphora is always discourse-internal in that terms such as he or her are substitutes for some previously named person or entity. As has been discussed by Urban in an important paper, a complication arises when apparently indexical terms are used anaphorically in direct discourse.75 I becomes anaphoric, for example, when placed in a sentence such as She said Im going to the river, where the I does not refer to anything outside of the narrative itself. The I is an empty sign in the sense that it is not referential with respect to a specic reality. This is important in the context of the ritual representations in tantric texts. For example, in the JS the following from early in the bh tauddhi sequence is typical of the style of ritual prescription: u s
hastauddhim tatah kury d yath tac chrnu n rada / s a a . .. a Hear this, O N rada, how one should then perform the purication of the hands.76 a

In this dialogue between the Lord (Bhagav n) and the sage N rada, a a N rada is addressed in the second person. The Lord uses the imperative, a

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hear this (tac chrnu), which is anaphoric in that the implied tvam (you) .. refers to the sage named in the vocative. On the other hand, the ritual prescription is in the third person singular optative, he should perform (kury d). The third person therefore takes the place of the second person a directed to N rada and indirectly to the reader of the text, but its use serves a to formalize and distance the discourse from any direct indexical reference. This you of discourse, an indexical used in an anaphoric way, is replaced in the text by the clearly anaphoric third person. The ritualist reader of the text is being addressed by the Lord indirectly through N rada, who a stands in for the practitioner. Indeed the Mm ms school of philosophy a. a corroborates this general point when in claiming that the use of the third person optative in vedic injunction actually refers to me, the reader of the text, performing the ritual injunction.77 We might make a similar claim of the ritual injunction here. This linguistic form, the objectication of the ritual performer, has the effect of controlling the dialogic relations between the characters and the reader. In the passage from the JS the anaphoric third person is indirectly understood by the texts receiver or reader to be referring to the indexical I. The reader understands that the third person actually refers to the indexical I, through N rada. The object a of the second person discourse is also the grammatical subject of the third person optatives, and moreover indirectly refers outside of the text to the reader. In this way, the texts meaning is constructed through the identication of the indexical I, that is the brahmanical reader of the text, with the third person understood as though indexical. Yet being articulated in the third person optative also maintains an impersonal voice concordant with the claimed universality of the revelation. Furthermore the use of the optative allows for the imaginative identication of the indexical I with the implied I of the text itself. The grammar of the text allows for the imaginative identication of the reader with the representation of the ritual practitioner. Certainly one of the functions of these texts is the cultural replication of ritual representation. Through this kind of analysis we can see how the text achieves the replication of ritual processes, and so the perpetuation of tradition, through the identication of the indexical I with the anaphoric third person in the optative mood. The third person optative functions as a substitute for an anaphoric I in the text: the anaphoric I is deferred through the third person. The social agent the brahmanical reader in our case wishes to close the gap between the indexical I and the deferred anaphoric I of the texts through imagination and projection into the metaphorical space allowed by the use of the optative. Imagination provides awareness of the possibility of transformation and the possibility

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of behaving in a way that allows the goals of the tradition, internalized through the identication of the two Is, to be realized. The replication of the text and the truth-value it contains for a community, suggests furthermore that the text, as Urban and Silverstein have argued, is a trope of culture which is constantly decontextualised, or liberated from a specic historical context, and recontextualised in a new context. These processes they have called entextualisation and co(n)textualisation.78 Texts are the result of continuous cultural processes that create and recreate them over again as meaningful objects or tropes, which are constructed as having de-temporalised and de-spacialised meanings. By way of conclusion then, we can see this process occurring in the bh tauddhi sequences of the JS and ISG. These texts transcend the u s boundaries of their production and are reconstituted through the generations, especially through the identication of the reader of the text with the ritualist represented. To use a more technical terminology, this is the process of the identication of the indexical I with the I implied by the text. The bh tauddhi is a ritual representation that functions as a trope, u s informing the individual practitioner through the process of the indexical identication with the anaphoric pronouns in the discourse. The textual representation of the bh tauddhi is made meaningful by both the content u s of the texts and by the construction of its meaning in the imagination by the brahmanical reader. One of the primary tasks in the study of tantric traditions therefore becomes the inquiry into the ways in which these texts have been transmitted, their internalisation by the individual practitioner, and the function of these texts within the practices of the tradition. Through focussing on the bh tauddhi, it is hoped that the present paper has made u s some contribution to this understanding.

NOTES
1 I should like to thank Dr. Marion Rastelli for her helpful comments on the paper. 2 Sanderson (1988), pp. 660704. 3 Yog. p. 19. See also the account of the sixfold course (sadadhvan) in Padoux (1990),

. . pp. 330338. 4 SSP 3, pp. xxixxii. 5 Spand. pp. 67, 12, and 56. The passages quoted are JS 20.233239, 10.69, and 1.63c 64b. 6 See Sanderson (1991), pp. 152160. 7 Brhad ranyaka-upanis ad 6.3.3. Olivelle (1996), p. 85. a . . . 8 Cf. Purusa S kta Rg-veda 10.90. For the Indo-European ancestry of the symbolic . . u identication of body and cosmos, see Lincoln (1986). 9 Vism 123126; 170172; Pe Maung Tin (1975), pp. 143146, 196198. 10 MN II.14, DN III.268, AN III.5.46,60.

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11 Although the actual sequence is as follows: earth, water, re, air, blue, yellow, red, white, light, and space. 12 For a discussion of the kasinas see Guenther (1976), pp. 116120. On early Buddhist . meditation see Cousins (1992), pp. 137157; Cousins (1984), pp. 5668. 13 KA 3.4 ff. The text follows the pattern of Saiva Siddh nta worship with a system of a kal s, using thirty-one identied with the body (3.6). a 14 NT 5.2. 15 SSP 1, p. xxi. 16 This text in the manuscript collection of the French Institute at Pondichry follows the Saiva Siddh nta model as articulated by Somaambhu. Bhut. pp. 1320. a s 17 See White (1996). 18 Mim. 8791. Y muna writes: The consideration that due to its tantric nature a (tantratva) the P car tra is equal (to other tantric systems, is like saying that) a a Brahmin murder and horse sacrice are equal in that they are both action. (p car tren a s dharmyam tantratven bhidhitsitam / kriy tvena tu s dharmyam brahmaa a . a a a a haty svamedhayoh // srutipratyaksayos tatra yato m latvanicayah /) Agamapram nya a u s a. . . . 87. Van Buitenen (1977), p. 46. 19 Mat. 15.7 comm. p. 369: . . . the P car tras say: Lord V sudeva has the qualities a a a of highest prakrti. They say that he is unmanifest, eternal, there is nothing beyond him . that is yad ahuh p car tr h bhagav n v sudevo sau gunebhyah prakrtih par / . a a a. a a a . . . . avyaktam nityam ahus tam param asm n na vidyate //. a 20 Prat. 8. Singh (1980). pp. 6667. 21 See SSP 3, pp. xiixxii. Padoux (1990), pp. 330371. 22 Tattva. 1.8. 23 Flood (1992), pp. 167177. 24 See Goudriaan (1970), p. 209. 25 See Gupta (1992), p. 178. There are some passages in the Sat. (e.g. 6.163ff., 17. 142 147) that prescribe these rites without calling them brahmayaja etc. 26 See SSP 1, pp. xxivxxvi. 27 Sanderson (1996), pp. 1595. 28 JS 18.2033. 29 This pattern is directly paralleled by the Saiva classication of samayin, putraka, ac rya and s dhaka. See Brunner (1975), pp. 411443. See also Davis (1991), pp. 89 a a 100. 30 See Gupta (1992); Flood (1992), pp. 167177. 31 JS 10.27. 32 JS 10.913. 33 JS 10.16. 34 The six qualities possessed by N r yana/V sudeva are j na, ai varya, sakti, bala, aa . a a s vrya, tejas. See LT 2.2636; Schrader (1973), pp. 3640. 35 JS 10.13. 36 JS 10.18a21. 37 JS 10.2630ab. 38 JS 10.3136. 39 JS 10.3942. 40 JS 10.4348. 41 JS 10.4957. 42 This echoes the Ch ndogya Upanisad 8.1.2, which speaks of the space within the heart a .

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containing earth and sky, re and wind, sun and moon and lightening and stars. Also 8.6.4 where the deceased rises to the crown of the head and reaches the sun: Olivelle (1996). 43 JS 10.5868. 44 JS 10.69. 45 JS 10.71a. 46 JS 10.7277. 47 JS 10.8182. 48 JS 10.8586. 49 JS 10.103. 50 The JS is quoted by the Kashmiri Utpal c rya (see note 4) along with other P car tra a a a a texts. See Schrader (1973), pp. 2022. 51 SSP 1, p. xli. 52 The location of the ISG within the history of south Indian traditions is open to dispute, although the text is very likely to be from Kerala as all the manuscripts are from there in Malayalam script, the text is still used by some Nambuthiri families of the Taranallur clan in the Alwaye region, the text represents a synthesis of deities and traditions characteristic of the Kerala tantric tradition and it contains material on possession and exorcism, strong a concerns of folk religion in the Malabar region, absent from the Saiv gamas. A detailed study of the text, its inuences, the history of the tradition and the inuence of the ISG upon the Tantrasamuccaya would help to clarify its origins. This work has yet to be done. 53 ISG 10.18. 54 ISG 10.45. 55 ISG 10.68. 56 ISG 10.912. 57 ISG 10.1415. 58 VP 13a, p. 18. 59 On the two cosmological systems see Davis (1991), pp. 5357. 60 This usage is not dissimilar to medieval Europe where the term memory has the double implication of storing information (inventory) and creation through the imagination (invention). See Mary Carruthers The Book of Memory (Cambridge University Press, 1992). 61 JS 10.26. 62 JS 10.33b34a. 63 JS 10.46a. 64 JS 10.54a. 65 ISG 10.7. 66 ISG 10.4. 67 Ast. 3.3.161. The same also applies to the imperative (lot). . .. 68 See Gune (1978), p. 17. 69 See Gune (1978), pp. 1920. 70 Quoted in Gune (1978), p. 19. 71 See Whorf (1991), pp. 147, 152. 72 Lakoff and M. Johnson (1980). 73 Jacobsen (1960), pp. 350377, especially p. 353. See also Greimas (1983), pp. 177 176; 195196. 74 Volosinov (1973), p. 68. 75 Urban (1989), pp. 3839. See also Urban (1991). 76 JS 10.9a.

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77 The use of the optative means that he is impelling me to action; he is engaging in an operation which is conducive to my action. Mim. p. 40. 78 Silverstein and Urban (1996), p. 1.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Abbreviations
AN AP Ast. Bhut. Dig. ISG JS KA LT Mat. A guttara-nik ya, Woodward, F. L. (trans.). The Book of the Gradual Sayings, n a vol. 5 (London: Luzac, Pali Text Society, 1972). Apadeva. Mm ms Ny ya Prak sa, Franklin Edgerton (trans.) (New Haven: a a a a Harvard University Press, 1929). Katre, Sumitra M. (trans.). As.tadhy y of P nini (Delhi: MLBD, 1989). a a. . Bh tauddhividhi T. no. 656, Pondichry: Institut Franais dIndologie, n.d. u s Dgha-nik ya Rhys Davids, T.W. and C.A.F. Dialogues of the Buddha, part 3 a (London: Pali Text Society, 1971). s s Ianaivagurudevapaddhati, Ganapati Sastri (ed.), 4 vols. (Trivandrum: Trivandrum Sanskrit Series, 19201925). Jay khya Samhit , Krishnamacharya, E. (ed.) (Baroda: Gaekwads Oriental a a Series, 1931, reprint 1967). K mik gama (Uttara Bh ga) Sri C. Svaminathasivacarya (ed.) (Madras: South a a a Indian Archarkar Association, 1988). Laksmtantra, Krishnamacharya, V. (ed.) (Madras: Adyar Library, 1959). . R makantha. Mata gaparamevar gama (Vidy p da) avec le commentaire de a n s a a a .. Bhat.ta R makan. ha, N.R. Bhatt (ed.) (Pondichry: Institut Franais dIndologie, a . .t 1977). Majjhima-nik ya, Horner, I. B. The Middle Length Sayings, vol. 2 (London: Pali a Text Society, 1975). van Buitenen, J.A.B. Y munas Agamapram nya or Treatise on the Validity of a a. P caratra, Sanskrit text and translation (Madras, Ramanuja Research Society, a 1977). Netratantram. Srmat Ksemar javiracitodyotakhy vy khyopetam, Vrajavallabha a a a . Dviveda (ed.) (Delhi: Parimala Publications, 1995). Ksemar ja. Pratyabhij hrdaya, Jaideva Singh (text and trans.), (Delhi: MLBD, a a . . 1980). S tvata-samhit edited by Alasingabhatta (Varanasi: Sarasvatbhavanapustaa a k lay dhyaksah, 1982). a a . . Utpal c rya, The Spandapradpik , a Commentary on the Spandak rik edited a a a a a by Mark S.G. Dyczkowski (Varanasi, private publication, 1990). Brunner-Lachaux, Hlne. Somaambhupaddhati I: Le rituel quotidien dans s la tradition sivate de lInde du Sud selon Somaambhu (Pondichry: Institut s Franais dIndologie, 1963). Brunner-Lachaux, Hlne. Somaambhupaddhati III: Rituels occasionnels dans s la tradition sivate de lInde du Sud selon Somaambhu (Pondichry: Institut s Franais dIndologie, 1977). a Bhojadeva. Tattvaprak sa with I tparyadpik of Srkum ra (Trivandrum: a a a Trivandrum Sanskrit Series vol. 68, 1920).

MN Mim.

NT Prat. Sat. Spand. SSP 1

SSP 3

Tattva.

42
Yog. VP Vism

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Padoux, Andr. Le Coeur de la Yogin, Yoginhrdaya avec le commentaire Dpik . a dAmrt nanda (Paris: De Boccard, 1994). .a V madevapaddhati, transcript T. 501 (Pondicherry: Institut Franais a dIndologie). Buddhaghosa. Visuddhimagga, Pe Maung Tin (trans.) The Path of Purity (London: Pali Text Society, 1975).

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Sanderson, Alexis (1991). Vajray na: Origin and Function, in Mettanando Bhikkhu et al. a (eds.), Buddhism into the Year 2000 (Bangkok: Dhammakaya Foundation). Sanderson, Alexis (1996). Meaning in Tantric Ritual, in Anne-Marie Blondeau (ed.), Essais sur le rituel, vol. 3 (Paris: cole Pratique des Hautes tudes, 5 section), pp. 1595. Schrader, F. Otto (1973). Introduction to the P car tra and the Ahirbudhnya Samhit a a a (Madras: Adyar Library). Silverstein, M. and Greg Urban (1996). Natural Histories of Discourse (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press). Snellgrove, David (1987). Indo-Tibetan Buddhism (London: Serindia Publishers). Urban, Greg (1989). The I of Discourse, in Benjamin Lee and Greg Urban (eds.), Semiotics, Self and Society (Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter), pp. 3839. Urban, Greg (1991). A Discourse-Centred Approach to Culture. Native South American Myths and Rituals (Austin: University of Texas Press). Volosinov, V.N. (1973). Marxism and the Philosophy of Language, L. Matejka and I.R. Titutnik (trans.) (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press). White, David (1996). The Alchemical Body: Siddha Traditions in Medieval India (University of Chicago Press). Whorf. B. (1991 [1956]). The Relation of Habitual Thought and Behaviour to Language, in John B. Carroll (ed.), Language, Thought and Reality (Massachusetts, M.I.T. Press).

University of Stirling

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