Kashmir Shaivism: The Involution of Ultimate Reality

[This is an excerpt from my forthcoming book Nonduality and Mind-Only through the Prism of Reality.]

The tantric tradition of Kashmir Shaivism (KS), per the late eminent Hindu scholar Jaideva Singh (1893-1986), “is the culmination of Indian thought and spirituality.” In contrast to Advaita Vedanta (which many, mistakenly, consider to be the foremost nondual yogic tradition), KS considers Maya (phenomenal reality) to be real, rather than an indeterminate illusion. Because Advaita Vedanta regards manifest existence as unreal, its “nonduality” does not qualify as true nonduality.

Since it is beyond the scope of our discussion to provide a comprehensive elaboration of KS, I suggest that those interested in the tradition refer to my Spiritual Reading List [in the back of this book] for recommended texts on the subject. That said, I hope that our consideration of the KS tradition provides a sufficient and unique explanation of its schema, both before and after the manifestation of the “rolled out” universe.

The KS schema or system consists of 36 tattvas (constituents or principles) which provide a map [see Diagram 1] of unmanifest Reality’s descent into, and through, the manifest dimensions of Maya. [See Tattvas in the Glossary for summary definitions of the 36 tattvas.] Unmanifest Reality, Being-Consciousness, personified as Siva, the Single Existent, became/becomes all existents, while not being implicated by any of them. Because all existents stem from boundless Siva, appearing and disappearing in Him, the Kashmir Shaivism system is nondual, as the totality of the universe is contained within, and derives from, Him, the One Mind, or Being-Consciousness.

While Siva’s Essence is Mind, or Consciousness, His Nature is uncreated Light-Energy, personified as Shakti. In KS, Shakti is regarded a Siva’s inseparable Divine Consort. Thus, in KS, Ultimate, or Di-“vine,” Reality consists of the “vines” of Siva and Shakti, which explains why Ultimate Reality in KS is often referred to as Siva-Shakti rather than Siva.

The KS 36 tattva schema begins with Siva (1) and Shakti (2). Some may argue that Siva and Shakti aren’t tattvas, but the Source and Substratum wherefrom the succeeding tattvas derive. Nonetheless, they are designated as such in the KS system. Siva and Shakti, as well as the subsequent three tattvas—Sadasiva (3), Isvara(4), and Sadvidya (5)—exist outside time and space, antecedent to creation. While Siva and Shakti (as Siva-Shakti) is the Divine Being itself, Sadasiva, Isvara, and Sadvidya describe the Divine Being’s (or Mind’s) intradivine “Mental transformation,” as it morphs from acausal God into creator God, ready to roll out the universe.

Sadasivais Siva as Divine Will (Iccha, or Iccha-Shakti), the Omnipotent One. At this stage in His Divine Mind, Siva, willfully, begins to morph into the creator God who will create His Play, the Dance of Siva, a.k.a. the universe. Then, assuming the role of Isvara (Jnana, or Jnana-Shakti), the Omniscient One, He “Masterminds” His creative Descent into space-time. Lastly, as Sadvidya (Kriya, or Kriya-Shakti), Siva, the Immeasurable One, “Acts” by “measuring out” the space-time universe (Maya).

Tattva (6) in Siva’s creative Act is Maya. Phenomenal reality is “measured out” by spaceless, timeless Siva, and this universal space-time manifestation effectively draws a veil on Him, the Divine Self. The immediate products of Maya are the tattvas called the Five Kancukas(coverings). These five tattvas—Kala (7), Vidya (, Raga(9), Kaala (10), Nityati (11)—reduce and limit Siva, the Illimitable One, in five ways: Kala contracts/cloaks sovereign power; vidya contracts/cloaks omniscience; raga contracts/cloaks bliss; kaala contracts/cloaks timelessness; and nityati contracts/cloaks spacelessness.

At this point, it should again be pointed out that Siva, of His own “Volition,” for His own “Sport,” contracts/cloaks Himself to create His “Play” of Maya. Moreover, although Siva seemingly limits Himself, in Reality, He remains Illimitable, never implicated by His seeming Self-limitation.

Tattva(12) is Purusa, the individual subject, contracted into a point (anu) of self-awareness in the midst of Infinity. It is the Divine Person, Siva, cloaked as an empirical person/experient.

Tattva (13) is Prakriti, which in KS is the objective material (gross and subtle) manifestation experienced by an individual Purusa. Hence, in contrast to Samkhya philosophy, which equates Prakriti with the primordial elemental matrix and the manifestation of the universe referred to as “nature,” KS “personalizes” “impersonal” Prakriti.

Next are the “tattvas of mental operation”: Buddhi (14), Ahamkara (15), and Manas (16). Buddhi, the first tattva of Prakriti, is the intellect, the discriminating intelligence of the mind. It is sometimes referred to as the “higher mind.” Ahamkara is the separate-self sense (or contracted ‘I’-consciousness). Manas is the mind that processes and mediates sensory information and habit-tendencies. It is sometimes referred to as the “lower mind.”

The following “tattvas of sensible experience” (17-31) are products of ahamkara. These are the “five powers of sense-perception” (Jnanendriyas or Buddhindriyas): smelling (ghranendriya), tasting (rasanendriya), seeing (caksurindriya), feeling by touch (sparsanendriya), hearing (sravanendriya); the “five powers of action” (karmendriyas): speaking (vagindriya), handling (hastendriya), locomotion (padendriya), excreting (payvindriya), sexual action and restfulness (upasthendriya); the five “primary elements of perception”(tanmatras): sound-as-such (sabda-tanmatra), touch-as-such (sparsa-tanmatra), color-as-such (rupa-tanmatra), flavor-as-such (rasa-tanmatra), and odor-as-such (gandha-tanmatra).

The “five gross elements” (mahabhutas), the so-called “tattvas of materiality” (31-36), complete the KS schema. These are akasha (space), vayu(air), teja or agni (fire), apas (water), and prthivi (earth).

Those familiar with the twenty-five tattvas of Samkhya philosophy (which Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras is based on) will recognize that the final twenty-five tattvas of the KS system are common to Samkhya (although KS interprets tattvas12 [Purusa] and 13 [Prakriti] differently), and that it is the first eleven tattvas of the KS system that distinguish it. These eleven tattvas transform Samkhya from an atheistic and dualistic system into the deistic and nondualistic one of KS, which depicts how the uncreated Deity, Siva, the One Mind, or Being-Consciousness, as Creator God, became everything created.

Do you agree with KS’s hierarchical schema of emanation/manifestation?

It's intriguing and elegant, but could be improved. First off, I would change the order of the tattvas by moving the mahabhutas (which literally means Great, not gross or material, elements) from the bottom of the tattva hierarchy to the position directly after the Kancukas, before Purusa and Prakriti.

Here's my rationale: First, the fact that KS reduces Prakriti (as Samkhya defines it it) from an eternal, universal Creatrix to a personal experience of objective manifestation means that Akasha, the ether, the universal space element, should supersede it in the KS hierarchy. From my perspective, Akasha is the formless, most subtle pranic “substance” from whence all manifestation, including so-called “quantum” activity, stems. As such, though it is created, I view it as the elemental essence of the principle of Prakriti (as Samkhya construes it).

Second, without the ether and the four fundamental elements—fire, earth, air, water—that stem from it forming a substrate, there can be no further creation, meaning no living Purusa to experience his Prakriti and to embody the remainder of the tattvas in the KS hierarchy. Maya tattva contracts/cloaks spacelessness and timelessness (meaning spaceless, timeless God, or Mind, or Siva), which signifies that, as Maya-Shakti, God/Mind/Siva has morphed into the ether (Akasha), the all-pervading space element, or “substance,” and that separate, created existents (or objects) moving/changing successively in that ethereal space result in, or reflect, time. Without space and time, there can be no distinct, dynamical objects; and without the four basic elements (fire, earth, air, water) that proceed from the ether, there can be no elementally constituted, physically embodied beings as living Purusas.

Until our present discussion, I hadn’t pondered why KS and Samkhya have Akasha (tattva 32) being produced from Shabd tanmatra (tattva 27), nor had I bothered to check if anyone else agreed with my POV regarding Akasha’s position in the tattva hierarchy. Upon Googling the subject, I found an article, “Akasha (Space) and Shabda (Sound): Vedic and Acoustical Perspectives” by M.G. Prasad, Department of Mechanical Engineering Stevens Institute of Technology Hoboken, New Jersey, which provides enlightening information on the “evolutionary” (really involutionary) order of the elements:

The evolutionary order of elements is also stated in a more explicit way in Bramhanandavalli of Taittriyonanishat in Krishna Yajurveda in the following statements [9]. Tasmat va etasmaat atmana akashaha sambhutaha Akashat vayuh, vayoragnih, agnerapaha Adbhayah prithivi, prithivya oshadhayaha Oshadhibhyo annam, annat purushaha.

The meaning of the statements is as follows: from that verily, from this self (Atman) is Akasha (space) born; from akasha, the air; from air the fire; from fire the water; from water the earth; from earth the plants; from plants the food; from food the man. It is given in the above statements that the production of elements begins from the all-pervading Atman (Brahman). Then the first element Akasa is born, here akasha refers to absolute space (which is mistaken for vacuum). This most subtle element akasha is qualified by sound as its property or guna.

Apart from its tattvas order, do you have any other problems with the KS paradigm?
It’s limited, in that it’s purely spiritual, only describing Divine descent as it pertains to Siva becoming man. Unlike the classical Kabbalistic Tree of Life, which is essentially hermetic, KS cosmology doesn’t venture into the occult. And unlike Hegel’s phenomenology of Spirit, which focuses on Spirit’s dialectical action in history, teleologically moving man toward God, it ignores the evolutionary effects and impact of Spirit across the ages. My goal in our talks, and in the resulting book it will produce, is to innovatively combine these three different descriptions of Divine descent into a single new paradigm.

The major problem I have with KS isn’t its tattva order; it’s with those such as prominent KS scholar Christopher Wallis, who pervert Kashmir Shaivism by misrepresenting its Mind-Only doctrine as a mind-only one, while also “polluting” it with quantum crapola. In our next session [see Chapter Six], I’ll present my critique of Wallis’s mind-only version of KS. Then, in a forthcoming discussion, we’ll again consider KS—this time in relation to the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. So, if the material I’ve presented on the KS schema in our current discussion seems somewhat overwhelming, it should become less so when we reconsider it.

How about KS as a philosophy of sadhana? The 36 tattvas describe Siva’s descent into contraction, especially as it pertains to human souls. But they don’t provide a prescription for the way out of self-contraction and into liberation (moksha).

It is beyond the scope of our current discussion to consider the three defilements (termed the “three malas” in KS) that bind sentient beings to samsara. And the same can be said about the four means (termed the “four upayas”) that lead beings from samsara to liberation. That said, the final chapter in Nonduality and Mind-Only through the Prism of Reality [see Chapter Sixteen] will provide detailed instructions on KS Shaktipat yoga/meditation, which is the same practice I call Plugged-in Presence, Power-of-Now Meditation, and Holy (or Divine) Communion.