The Kula Ritual

Abhinavagupta, a leading figure in Kashmir Saivism, is increasingly being recognized as one of the chief contributors to the evolution of Indian thought. In his encyclopaedic work, the Tantraloka, he describes the various tantras of his day and places at their apex the most extreme of them, the Kula ritual. This work is a translation – the first into English of a chapter of the Tantraloka of Abhinavagupta’s version of the Kula ritual. Its also provides a translation off Jayaratha’s indispensable commentary. The Kula ritual leads the practitioner to ever more exalted stages of mantras finally to reach the highest level of consciousness, the experience of mantravyapti, the ‘pervasion of the mantra’. The person who knows this pervasion knows that he is Bhairva. The supreme mantra SAUH, the supreme goddess Para, which expresses both the supreme reality and all manifested reality. In this way Abhinavagupta breaks down the dualism between the sacred and profane, the ritual and ordinary life so that the Kulu practitioner is liberated while alive, his every act is worship and his every word is a mantra.