Vijñāna-bhairava-tantra
* Sacred Scripture of the Trika lineage *
Like most Tantrik scriptures, the Trika text called “The Scripture of the Bhairava who is Consciousness” (Vijñāna-bhairava-tantra) takes the form of a dialogue between Śiva and Śakti, here called Bhairava and Bhairavī. It begins with the Goddess asking the God:
श्रीदेव्युवाच ।
श्रुतं देव मया सर्वं रुद्रयामलसंभवम् ।
त्रिकभेदमशेषेण सारात्सारविभगशः ।। १ ।।
अद्यापि न निवृत्तो मे संशयः परमेश्वर ।
किं रूपं तत्त्वतो देव . . .
śrī devy uvāca |
śrutaṃ deva mayā sarvaṃ rudrayāmalasambhavam |
trikabhedam aśeṣeṇa sārāt sāravibhāgaśaḥ || 1 ||
adyāpi na nivṛtto me saṃśayaḥ parameśvara |
kiṃ rūpaṃ tattvato deva . . . || 2 ||
Translation:
(1) “O Lord, I have heard the entire teaching of the Trika that has arisen from our union, in scriptures of ever greater essentiality, (2) but even now my doubts have not yet dissolved, Parameśvara! What is the true nature of Reality, O Lord?”
Before explicating this fascinating opening, let us begin with a short, simple introduction. The Vijñāna-bhairava-tantra (VBT) is a text of the Śaiva Tantrik tradition, also known as Tantric Shaivism or ‘Kashmīr Shaivism’, and it appeared around the middle of the ninth Century, so maybe about 850 CE. The VBT is a text of the Trika lineage, specifically of the Kaula Trika, which means the more transgressive, non-dualistic version of the Trika lineage, which traces itself back to a female founder. The Trika comes in Kaula and non-Kaula varieties. (You will be familiar with these terms if you have read Tantra Illuminated.) The regular Trika was founded by the sage Tryambaka, who probably lived near Nasik in western India, and the Kaula Trika was founded by his daughter, whose name is sadly lost in the mists of time.
What does the title Vijñāna-bhairava-tantra mean? The full translation is: the scripture (tantra) of Bhairava (the awesome, intense, fierce or frightening form of Śiva), who is (according to this text) nothing but intensified awareness--especially awareness fully conjoined with its innate power of insight. Vijñāna means both consciousness and insight in this text. So, the simple translation of the title is “The Scripture of the Bhairava Who is Consciousness.” The word vijñāna refers to your consciousness—the aspect of your being that is present in all experiences from the subjective, first-person point of view, of course.
The Vijñāna-bhairava-tantra (VBT) has been translated several times, under several titles. It was first translated into a European language (French) by Lilian Silburn in 1961. Just before this, in 1957, American poet Paul Reps published a free English rendering of the 112 techniques of the VBT (under the title ‘Centering’) in his book Zen Flesh, Zen Bones. Reps had sat with Swami Lakshmanjoo in Kashmīr a few years before and studied the text with him. Even though Reps’ version is not at all a translation, it was influential, forming the basis of Rajneesh’s The Book of Secrets and Roche’s The Radiance Sutras (neither of which are, in any sense, translations of the VBT). The first English translation done on the basis of the Sanskrit original was by Jaideva Singh, and appeared in 1979, under the title Vijñānabhairava, or, Divine Consciousness : A Treasury of 112 Types of Yoga.
We have more than a dozen translations of this text, so why produce yet another one? Well, mainly because none of those translations is actually satisfactory. The main reason for this is that even though a few of the published translations are by competent Sanskritists, they don’t provide us with any clear or comprehensible instructions on how to actually do any of the 112 techniques taught by the VBT. What we are interested in here is getting a clear exposition of the practices and step-by-step instructions on how to do these practices.
And this is where we run into a problem, because the text is intentionally elliptical, meaning it is intentionally vague sometimes, or omits necessary information. An ‘elliptical’ text does not give you all the information needed to fully understand or do the practice. Many scriptures in Tantrik traditions are intentionally elliptical in this way, because their authors expected that the text would be explained by a competent scholar-practitioner of the tradition (called an ācārya) or by a guru. I myself am more of the former, not so much the latter; and I can attest that it does take at least twelve years of full-time education in this tradition to actually understand what this text (and others like it) is really saying. The reason it takes so long is that one must read a wide range of Tantrik sources to correctly interpret any one of them. One needs to read broadly as well as deeply, so that when the text alludes to a practice that you know from other sources, you can recognise that fact and then go and look at those related, complementary, or parallel sources to decode the meaning of the practice in question.
So that is the backstory, the context. Now I want to explain a little bit more about what is going on in this text. The first thing we notice is that it is a dialogue: a dialogue between Śiva and Śakti, here going by the names Bhairava and Bhairavī respectively. Bhairava is a name for the fierce or intense form of Śiva (Shiva). When Bhairava is understood anthropomorphically, as a specific deity among other deities, then he is pictured with fangs, completely naked, adorned only with a living serpent as a belt. He wanders around, disguised as a naked beggar, he eats and drinks out of a bowl made from a human cranium, and he is accompanied by a dog. In the West, a dog is “man’s best friend,” but in traditional India, a dog is an impure, outcast sort of creature that Bhairava befriends because he himself is a marginal, liminal figure who stands outside of the norms of society and challenges them in various ways with transgressive ideas and practices.
But Bhairava in this text is understood to mean Consciousness: specifically, spacious, open, empty, pure awareness-presence. We see the word Bhairava used in this way over and over in the text, not referring to a mythological being but rather this spacious, open, transparent consciousness, which we could also call radiant emptiness. Bhairava also refers to the experience that that unparticularized open awareness actually pervades everything, and constitutes the very ground of being (see v. 130).
We see very clearly that in this text, Bhairava is not seen as a deity among other deities, a member of a polytheistic pantheon, but rather represents this fundamental Awareness; and Bhairavī is his consort, his other half. Bhairavī is the same word as Bhairava but in the feminine. So, what is Bhairavī signifying here? Well, a key verse of the entire text (v.15) explains that Bhairavī is pūrṇa-bharitā, the state of complete fullness, the overflowing fullness that is an intensification of pure being/presence. Bhairavī is when that open, spacious, pure Consciousness of Bhairava has a quality of intense immediacy and a quality of fullness, full to overflowing, permeated by the innate bliss of one’s true nature. If Bhairava is the awe-inspiring pure emptiness of spacious awareness, Bhairavī is its fullness.
We will learn more about this as we go along. The VBT teaches (in v. 20) that most people come to realize their ultimate Śiva-nature through the ‘doorway’ of Śakti. It suggests that we can go into an experience of pure intensity (and it gives many examples of that, e.g. v. 101), and then that intensity can be a gateway to reposing in pure Consciousness, pure presence, pure being itself. Śakti is associated here with a powerful immediacy of experience—especially any experience so powerful that we transcend the everyday thinking-mind and can therefore enter into the vastness of pure being. The text as a default assumes that for most people it’s easier to reach Śiva through Śakti, though the end goal is to experience Śiva-Śakti as a unified whole, each a different mode of the other. We can access the intensity of Śakti in powerful emotional experiences (v. 101), powerful sexual experiences (verses 68 and 69), or sensual experiences of various kinds, especially sonic ones (many verses). The text points out opportunities for accessing Bhairava-nature that might be surprising in an ancient source, such as when the text recommends walking until exhausted, or being physically rocked, or looking into the depths of a frighteningly dark sky on a moonless stormy night, or even painfully piercing one’s flesh. If you can dissolve any resistance to such experiences, and let the everyday thinking-mind dissolve as well, then the very intensity of these experiences leads you right into the open spacious pure presence, sheer aliveness, pure being-ness—and that is Bhairava conjoined with Bhairavī. The text also offers us examples of simple daily life experiences (like seeing a loved one you haven’t seen in awhile, savouring delicious food and drink, hovering on the edge of sleep, and many more) that can become access points such that we can experience this sublime state anywhere, any time, in everyday life.
The text has actually become famous for the kind of practices I’ve just been alluding to precisely because they are atypical for the tradition. We do not find them in very many sources at all. Out of our hundreds of primary sources, such daily-life practices are in only a handful. ~ Another such text is the Svabodhodaya-mañjarī, which is a kind of sequel to the VBT, and which you can read in full here. This text has an interesting mix of easy-to-understand practices and extremely subtle yogic practices that are quite difficult to master, just like the VBT.
I further discuss the wide variety of practices in the VBT in my introduction to the text, found in the blog post entitled “Will the Real Vijñāna-bhairava Please Stand Up.”
~ ~ ~
Having completed that brief introduction, let us begin our formal study of this yogic masterwork by taking a look at Kṣemarāja’s invocation: the introductory verse to his 11th-century commentary on the Vijñāna-bhairava-tantra. Many of you are familiar with the ‘Recognition Sūtras’ (a.k.a. the Pratyabhijñā-hṛdayaṃ) written by Kṣemarāja, and translated & published by myself in 2017. Well, the same author did a commentary on the first 23 verses of the VBT, and he wrote beautiful introductory verses that tell us why this awe-inspiring state of consciousness, this intensified awareness pure being state, is rightly called ‘Bhairava’. In these verses, he plays with both dualistic and non-dualistic language. He uses the word ‘Bhairava’ to refer to God: so this is a nondual tradition that includes dualism within it as a valid (but non-ultimate) level of perception. It does not exclude devotional language or theistic language at all, and that is part of what makes it different from some other forms of nonduality. Let us look at these verses to invoke the power of Bhairava for our study and practice together, in this in-depth exploration of this almost 1200-year-old scripture of original Śaiva Tantra.
Introductory verse (maṅgala-śloka) by Kṣemarāja, introducing his commentary on the text:
“Shiva is known as ‘Bhairava’ because He brings about the [initial awakening that makes us] cry out in fear of remaining in the dreamstate—and due to that cry of longing he becomes manifest in the radiant domain of the heart, bestowing absence of fear for those who are terrified.
He is also known as Bhairava because he is the Lord of those who delight in his awesome roar (bhīrava), which signals the death of Death! Being the Master of that flock of excellent Yogins who tire of fear and seek release, he is Bhairava—the Supreme, whose form is Consciousness (vijñāna). As the giver of nourishment, he extends his Power throughout the universe!”
~ the great master Rājānaka Kṣemarāja, c. 1025 CE
I’ll give a partial explanation of these fascinating verses. Kṣemarāja says: “Śiva is known as ‘Bhairava’ because He brings about the initial spiritual awakening that makes us cry out in fear of remaining in the dreamstate,” the dreamstate being the world of suffering and delusion. The Sanskrit words there are ‘bhava-bhaya’, meaning fear of the dream-state or fear of the world of delusion and suffering. That is a healthy fear! The reason he is using these words (bhava-bhaya) is because they are phonetically related to the word Bhairava. Kṣemarāja is playing with words here very cleverly.
“And due to that cry of longing He [the Divine] becomes manifest in the radiant domain of the heart.” ‘Radiant’ meaning filled with subtle energy—the radiant domain of the heart is the sacred core of your being. Divinity manifests in and as the radiant domain of your heart; and subsequent to waking up to the fact that there is suffering, delusion, and confusion, there is the longing to be free from it. That longing is the initial entry point to the radiant domain of the heart. Then Kṣemarāja says that when Bhairava becomes manifest there, that experience bestows absence of fear (abhaya) for those who have rightly been terrified.
He goes on to say “He is also known as Bhairava because he is the Lord of those who delight in his awesome roar (bhīrava).” Again, deriving the word ‘Bhairava’ in that way, Kṣemarāja is playing with words in the nirukta style. “His awesome roar, which signals the death of Death!” means the definitive end of the fear of death, the death of denial of death, of the failure to realise the power of death to liberate us in this very life when we befriend it. So, his awesome roar signals the death of Death itself. Lastly, Kṣemarāja says “Being the Master of that flock of excellent Yogins who tire of fear and seek release, he is Bhairava the Supreme, whose form is consciousness itself brimming over with insight (vijñāna).” In other words, insight-bearing Consciousness is the master, the guide, the fundamental reference point for all those who seek release (moksha). “As the giver of nourishment, he extends his Power throughout the universe,” the universe which is permeated by that very consciousness. This intensified awareness is profoundly nourishing to the practitioner, who having discovered it within himself ultimately realizes that it is not only within but permeates the whole of manifest reality.
Now we return to the beginning of the text itself. Right now we will focus on the first one and a half verses (because we have the logical end of a sentence in the middle of the second verse). First, it says śrī devy uvāca, which means “the blessed Goddess says.” The devī is of course Bhairavī.
Sanskrit text:
श्रीदेव्युवाच । श्रुतं देव मया सर्वं रुद्रयामलसंभवम् । त्रिकभेदमशेषेण सारात्सारविभगशः ।। १ ।।
अद्यापि न निवृत्तो मे संशयः परमेश्वर । किं रूपं तत्त्वतो देव ...
śrī devy uvāca | śrutaṃ deva mayā sarvaṃ rudra-yāmala-sambhavam | trika-bhedam aśeṣeṇa sārāt sāra-vibhāgaśaḥ || 1 || adyāpi na nivṛtto me saṃśayaḥ parameśvara | kiṃ rūpaṃ tattvato deva . . . || 2 ||
Translation:
(1) “O Lord (/playful shining one), I have heard the entire teaching of the Trika that has arisen from our union, in scriptures of ever-greater essentiality, (2) but even now my doubts have not yet dissolved, Parameśvara. What is the true nature of Reality, O Lord?”
Let us look at the first word of the first verse. Śrutam means ‘heard’. It is a past passive participle of √śru, ‘to hear’. Mayā means ‘by me’, so “it was heard by me” in the passive voice can also be translated as “I have heard.” Why is this in the passive voice? So that the first word of the first verse can be not ‘I’ but ‘heard’. The first word of a Sanskrit text is always very significant. The Bhagavad Gītā begins with the word dharma, and this text begins with śrutam, which implies that we need to listen carefully to what is being said. The Goddess says, “I have heard you.” Bhairavī is saying to Bhairava, “I have deeply listened to your scriptural revelation, and I have heard what you had to say.” We are supposed to aspire to be like Bhairavī. She is modelling for us this devotional attention, this careful listening with the curiosity and desire to fully understand. Śrutam is also close to the word śruti, meaning divine revelation in the form of oral transmission, a scripture that is delivered orally. (The word śruti usually refers to the Vedic corpus.) Here we have śrutam, which is not a Vedic reference, but a reference to the importance of hearing correctly and absorbing. This word initiates the whole scripture, so take note.
The second word, deva, means ‘O Lord’. Deva means ‘king, lord, god, celestial being,’ or even ‘husband,’ and all of those apply here to Bhairava. Abhinavagupta points out that deva comes from the root √div, which means ‘to shine’ or ‘to be playful’. (There are other meanings of the word, but those are the two main ones.) Abhinava suggests we should understand deva not to mean ‘god’, ‘king’, or ‘lord’ but to mean the ‘playful shining one’. The shining, playful ones are the gods and celestials, the beings of radiant light. So we could translate deva as “O shining playful one!” Or so the great master Abhinavagupta suggests.
“O Lord, I have heard everything that has arisen from the rudra-yāmala.” Here we have a double meaning. Rudrayāmala is the name of an ancient scripture, now lost, but it also means the ‘Rudra-union,’ meaning the union of Śiva and Śakti. So, the rudrayāmala is the union of Bhairava and Bhairavī, specifically using this old word for the fierce and intense form of Śiva, i.e. Rudra. The first line is, “I have heard, O shining one, everything that has arisen from the union of Bhairava and Bhairavī; from our union,” because it is Bhairavī herself speaking. “I have heard everything that the energetic pulsations that have arisen from our union express in the form of scripture. I have heard all that, completely.”
And then she goes on to say trika-bhedam aśeṣeṇa, which means “the entire teaching of the Trika lineage.” Trika-bhedam means the Trika division of the scriptural corpus. “I have heard everything arising from our union, and especially everything in the Trika lineage. You have taught me the Mālinīvijayottara-tantra; you have taught me the Siddhayogeśvarī-mata-tantra; and you have taught me the Triśirobhairava-tantra.” These being the three key texts of the Trika lineage circa the 9th century. She is saying “I have heard and understood all of that.” (And if, by the way, if you think it is sexist that Śiva is teaching Śakti, we actually do have scriptures that are the other way around. In the Krama lineage, it is Śakti teaching Śiva, and he is her earnest student.) So, Bhairavī says, “I have heard the entire Trika teaching in its completeness (aśeṣeṇa). I have heard every word of this teaching. I have heard it in revelations of ever greater essentiality (sārāt sāravibhāgaśaḥ).” Sārāt sāravibhāgaśaḥ is a colloquial phrase that means ‘proportionately of the essence, from the essence’, which signifies ‘ever greater essentiality’, or ‘more and more distilled forms of the teaching’.
Bhairavī goes on to say adyāpi na nivṛtto me saṃśayaḥ parameśvara, which means “even now (adyāpi), my doubts (me saṃśayaḥ) have not come to rest (na nivṛtto).” They are not eliminated! “I still have doubts, Parameśvara.” Parameśvara means something like ‘Supreme Lord’, but it does not translate well into English, so we will just keep it as a proper name. “Even now, my doubts remain, they have not dissolved, O Parameśvara.” So she is being super honest by saying, “I’ve heard all this, and I am still not satisfied. I need to get something else, something even more essential. You need to do a better job here!”
And then she says, kiṃ rūpaṃ tattvato deva, which translates to “What is the true nature of reality, O Lord?” Kiṃ rūpaṃ literally means ‘what form’. Bhairavī asks “What form does the ultimate reality assume in truth, O Lord? What is the nature of the ultimate reality?” or “What is the nature of that which is most ultimately true?” So to be clear, ‘ultimate reality’ really means ‘that which is most fundamentally true’ or ‘that which is true in all times, places and circumstances’. So kiṃ rūpaṃ tattvato deva asks “What is the nature of that which is in accordance with the suchness of reality (tattva), the thatness, the actuality of reality?” Bhairavī is saying, “I want you to tell me what is really true because I have heard all of this, all these teachings, and I want to get to the essence now, the absolute essence of the truth.” So, she is powerful, direct, and brave. Bhairavī is challenging Bhairava. This is such a beautiful passage, exemplary because Bhairavī, or Śakti, is modelling for us how to be a student. You listen to everything and then, if you are not satisfied, you challenge the teacher. The text invites us to follow in her footsteps. She loves her consort-teacher, but she is not meek. She snaps her fingers and demands: “Okay, now break it down. I want to get to the real meat of this, because you have given me a lot of words and we are not there yet. Let’s get to the real heart of the matter.”
Next, Bhairavī is going to ask: “Hey, is the ultimate reality this or that, or this or that?” We will look at those propositions, possibilities, and hypotheses in the next post.
Lastly, I should mention that of course Tantrik scriptures are usually understood to be secret or esoteric, not to be presented to the general public, but the Vijñāna-bhairava-tantra is different because it is already out there in multiple translations and mistranslations featuring widespread misunderstandings. The cat is already out of the bag with this text, so it is worth it to present its teachings in this much clearer and more thorough manner.
Free video version of the above teaching: