Summary of the Contents of the Volume IVof Abhinavaguptas Sri Tantraloka and Other Minor Works First Time

e English translation with Sanskrit texts By Professor Satya Prakash Singh and Swami Maheshvarananda ISBN 978-81-87471-81-3 (Vol. V) ISBN 978-81-87471-86-8 (Set) Published by Mohindra K. Vashistha for STANDARD PUBLISHERS (INDIA) 205, Kiran Mansion, 2nd Floor, 4834/24 Main Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi-110 002 (India) Tel. No. 91-011-23240594, 23240593 91-9871009093 (M) Tele FAX - 011-23272338 E-mail: standardpublishersindia@gmail.com mkvsr9@gmail.com Website: http://www.indianbooksworldwide.com

This Volume includes Chapters 14 and 15 both discuss the process of initiation. CHAPTER - 14: 1. Role of iva in the world lies in His five functions with relationship to it, namely, creation, sustenance, dissolution, concealment and grace. 2. Body needs to be considered as a means to attainment of iva-hood.

3. Those who lurk for siddhis have lost the real goal in the fog of misunderstanding. 4. 5. Rising above the earth known as utkrnti amounts to transcend its allurements and not flying in the air. Genuine initiation is only one which leads the disciple to attainment of iva-hood.

CHAPTER 15: 1. 2. This Chapter is concerned with the procedure of initiation as prevailing in the non-dualistic aivism. Initiation amounts to acquisition of full understanding of the system.

3. The teacher needs to probe prior to conducting the process whether the disciple aspires for enjoyment or liberation or both. 4. If the student be poor, the teacher needs to provide the expenses of initiation from his own side or arrange to accomplish it by means of use of only the grass known as drv.

5.

The candidate of initiation needs to take bath and put on clean dress as preparatory to enter into the procedure.

6. He should take three steps forward and backward at a spot filled with dust raised by the movement of cows. This would be the bath from the side of the earth, the last and grossest form of creation. 7. Bathing with water would be considered as representing the bath from the side of the next element (i.e., water), that in sun and clean and cool air as symbolic of fire and air while that in illumination of consciousness as representative of space and consciousness itself. So would be the case with regard to mind and intellect. There are eight basic elements of creation and the modes of corresponding baths for getting cleansed as preparatory for initiation. Ascription of the two orders of the alphabet known as mtk and mlin to the body of the candidate amounts to ingression of iva and akti. Being iva-hood ascribed to the world collectively as well as severally, it would be rendered into His dance.

8. 9.

10. Wine is permitted in all kinds of devotion to iva since it is supposed to bring the user closer to the real essence of consciousness which is delight. 11. Dik, direction, is a mere adjunct and not real. Space gets divided into them as per the locus of the disciple. 12. Deities like Indra, Agni, Varua, etc. are aspects of iva, who is sheer consciousness in its pure form. 13. The disciple is required to place Him all over in his body in His various denominations. 14. iva, indeed, is the brilliance of self-consciousness whose reflection is the expanse of the universe. 15. Significance of placement of iva in the disciple's body lies in his restoration to Him. 16. Khecar mudr is known as such on account of the aspirant's movement in the space of consciousness and experience of delight therein. 17. Arrangement of the barbs of the trident lies in putting iva at the top of the dvdanta, akti at a distance below iva and the individual below the akti. 18. Internal sacrifice is preparatory to the external and the external to the same of the internal. Shorn of this understanding the sacrificer remains standing on the same point of animality (pau, limited experient) from which he started notwithstanding performance of hundreds of sacrifices and muttering of crores of mantras. 19. The sacrificial pit needs to be considered as a symbol of iva's will for action. 20. The sacrificial performance in the context of initiation is representative of the psychic processes through which the disciple is required to pass.

21. Closing the eyes of the disciple with a piece of cloth, leading to a certain point on the sacrificial ground and bringing him back and opening of his eyes and asking him to look around and feel as if he were seeing only iva everywhere. 22. Samayin is one who becomes accomplished in the theory and practice of the School, comes to be touched as such by the teacher at the end of the process of initiation and is empowered to serve as a guide to the system. 23. Following the end of the rite, the disciple and the teacher retire to sleep and remember their respective dreams with regard to their content as well as the depth of their impressions on the psychic being of both of them. Contentment and discontent is considered as the criterion of their auspiciousness and inauspiciousness in this context. Comparison of their respective dreams is taken as a scale of measurement to what extent the disciple has imbibed the message of the rite. 24. Finally, the teacher is required to instruct the disciple in all the basic principles of life under the purview of the system and ask him to return to the secret space of consciousness.