Abstract
Śākti worship is indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. Autochthonous Śākta practices vary village to village, with differing rituals and theologies. It is therefore, not easy to identify a singular philosophy that binds all the practices and rituals together. Neither is the objective of this paper. While focusing on goddess Kālī, this chapter approaches Śākta philosophy in a different light, exploring how (1) the later mediaeval Śākta theology revisits its own past, (2) reads Upaniṣadic philosophy in the light of Śāktism, and (3) where the Āgamic Krama Tantrism and Upaniṣadic pantheism have been synthesized in the practice of Guhyakālī, thus articulating the new emerging paradigm through the fusion of the Smārta and Tantric traditions. Unique to this approach is (i) combining autochthonous rituals and (ii) integrating Tantric philosophies, as we can find in Krama and Mahārtha texts, while also (iii) infusing Upaniṣadic monism. This unique blend has the capacity to make the practices available to all the Smārta households in an attempt to mainstream the Śākta pantheon.
An earlier version of this paper was published as “The Monistic Sakta Philosophy in the Guhyopanisad,” ZeitschriftfürIndologie und Südasienstudien. 34: 247–258. 2017.
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Notes
- 1.
I have used “Vedic” and “Tantric” as working categories and do not accept this distinction in the absolute sense. It is problematic the way contemporary scholarship divides Vedic and non-Vedic. I do not believe that there were ever two separate closed systems as some scholars have imagined. Although the particular text I am examining dates from medieval times, there are some earlier texts in the Upaniṣadic genre that are dedicated to Durgā or Kubjikā. Most importantly, the text being examined here defies the distinction of the Vedic versus Tantric, as it is a synthesis of the Vedic Upaniṣads while at the same time is a section in one of the key tantric texts.
- 2.
The first of two texts, entitled Guhyakālyupaniṣad, has 84 verses and can be found in the anthology, Upaniṣatsaṅgraha (pp. 410–420). The other, with the title Guhyopaniṣad, contains 53 verses and appears as a section within the first chapter of the Guhyakālī Khaṇḍa of the Mahākālasaṃhitā (Hereafter MKS, verses 200–253). I have followed the title and the verses according to the MKS, because the text in the Upaniṣatsaṅgraha, in its colophon, cites the MKS as its source and the initial and final verses found in the Upaniṣatsaṅgraha are not considered as part of the Upaniṣad.
- 3.
For studies on Guhyakālī or Guhyeśvarī, see Michaels (1996, 303–342).
- 4.
The term virāṭ already appears in the Puruṣasūkta. Virāṭ, Vaiśvānara, or Hiraṇyagarbha are some of the terms to describe the deity that encompasses all manifest reality. Every deity can assume this Virāṭ form, giving rise to the concept of Viśvarūpa.
- 5.
A text borrowed from the Upaniṣadic text and also found in the Bhagavadgītā (13.14) demonstrates a skillful transformation of the theistic paradigm from the gender-neutral Brahman paradigm to the Śākta world view:
sarvataḥpāṇipādaṃ tat sarvatokṣiśiromukham |
sarvataḥśrutimal loke sarvamāvṛtyatiṣṭhati || Śvetāśvatara 3.16.
sarvataḥpāṇipādāntāsarvatokṣiśiromukhā |
sarvataḥśrutimatyeṣāsarvamāvṛtyatiṣṭhati || GU 224.
- 6.
Additional parallels demonstrate this shift:
GU (225-27) parallels ŚU 3.17-19.
GU (228) parallels ŚU 4.2-3 with a slight modification.
GU 229-231, accordingly, mirrors ŚU 4.8-10;
The verse 232 in GU is borrowed from ŚU 4.12.
Likewise, GU 233-239 is derived from ŚU 4.14-20.
GU 241 is borrowed from ŚU 5.10.
GU 242-244 is borrowed from ŚU 6.7-9.
GU 245-247 is borrowed from ŚU 6.11-13.
The first line of GU 250 is borrowed from ŚU 6.19.
- 7.
The Mahākālasaṃhitā does not consider this passage as belonging to the Upaniṣadic text (MKS, GU 1. 256 cd–257ab). The text found in the anthology, on the other hand, considers it as intrinsic to the Upaniṣad (GKU 79–80).
- 8.
Abbreviations
- GU:
-
Guhyopaniṣad
- GKU:
-
Guhyakālyupaniṣad
- KU:
-
Kāṭhakopaniṣad
- MKS:
-
Mahākālasaṃhitā
- MU:
-
Muṇḍakopaniṣad
- ŚU:
-
Śvetāśvataropaniṣad
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Timalsina, S. (2022). Revisiting Śākta Advaita: The Monistic Śākta Philosophy in the Guhyopaniṣad. In: Khanna, M. (eds) Studies on Tantra in Bengal and Eastern India. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-3022-5_8
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