RELATION OF SIVA AND SAKTI OR OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
AND ITS POWER.
Argument:—The definition of the term Sakti and her elucidation.
Ráma said:—Tell me sir, why the goddess Káli is said to be dancing
about, and why is she armed with axe and other weapons, and arrayed with
her wreaths of flowers.
2. Vasishtha replied:—It is the vacuum of the intellect, which is called
both as Siva and Bhairava; and it is this intellectual power or force,
which is identic with itself, that is called Káli and its consorting
mind.
3. As the wind is one with its vacillation, and the fire is identic with
its heat; so is the intellect identical with its oscillation. (The mind
is ever fleeting and active as dull matter is inert and inactive).
4. As the wind is invisible even in its act of vacillations, and the
heat is unseen even in its act of burning; so the intellect is
imperceptible notwithstanding its acting, and is therefore called
Siva—the calm and quiet.
5. It is because of the wondrous power of his vibration, that he is
known to us, and without which we could have no knowledge of his
existence; know therefore this Siva to be the all powerful Brahma, who
is otherwise a quiescent being, and unknowable even by the learned and
wise.
6. His oscillation is the power of his will, which has spread-out this
visible appearance; as it is the will of an embodied and living man,
that builds a city according to his thought (or just as it depends on
the option of a living person, to erect a city according to the model in
his thought or mind).
7. It is the will of Siva or Jove that creates all this world from its
formless state, and it is this creative power which is the Intelligence
of God, and the intellection of living being.
8. This power takes also the form of nature in her formation of the
creation, and is called the creation itself, on account of her assuming
on herself the representation of the phenomenal world.
9. She is represented with a crest of submarine fire on her head, and to
be dry and withered in her body; she is said to be a fury on account of
her furiousness, and called the lotiform from the blue-lotus-like
complexion of her person.
10. She is called by the names jayá and siddha (victory and fortune),
owing to her being accompanied by victory and prosperity at all times.
11. She is also designated as Aparájitá or invincible, viryá the mighty
and Durgá—the inaccessible, and is like wise renowned as umá, for her
being composed of the powers of the three letters of the mystic syllable
Om. (In the birth of umá, the subject of the first canto of Kumára
Sambhaba, Kálidása says, “Tapasa nibrita je umeti námná prakírtitá,” she
was termed umá for prevention of austerities. The glossarists have all
explained the passage in the sense of the mythic personification of umá,
and nobody has ever known its mystic interpretation of sacred syllable
Om itself, whose utterance precludes the necessity of all formal
devotions: _i.e._ to say, _umá_-is-_om_ the divine mantra itself).
12. She is called the gáyatrí (hymn) from its being chanted by every
body, and Sávitrí also from her being the progenitrix of all beings; she
is named Sarasvatí likewise, for her giving us an insight into whatever
appears before our sight.
13. She bears the appelation of Gaurí from her gaura or fair complexion,
and of Bhavání from her being the source of all beings, as also from her
association with the body of Bhava—or Siva. She is also termed the
letter अ (a) to signify her being the vital breath of all
waking and sleeping bodies.
14. Umá means moreover the digit of the moon, which enlightens the
worlds from the forehead of Siva; and the bodies of the God and Goddess
are both painted as black and blue, from their representing the two
hemispheres of heaven.
15. The sky appears as dark and bright from the two complexions of these
divinities, who are situated in the vacuous forms in the bosom of the
great vacuum itself.
16. Though they are formless as empty airs, yet they are conceived as
the first-born of the void; and are figuratively attributed with more or
less hands and feet, and holding as many weapons in them.
17. Now know the reason of attributing the Goddess with many weapons and
instruments, to be no more, than of representing her, as the patron of
all arts and their employments.
18. She was self-same with the supreme soul, as its power of
self-meditation from all eternity; and assumed the shapes of the acts of
sacred ablutions, religions, sacrifices, and holy gifts, as her primal
forms in vedas. (_i.e._ The intellectual power (chit-sakti) evolves
itself to meditation and action—dhyána and Karma).
19. She is of the form of the azure sky, comely in appearance and is the
beauty of the visibles; she is the motion of all objects, and the
varieties of their movements are the various modes of the dancing of the
goddess. (the divine power or force—_sakti_, is always personified as
his female agent, as it is evident in the words potentia, energia,
exergasia, qudrat, taquat &c.).
20. She is the agent of Brahmá in his laws of the birth, decay, and
deaths of beings; and all cities and countries, mountains and islands,
hang on her agency as a string of gems about her neck.
21. She holds together all parts of the world, as by her power of
attraction; and infuses her force as _momentum_ in them all, as it were
into the different limbs and members of her body, she bears the various
appellations of Kálí, Kálika &c., according to her several functions
denoted by those terms (in the glossary).
22. She as the one great body of the cosmos, links together all its
parts like her limbs unto her heart; and moves them all about her;
though this formless body of force, has never been seen or known by any
body. (We always see the moving bodies about us, but never the moving
force which moves them all about).
23. Know this ever oscillant power to be never different or
unconnected, from the quiescent spirit of Siva the changeless god; nor
think the fluctuating winds to be ever apart from the calm vacuum, in
which they abide and vibrate for ever.
24. The world is a display of the glory of God, as the moonlight is a
manifestation of the brightness of that luminary; which is otherwise
dark and obscure; so the lord God is ever tranquil and quiet and without
any change or decay without his works.
25. There is not the least shadow, of fluctuation in the supreme soul;
it is the action of this agency, that appears to be moving us. (Gloss.
The inactive spirit of God is the true reality, and the passing
phenomena are all but vanity).
26. That is said to be the tranquil spirit of Siva—the god, which
reverts itself from action, and reposes in its understanding; and apart
from the active energy which possesses the intellect as its goddess.
(Hence the state of the soul in perfect rest and repose is called
Siva—salvus or felicity).
27. The intellect reposing in its natural state of the understanding, is
styled Siva—salvus or felix; but the active energy of the intellectual
power, is what passes under the name of the great goddess of action.
28. That bodiless power, assumes the imaginary forms of these worlds,
with all the peoples that are visible in them in the day light.
29. It is this power which supports the earth, with all its seas and
islands, and its forests, deserts and mountains, it maintains the vedas
with its _angas_, _upangas_, the sástras, sciences and the psalms. (The
vedas are four in number, its angas or branches called the six vedángas
namely, the siksha, kalpa, nirukta, vyákarana, chhanda and jyotisha. The
_upangas_ or subsidiary branches are the four arts, viz., _áyurveda_ or
medicine, _dhanurveda_—archery, _gandharva_—music &c. The vidyas are the
sciences and philosophy, and the _gítás_ are sámagiti or the psalm of
sámaveda).
30. It ordains the injunctions and prohibitions (of law), and gives the
rules of auspicious and inauspicious acts and rites; it directs the
sacrifices and sacrificial fires, and the modes of offering cakes and
oblations.
31. This goddess is adorned with the sacrificial implements, as the
mortar and pestle, the post and ladle &c.; and is arrayed with the
weapons of warfare also, as the spear, arrows and the lance.
32. She is arrayed with the mace and many missile weapons also; and
accompanied by horse and elephants and valiant gods with her. In short
she fills the fourteen worlds, and occupies the earth with all its seas
and islands.
33. Ráma said:—I will ask you sir, to tell me now, whether the thoughts
of creation in the divine mind, subsisted (in their ideal forms) in the
Divine soul; or they were incorporated in the forms of Rudra and which
are false and fictitious.
34. Vasishtha replied:—Ráma, she is verily the power of the Intellect
(Divine mind), as you have rightly said; and all these that there are
being thought of by her, they are all true as her thoughts (and not in
their visible appearances).
35. The thoughts that are subjective and imprinted in the inner
intellect (from preconceived desire or reminiscence), are never untrue;
just as the reflection of our face cast in a mirror from without, cannot
be a false shadow.
36. But those thoughts are false, which enter into the mind from
without, as the whole body (lit. city of our desires and false
imaginations); and the fallacies of these are removed upon our right
reflection and by means of our sound judgment.
37. But in my opinion, the firm belief and persuasion of the human soul
in anything whatever, is reckoned as true by every one; such as the
picture of a thing in a mirror, and the representations of things seen
in a dream or the forms of things seen in a picture or in dream, and the
creatures of our imagination are all taken for true and real by every
one for the time, and for their serviceableness to him.
38. But you may object and say that, things that are absent and at a
distance from you, are no way serviceable to you, and yet they cannot be
said to be inexistent or unreal; because they come to use when they are
present before us.
39. As the productions of a distant country, become of use when they are
presented before us; so the objects of our dreams and thoughts, are
equally true and useful when they are present in view; so also every
idea of a definite shape and signification, is a certain reality (as
that of the goddess Kálí).
40. As an object or its action passing under the sight of any one, is
believed to be true by its observer; so whatever thought passes in his
mind, is thought to be true by him. But nothing that is seen or thought
of by another, is ever known to or taken into belief by any one else, or
accounted as true to him.
41. It is therefore in the power of the Divine Intellect, that the
embryo of the creation is contained for ever; and the whole universe is
ever existent in the divine soul, it is wholly unknown to others.
42. All that is past, present, and ever to be in future, together with
all the desires and thoughts of others; are for ever really existent in
the divine spirit, else it would not be the universal soul. (The meaning
of the universal soul is the contained of all and not that it is contained
in them).
43. There are the adepts only in yoga practice, who acquire the power of
prying into the hearts and minds of others; just as others come to see
different countries, by passing over the barriers of hills and dales.
(As the divine soul is the knower of the hearts of others, so is the
pure soul of the holy divine also).
44. As the dream of a man fallen into fast sleep, is not disturbed by
the shaking of his bedstead or sleeping couch; so the fixed thought of
any body, are never lost by his removing from place to place (or by his
departure from this life to the next, or by his transmigration from one
into another).
45. So the movements of the dancing body of Káli (the creative energy of
God) cause no fluctuation in the world which is contained within it;
just as the shaking of a mirror, makes no alternation in the reflection
which is cast upon it.
46. The great bustle and commotion of the world though seeming as real
to all appearance, yet it being but a mere delusion in sober reality, it
were as well whether it moveth all or not all (as it were the same
whether we are hurried or kept sedate in a dream).
47. When is the dreaming scene or the city seen in our dream, said to be
a true one, and when is it pronounced as a falseone; and when is it
said to be existent and when dilapidated? (supply how for when to give
it some sense).
48. Know the phenomenal world that is exposed before you, to be but mere
illusion; and it is your sheer fallacy, to view the unreal visibles as
sure realities.
49. Know your conception of the reality of the three worlds to be
equally false, as the aerial castle of your imagination or the air drawn
city of your fond desire; it is as the vision in your dream, or any
conception of your error.
50. That this is I the subjective, and the other is the objective world,
is the interminable error that binds fast the mind for ever; it is a
gross mistake as that of the ignorant, who believe the endless sky to be
bounded, and take it for black or blue; but the learned are released
from this blunder (and rest in the only existent One).