Saiva Rites of Expiation: A First Edition and Translation of Trilocanasivas Twelfth-Century Prayascittasamuccaya (with a Transcription of Hardayasivas Prayascittasamuccaya)

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About the Book

Rites of expiation and reparation (prayascitta) may not seem central to the history of the Mantramarga, but they provide a fascinating angle from which to view the evolution of this broad religious tradition. Instead of focussing on the evolution and philosophical defence of Saiva doctrines, or on the examination of ritual practices and of theories developed to justify and shore up such practices, this study puts the spot- light instead on social dimensions of the religion.

This book contains a first edition and translation of a South Indian compendium of Saiva expiation rituals compiled by Trilocanasiva, a twelfth-century theologian celebrated for his Siddhantasaravali, a metrical treatise on the Saivasiddhanta that is still traditionally studied in the Tamil-speaking South today. Trilocana does not reveal the sources from which he quotes, many of which are lost to us, but an earlier Northern treatise on the same theme from Malwa by a certain Hrdayasiva consists only in large labeled quotations, typically whole chapters, from those sources. A Nepalese palm-leaf manuscript kept in Cambridge that is dated to 1157 AD may be the earliest surviving codex to transmit Hrdayasivas text and we have included a complete transcription of that manuscript as an appendix. A combined quarter-verse-index helps readers to navigate both Trilocana’s and Hrdayasivas works.

Our introduction attempts to trace the social developments within the Saivasiddhanta that give context to the evolution of Saiva reparatory rites.

Introduction

What is prayascitta? A short sketch!

No attempt will be made here to address as a whole the very broad topic of praya.scitta across the classical Indian religious traditions, for which the reader should turn first rather to other sources, such as P. V. KANE’S magisterial treatment of the subject in the first half of the fourth volume of his History of Dharmasastra, or, for a nuanced consideration of the relationship between purification and punishment, to LUBIN’S article of 2007; but a very brief characterisation of prayascitta in the Mantramarga (tantric Saivism) may be useful at the beginning of this book.

The term prayascitta covers a number of rites and actions that are held to expiate or repair faults of omission and commission. As Trilocanasiva tells us:

The duties of the sadhaka and other [classes of initiates] have been taught by Siva. Since there are negative consequences when these drop out [or] when His commands are transgressed, Siva has taught expiation to avoid those [negative consequences] for these [various initiates].

In fact many of the expiable “offences” that are discussed in Saiddhantika sources are not exclusively Saiva, but belong also to the realm of samanyasastra, ‘universally applicable learning’, for they include such non- criminal and non-transgressive things as states of ritual impurity caused, for example, by life-events such as birth and death (sutaka). The typical range of rites and actions involved in expiation appear listed in a quotation from a recension of a Siddhantatantra called the Kalottara that appears in a twelfth-century manual by a certain Jnanasambhu (Jnanaratnavali, GOML MS, p. 209):

snanam japopavasam ca nityahomas ca gaddukah

pancagavyasanam danam margaduskrtanasanam

Bathing, mantra-repetition, fasting, regular obligatory oblations, reciting mantras over pots, consuming a blend of the five products of the cow (pancagavya), donations – these destroy the [re- tributory consequences] of wrong-doings [of those] on the [Saiva] path.

These expiatory rites and acts appear in various combinations, but the most used, and perhaps the only one that is frequently used by itself, is repetition (Japa) of Saiva mantras, particularly of the five BRAHMA-mantras (for these mantras, see TAK3, s.v. panca brahmani). Among these five mantras, there is one that is particularly favoured for its expiatory efficacity, namely AGHORA, the ‘non-terrible’. This is explicitly stated, for example in verses 811-15 of the Prayascittasemuccaya, but it would also be evident simply from casually flipping through this book. If there is another mantra among the five that has a clearly defined function in this context, it is VAMADEVA, the mantra that is said to be Sadasiva’s genitals (guhya): here, it is put to use more than the other four for the expiation of sexual transgressions (see verse 469 and section 19 of the text passim).

Expiations typically vary according to whether the crime was deliberate (kamat) or not deliberate (akamatah.), and the latter category is often held to include transgressions that are in some way induced by circumstances, as we may read in Prayascittasamuccaya 8:

[When a fault occurs] because of problematic factors such as fate, disease, delusion, [or] because of danger of thieves and kings and such, then it is ‘involuntary’; in other cases, it should be judged to be ‘deliberate’.

In prescribing “penalties”, other factors must of course also be taken into account: the gravity of the fault, what kind of initiate has committed it. Is the perpetrator a power-seeking sadhaka, for instance, or a naisthika (for this term, see TAK3 s.v. naisthika). What is his or her age and state of health? What is the degree of his devotion? Are there extenuating factors (see, e.g., Prayascittasamuccaya 9-10)? And is the religious and social status of other persons involved? This last consideration is important particularly in the case of food- and sex-related transgressions and in cases of physical contact. Other persons may be given the expiation to perform if the transgressor is unfit or unable (Prayascittasamuccaya 11-12). Ideally one’s own guru should prescribe the expiation (Prayascittasamuccaya 18), but in his absence a council of three, seven or fifteen acaryas who know the scriptures and are observant themselves may determine penalties ordained by scripture (Prayascittasamuccaya 19).

Penance-rites as a reflection of social change in the Saiva–