Spanda Karikas: Section I - Svarupaspanda
स्पन्दकारिकाः - प्रथमो निःष्यन्दः (स्वरूपस्पन्दः)
The first and longest section of the Spanda Karikas, Svarupaspanda ("the essential nature of Spanda"), 25 verses. Opens with the famous invocation to Sankara whose opening and shutting of the eyes brings the world's appearance and dissolution, then builds a sustained argument - against Buddhist, Mimamsaka, Vedantist and Madhyamika rivals in turn - that there is one unchanging Experient underlying every state of waking, dream, deep sleep and the gap between them, and that this Experient is Spanda itself.
Sanskrit
यस्योन्मेषनिमेषाभ्यां जगतः प्रलयोदयौ । तं शक्तिचक्रविभवप्रभवं शङ्करं स्तुमः ॥१॥
Transliteration
yasyonmeṣanimeṣābhyāṃ jagataḥ pralayodayau / taṃ śakticakravibhavaprabhavaṃ śaṅkaraṃ stumaḥ ||1||
Translation
We laud that Sankara by whose mere opening and shutting of the eye-lids there is the appearance and dissolution of the world and who is the source of the glorious powers of the collective whole of the saktis (the divine energy in various forms).
Deep Meaning
The opening invocation of the entire text. Sankara here is not addressed as an external deity to be pleased, but recognized as one's own essential nature - Kshemaraja reads "stumah" (we laud) as "samavisamah", we enter or identify ourselves with him. The verse states the whole book's purpose in one line: liberation in life is identification with this Sankara whose single throb is the world's appearing and disappearing.
Sanskrit
यत्र स्थितमिदं सर्वं कार्यं यस्माच्च निर्गतम् । तस्यानावृतरूपत्वान्न निरोधोऽस्ति कुत्रचित् ॥२॥
Transliteration
yatra sthitam idaṃ sarvaṃ kāryaṃ yasmācca nirgatam / tasyānāvṛtarūpatvān na nirodho'sti kutracit ||2||
Translation
Inasmuch as nothing can veil His nature, there cannot be His obstruction anywhere in whom all this world rests and from whom it has come forth.
Deep Meaning
The world is not contained in Siva as a walnut is contained in a bag, with its own separate existence - it has no existence apart from him at all, the way reflections in a mirror have no existence apart from the mirror. Because nothing has an existence separate from him, nothing - no space, time or form - can obstruct or veil him; the only real task is for the individual to recognize what is already the case.
Sanskrit
जाग्रदादिविभेदेऽपि तदभिन्ने प्रसर्पति । निवर्तते निजान्नैव स्वभावादुपलब्धृतः ॥३॥
Transliteration
jāgradādivibhede'pi tadabhinne prasarpati / nivartate nijānnaiva svabhāvādupalabdhṛtaḥ ||3||
Translation
Even though differing states like waking etc. occur in which, however, that Spanda principle remains identically the same, that Spanda principle never departs from its own nature as the identical Experient (in all the differing states).
Deep Meaning
Waking, dream and deep sleep genuinely differ as experiences, but the Experient underlying all three never deviates from its own nature - if it did, none of these states could appear at all, since nothing can appear without a light of consciousness to appear in. The differences belong to the states, not to the one who experiences them; this is neither transformation (parinama) of consciousness nor illusory appearance (vivarta), but Siva's own absolute freedom displaying diversity without ever ceasing to be identical with himself.
Sanskrit
अहं सुखी च दुःखी च रक्तश्चेत्यादिसंविदः । सुखाद्यवस्थानुस्यूते वर्तन्तेऽन्यत्र ताः स्फुटम् ॥४॥
Transliteration
ahaṃ sukhī ca duḥkhī ca raktaścetyādisaṃvidaḥ / sukhādyavasthānusyūte vartante'nyatra tāḥ sphuṭam ||4||
Translation
I am happy, I am miserable, I am attached - these and other cognitions have their being evidently in another in which the states of happiness, misery etc. are strung together.
Deep Meaning
These fleeting experiences of happiness, misery and attachment cannot themselves be the Self, because they disappear as soon as they arise and could never be strung into one continuous memory unless some other, permanent Experient held them together like a thread through beads. This is the same point Kant would later call the "synthetic unity of apperception" - without one unchanging witness, the very sense of "I who was happy and am now sad" could not exist.
Sanskrit
न दुःखं न सुखं यत्र न ग्राह्यं ग्राहकं न च । न चास्ति मूढभावोऽपि तदस्ति परमार्थतः ॥५॥
Transliteration
na duḥkhaṃ na sukhaṃ yatra na grāhyaṃ grāhakaṃ na ca / na cāsti mūḍhabhāvo'pi tadasti paramārthataḥ ||5||
Translation
Wherein neither pain, nor pleasure, nor object, nor subject, exists, nor wherein does even insentiency exist - that, in the highest sense, is that Spanda principle.
Deep Meaning
Neither internal states like pleasure and pain, nor external objects, nor even the empirical subject who experiences them, constitute the highest Reality - and neither does sheer blankness or insentience, since insentience that is never manifest cannot be said to exist, and insentience that is manifest is, by that very fact, a form of light. What remains, beyond all of these, is pure Spanda: not an object of any kind, but the eternal Subject itself.
Sanskrit
यतः करणवर्गोऽयं विमूढोऽमूढवत्स्वयम् । सहान्तरेण चक्रेण प्रवृत्तिस्थितिसंहृतीः ॥६॥
Transliteration
yataḥ karaṇavargo'yaṃ vimūḍho'mūḍhavat svayam / sahāntareṇa cakreṇa pravṛttisthitisaṃhṛtīḥ ||6||
Translation
(Describes) this group of senses which, though insentient, acts as a sentient force by itself, and along with the inner group of senses, goes towards objects, takes pleasure in their maintenance, and withdraws into itself - one continuous sentence completed by the next verse.
Deep Meaning
The senses are insentient in themselves - a materialist who thinks the senses carry out their own going-forth, staying and withdrawing has mistaken the instrument for the power behind it. This verse names that apparent self-sufficiency of the senses; verse 7 completes the same sentence by naming the power actually behind it and what should be done about it.
Sanskrit
लभते तत्प्रयत्नेन परीक्ष्यं तत्त्वमादरात् । यतः स्वतन्त्रता तस्य सर्वत्रेयमकृत्रिमा ॥७॥
Transliteration
labhate tatprayatnena parīkṣyaṃ tattvam ādarāt / yataḥ svatantratā tasya sarvatreyam akṛtrimā ||7||
Translation
That principle should be examined with great care and reverence [by which this group of senses acts as described in verse 6], because this natural freedom of it prevails everywhere.
Deep Meaning
Completes verse 6's single sentence: that power, borrowed by the senses from the Spanda principle, deserves careful, reverent examination, because nothing could be more worthy of it, nothing is more practicable to examine, and the very moment the senses are active and engaged is the exact moment to look behind them - since this natural, uncontrived freedom (svatantrata) of Spanda prevails everywhere, not just in the senses.
Sanskrit
न हीच्छानोदनस्यायं प्रेरकत्वेन वर्तते । अपि त्वात्मबलस्पर्शात्पुरुषस्तत्समो भवेत् ॥८॥
Transliteration
na hīcchānodanasyāyaṃ prerakatvena vartate / api tvātmabalasparśāt puruṣastatsamo bhavet ||8||
Translation
The empirical individual cannot drive the goad of desire. But by coming in contact with the power of the Self, he becomes equal to that principle.
Deep Meaning
A person falsely imagines that his own will or desire moves the senses to their objects - but desire has no power of its own; it only borrows power from Spanda, the same way the senses do. The real practice is not to weave clever arguments or to suppress desire, but to let desire enjoy itself and quiet down, until it touches - by its one remaining quality, touch - the power of the Self, at which point one becomes identified with that power everywhere.
Sanskrit
निजाशुद्ध्यासमर्थस्य कर्तव्येष्वभिलाषिणः । यदा क्षोभः प्रलीयेत तदा स्यात्परमं पदम् ॥९॥
Transliteration
nijāśuddhyāsamarthasya kartavyeṣv abhilāṣiṇaḥ / yadā kṣobhaḥ pralīyeta tadā syāt paramaṃ padam ||9||
Translation
When the perturbation of that empirical individual who is incapacitated by his own impurity and is attached to actions disappears, then the highest state appears.
Deep Meaning
The divine plan of manifestation involves a descent into the three malas, limiting conditions of impurity: anava mala (forgetting one's essential nature), mayiya mala (confinement to subtle and gross bodies), and karma mala (the residue of good and bad deeds). This threefold impurity produces a restless, anxious pseudo-self (ksobha) attached to every possible action; only when this perturbation itself dissolves does the highest state - already present, merely unrecognized - come into view.
Sanskrit
तदास्याकृत्रिमो धर्मो ज्ञत्वकर्तृत्वलक्षणः । यतस्तदेप्सितं सर्वं जानाति च करोति च ॥१०॥
Transliteration
tadāsyākṛtrimo dharmo jñatvakartṛtvalakṣaṇaḥ / yatastadepsitaṃ sarvaṃ jānāti ca karoti ca ||10||
Translation
Then will flash forth his innate nature characterized by cognition and activity, by which he (the experient) then knows and does all that is desired (by him).
Deep Meaning
The ordinary person's knowledge and activity are krtrima, artificial - both limited and borrowed from a higher source. Once the pseudo-self of verse 9 dissolves, the genuine, innate power of knowing and doing, which belongs to the Spanda principle itself, becomes available, and the experient is able to know and do whatever he actually wishes, unobstructed.
Sanskrit
तमधिष्ठातृभावेन स्वभावमवलोकयन् । स्मयमान इवास्ते यस्तस्येयं कुसृतिः कुतः ॥११॥
Transliteration
tamadhiṣṭhātṛbhāvena svabhāvamavalokayan / smayamāna ivāste yastasyeyaṃ kusṛtiḥ kutaḥ ||11||
Translation
How can this accursed way of life and death be his (any longer) who stands struck with amazement as he observes that nature (viz. Spanda) which presides over all the activities of life (as I)?
Deep Meaning
A yogi who has closely observed his own innermost nature, recognizing it as the presiding "I" behind every ordinary activity even outside formal meditation, is struck with amazement at an experience exceeding anything ordinary - the wretched cycle of life and death, the accursed wandering (kusrtih) that drives everyone else, simply has no further hold on him, since its one cause, inner impurity, is no longer present.
Sanskrit
नाभावो भाव्यतामेति न च तत्रास्त्यमूढता । यतोऽभियोगसंस्पर्शात्तदासीदिति निश्चयः ॥१२॥
Transliteration
nābhāvo bhāvyatāmeti na ca tatrāstyamūḍhatā / yato'bhiyogasaṃsparśāt tadāsīditi niścayaḥ ||12||
Translation
Mere non-existence cannot be an object of contemplation, nor can it be said there is no stupefaction in that state, because on account of the application of backward reference, it is certain that it (i.e. the experience of stupefaction) was there (in that state).
Deep Meaning
A direct refutation of the Buddhist Madhyamika claim that the ultimate reality is sunya, a total void with no subject at all. The very fact that one can afterward recall 'I was in a blank, insentient state' proves there was a knower present to register that blankness - mere non-existence cannot be contemplated, let alone remembered.
Sanskrit
अतस्तत्कृत्रिमं ज्ञेयं सौषुप्तपदवत्सदा । न त्वेवं स्मर्यमाणत्वं तत्तत्त्वं प्रतिपद्यते ॥१३॥
Transliteration
atastatkṛtrimaṃ jñeyaṃ sauṣuptapadavatsadā / na tvevaṃ smaryamāṇatvaṃ tattattvaṃ pratipadyate ||13||
Translation
Hence that artificial object of knowledge is always like sound sleep. It is not in this manner i.e. as a state of recollection that the Spanda-principle is known.
Deep Meaning
Continues verse 12's refutation: the Spanda principle itself can never be known this secondhand, after-the-fact way, as a memory; it is always the recollector, never something recollected, since it runs as the one experient through every state including the apparent void. The experience of the void proves only that a knower was there to experience it, not that the knower itself is ever absent.
Sanskrit
अवस्थायुगलं चात्र कार्यकर्तृत्वशब्दितम् । कार्यता क्षयिणी तत्र कर्तृत्वं पुनरक्षयम् ॥१४॥
Transliteration
avasthāyugalaṃ cātra kāryakartṛtvaśabditam / kāryatā kṣayiṇī tatra kartṛtvaṃ punarakṣayam ||14||
Translation
Of this Spanda principle, two states are spoken about, viz., of the doer or the subject and the deed or the object. Of these two, the deed or the object is subject to decay but the doer or the subject is imperishable.
Deep Meaning
Subject and object are only two aspects of the one Spanda principle, distinguished merely by speech, not by actual difference. Everything manifest - bodies, worlds, experiences - belongs to the perishable object side; the subject side, identical with the Freedom of Consciousness, never perishes, since even the manifestation and withdrawal of the world is only perceptible because this unchanging Subject witnesses it continuously.
Sanskrit
कार्योन्मुखः प्रयत्नो यः केवलं सोऽत्र लुप्यते । तस्मिन्लुप्ते विलुप्तोऽस्मीत्यबुधः प्रतिपद्यते ॥१५॥
Transliteration
kāryonmukhaḥ prayatno yaḥ kevalaṃ so'tra lupyate / tasminlupte vilupto'smītyabudhaḥ pratipadyate ||15||
Translation
In the samadhi of void, only the effort which is directed towards objectivity disappears. It is only a fool who, on the disappearance of that effort, thinks 'I have ceased to be'.
Deep Meaning
Against the Madhyamika a second time: in deep meditative absorption on the void, what actually ceases is only the effort directed outward toward objects - not the subject behind that effort. Only a fool mistakes the cessation of outward-directed activity for his own cessation.
Sanskrit
न तु योऽन्तर्मुखो भावः सर्वज्ञत्वगुणास्पदम् । तस्य लोपः कदाचित्स्यादन्यस्यानुपलम्भनात् ॥१६॥
Transliteration
na tu yo'ntarmukho bhāvaḥ sarvajñatvaguṇāspadam / tasya lopaḥ kadācitsyādanyasyānupalambhanāt ||16||
Translation
There can never be the disappearance of that inner nature which is the abode of the attribute of omniscience in the event of the non-perception of anything objective.
Deep Meaning
Completes verse 15's point: the inward nature that is the seat of omniscience can never itself be perceived to cease, because there is no one else who could witness its cessation; non-perception of an object proves nothing at all about the perceiver.
Sanskrit
तस्योपलब्धिः सततं त्रिपदाव्यभिचारिणी । नित्यं स्यात्सुप्रबुद्धस्य तदाद्यन्ते परस्य तु ॥१७॥
Transliteration
tasyopalabdhiḥ satataṃ tripadāvyabhicāriṇī / nityaṃ syāt suprabuddhasya tadādyante parasya tu ||17||
Translation
The fully enlightened has, always and incessantly, the undeviating knowledge of the Self in all the three states; the other one (viz. the partially enlightened) has it only at the beginning and end of each state.
Deep Meaning
Names three categories of experient: the completely unawakened (aprabuddha), who has no interest in or access to this teaching; the partially enlightened (prabuddha), who recognizes the Spanda principle only at the threshold of waking, dream and deep sleep but loses it in the middle of each state; and the fully enlightened (suprabuddha), whose awareness of it never breaks across any of the three. This verse describes the second and third categories, setting up the next verse's description of what the suprabuddha specifically experiences.
Sanskrit
ज्ञानज्ञेयस्वरूपिण्या शक्त्या परमया युतः । पदद्वये विभुर्भाति तदन्यत्र तु चिन्मयः ॥१८॥
Transliteration
jñānajñeyasvarūpiṇyā śaktyā paramayā yutaḥ / padadvaye vibhurbhāti tadanyatra tu cinmayaḥ ||18||
Translation
The all-pervading lord, possessed of the supreme power in the form of knowledge and knowable (object of knowledge), appears in the two states of waking and dream as knowledge and objects of knowledge, and in the other than these two only as consciousness.
Deep Meaning
Describes how the Spanda principle appears specifically to the fully enlightened yogi (suprabuddha, the one whose awareness of verse 17 never breaks across any state): in waking and dream he knows the universe as his own body, fully integrated with his I-consciousness exactly as Sadasiva and Isvara experience it; in deep sleep, where no object remains, Spanda appears to him purely as consciousness itself (cinmaya), not as a blank, since for him even deep sleep is never mere stupefaction.
Sanskrit
गुणादिस्पन्दनिष्यन्दाः सामान्यस्पन्दसंश्रयात् । लब्धात्मलाभाः सततं स्युर्ज्ञस्यापरिपन्थिनः ॥१९॥
Transliteration
guṇādispandaniṣyandāḥ sāmānyaspandasaṃśrayāt / labdhātmalābhāḥ satataṃ syurjñasyāparipanthinaḥ ||19||
Translation
The particular emanations of Spanda which begin with the gunas and which acquire their existence by having recourse to generic Spanda can never stand in the way of the one who has realized his essential nature.
Deep Meaning
Distinguishes samanya-spanda (Spanda as the one general principle) from visesa-spanda (its particular manifestations as sattva, rajas, tamas, and all the specific experiences built from them). Ordinary people, mistaking these particular manifestations for something wholly separate from consciousness, get entangled in them; the enlightened yogi, recognizing them as nothing but forms of the same Spanda he already knows as himself, is never obstructed by them.
Sanskrit
अप्रबुद्धधियस्त्वेते स्वस्थितिस्थगनोद्यताः । पातयन्ति दुरुत्तरे घोरे संसारवर्त्मनि ॥२०॥
Transliteration
aprabuddhadhiyastvete svasthitisthaganodyatāḥ / pātayanti duruttare ghore saṃsāravartmani ||20||
Translation
These (the gunas etc), however, intent on veiling their real nature push the people of unawakened intellect into the terrible ocean of transmigratory existence from which it is difficult to pull them out.
Deep Meaning
A warning balancing verse 19's reassurance: the same gunas and their presiding sakti-groups (Khecari, Gocari, Dikcari, Bhucari) that cannot touch the awakened yogi actively drag the unawakened deeper into transmigratory existence, because the unawakened mistake their real Self for something material. The same divine powers serve opposite functions depending entirely on whether the one they act upon has recognized his own nature.
Sanskrit
अतः सततमुद्युक्तः स्पन्दतत्त्वविविक्तये । जाग्रदेव निजं भावमचिरेणाधिगच्छति ॥२१॥
Transliteration
ataḥ satatamudyuktaḥ spandatattvaviviktaye / jāgradeva nijaṃ bhāvamacireṇādhigacchati ||21||
Translation
Therefore, one should be always on the alert for the discernment of the Spanda principle. Such a person attains his essential state (as spanda) even in the waking condition in short time.
Deep Meaning
Given verse 20's warning, the practical instruction follows directly: constant, alert discernment of the Spanda principle - not only in formal meditation but in the ordinary waking state, in the midst of daily activity - brings one to one's essential nature quickly, the mind progressively transformed by sustained awareness of the Divine.
Sanskrit
अतिक्रुद्धः प्रहृष्टो वा किं करोमीति वा मृषन् । धावन्वा यत्पदं गच्छेत्तत्र स्पन्दः प्रतिष्ठितः ॥२२॥
Transliteration
atikruddhaḥ prahṛṣṭo vā kiṃ karomīti vā mṛṣan / dhāvanvā yatpadaṃ gacchettatra spandaḥ pratiṣṭhitaḥ ||22||
Translation
In that state is the Spanda-principle firmly established to which a person is reduced when he is greatly exasperated or overjoyed, or is in impasse reflecting what to do, or is running for life.
Deep Meaning
A striking practical teaching: intense emotional states - violent anger, overwhelming joy, paralyzed uncertainty, or the sheer instinctive urgency of fleeing mortal danger - bring all other mental activity to a sudden, complete stop, without any deliberate effort. This is precisely the psychological moment, available to everyone but seized only by those already oriented toward it, when an alert yogi can catch the Spanda principle directly, since the squirrel-like chatter of the mind has, for once, nowhere else to go.
Sanskrit
यामवस्थां समालम्ब्य यदयं मम वक्ष्यति । तदवश्यं करिष्येऽहमिति सङ्कल्प्य तिष्ठति ॥२३॥
Transliteration
yāmavasthāṃ samālambya yadayaṃ mama vakṣyati / tadavaśyaṃ kariṣye'hamiti saṅkalpya tiṣṭhati ||23||
Translation
Taking firm hold of that (i.e. spanda) the awakened Yogi remains firm with the resolution 'I will surely carry out whatever it will tell me'.
Deep Meaning
Opens Section I's closing sequence (verses 23-25, one continuous description): the yogi who has caught Spanda at one of verse 22's intense moments holds firmly to it, resolved to follow wherever it leads, rather than letting the experience slip away once the triggering emotion passes.
Sanskrit
तामाश्रित्योर्ध्वमार्गेण चन्द्रसूर्यावुभावपि । सौषुम्नेऽध्वन्यस्तमितो हित्वा ब्रह्माण्डगोचरम् ॥२४॥
Transliteration
tāmāśrityordhvamārgeṇa candrasūryāvubhāvapi / sauṣumne'dhvanyastamito hitvā brahmāṇḍagocaram ||24||
Translation
Resting on the experience of that Spanda, both prana (surya) and apana (candra) get merged in the susumna and by the upward path of Susumna they rise up to the great ether of universal consciousness by abandoning the sphere of the body together with the Brahmarandhra and are completely dissolved in it.
Deep Meaning
Continuing from verse 23: prana and apana merge and rise together through the central susumna channel, past the Brahmarandhra, dissolving into the "great ether" (mahavyoma) of universal consciousness - the same physiological-yogic description of ascent used elsewhere in this literature for the culmination of sustained inner absorption.
Sanskrit
तदा तस्मिन्महाव्योम्नि प्रलीनशशिभास्करे । सौषुप्तपदवन्मूढः प्रबुद्धः स्यादनावृतः ॥२५॥
Transliteration
tadā tasminmahāvyomni pralīnaśaśibhāskare / sauṣuptapadavanmūḍhaḥ prabuddhaḥ syādanāvṛtaḥ ||25||
Translation
There the unenlightened by considering that state a kind of deep sleep remains stupefied, while the one who is not covered with the darkness of infatuation is established in that ether of universal consciousness and abides as fully enlightened.
Deep Meaning
Section I's final verse and its closing distinction: at the exact threshold reached in verse 24, two outcomes diverge - the yogi who grows slack mistakes this dissolution for a kind of deep sleep and remains stupefied by it, while the one who maintains unbroken alertness is established there as fully awakened. This is the same distinction between prabuddha (partially enlightened) and suprabuddha (fully enlightened) the section has built toward since verse 17.