आगमे विश्वासटिप्पन्यः

We do indeed find evidence of both these developments. The earliest appears on the Vaidika side near the end of the ninth century in the Nyāyamañjarī of the Kashmirian philosopher Bhaṭṭa Jayanta, minister of king Śaṇkaravarman (r. c. ad 883–902) and author of the Āgamaḍambara, the humorous play about the religious tensions of the day that I have cited above. He states that he undertook the monumental Nyāya-mañjarī in order to protect the authority of the Vedas; and this commitment is apparent throughout.61

1. Nyāyamañjarī, vol. 1, p. 7, ll. 6–9: ‘As for the system of the Nyāya taught by Akṣapāda, it is the central pillar [that holds up the edifice] of all the other branches of learning. This because it is the means of safeguarding the authority of the Vedas. For if the Vedas have their authority overturned by the false reasonings authored by false philosophers, the commitment of the pious would slacken. Why then would they devote themselves to the task of putting its injunctions into practice, a task that among other things requires great expense and exertion if it is to be accomplished successfully?’

Yet he argues for the validity of the Śaiva scriptures: 62

1. Nyāyamañjarī-Āgamaprāmāṇya, ed. Kataoka, p. 152, l. 3 to p. 154, l. 8, corresponding to Nyāyamañ jarī, vol. 1, p. 635, l. 6 to p. 637, l. 2.

But as for the scriptures that we see which are other than [those of the Vedic corpus], they too are of two kinds. Some, such as those taught by the Buddha, are completely at odds with the Veda. But others, such as those taught by Śiva, are certainly not, merely teaching optional modes of religious observance that differ [from those of that corpus]. I declare that of these the scriptures [of the latter kind, those] taught by Śiva and [Viṣṇu,] are undoubtedly (tāvat) valid. This is (1) because we find in the cognitions that they produce none of the numerous defects that give rise [in other cases] to doubt or refutation, [and] (2) because we are unable to impute any of the motives such as greed and delusion that might otherwise explain their creation, since both Smr̥ti texts and inference establish that these too were authored by God (Īśvara). For we find in them no record of their having come into existence at a specific time [after the creation]; and we find in them, as in the Veda, numerous instances of ekadeśasaṁvādaḥ [, that is to say, of] ‘the verification of claims made in part [of the corpus’, claims which when they have been put to the test and found effective evince confidence in the truth of its statements on matters that must be taken on trust]. So what scope remains for the postulation that they have some other source [such as human greed or ignorance]? Nor [, unlike the scriptures of the Buddhists and others,] do they stand in opposition to the Veda. For they do not abandon participation in the system of the four caste classes and [four life-disciplines] established by [the ordinances of] the Veda.

The manner [in which we establish the validity] of the injunctions of Manu and the other [promulgators of secondary scripture] cannot apply to the Śaiva scriptural corpus. But that does not entail its in validity. [For] throughout its texts we find clear understanding of the well-known teachings of all the Upaniṣads pertaining to the ultimate goal. Moreover, even the foremost of those who have mastered the Veda, such as Kr̥ṣṇadvaipāyana, support the view that the teachings of the Śaiva scriptures and [the like] are valid. And he has taught that this validity also applies to [the corpus of Vaiṣṇava texts called] the Pañcarātra. For they too contain nothing that requires us to dismiss them as devoid of authority.63

1. He refers to Kr̥ṣṇadvaipāyana, alias Vyāsa, as the author of the Mahābhārata, which does indeed assert this validity in the Mokṣadharma provided that one understands the term pāśupatam to refer in the meaning ‘that taught by Paśupati’ (following Aṣṭādhyāyī 4.3.101: ten proktam) to Śaivism in general rather than specifically to the Pāśupata system. He anachronistically includes under that heading the Saiddhāntika Śaiva scriptures, and accepts, as some did not, that the passage authorizes not just the study of these texts but also the enacting of their injunctions.

Moreover, they contain the declaration that Lord Viṣṇu is their author; and he is just God himself (Īśvara) [under another name]. Because one beginningless soul with infinite power, the wondrous (kasyacit) cause of the creation of the entire universe, undertakes the [three] distinct tasks of creating the world, holding it in existence, and withdrawing it [again at the end of each cycle], it has come to be per ceived as [three distinct deities:] Brahmā, Viṣṇu, and Rudra.

Furthermore, at various places within the Veda we have the texts ‘Rudra
alone remained. There was no second’ (eka eva rudro ’va tasthe na dvitīyaḥ) and ‘Viṣṇu strode out over [all] this’ (idaṁ viṣṇur vi cakrame); and means of union with these [deities], [that is to say] methods for their propitiation, are certainly enjoined in the Veda too. As for the methods taught in the Śaiva scriptures and the Pañcarātra, they are certainly different; but this does not amount to an [invalidating] contradiction of the Veda, because these [various] methods [Vaidika, Śaiva, and Pāñcarātrika] are alternatives from which one is free to choose. So these two [bodies of scripture, the Śaiva and the Pañcarātra,] are not invalid, because they have been composed by a competent authority [namely God himself] and because they do not contradict the Veda.

Here, then, is a view that has accepted much of the Saiddhāntikas’ own ar gument for the validity of their scriptures, namely (1) the evidence of compliance with Vaidika ordinances, a feature that Jayanta takes to differentiate them markedly from such teachings as those of the ‘Veda-rivalling’ Buddhists, which, as he claims shortly after the passage quoted here, actually forbid adherence to to these ordinances; 64 and (2) that of validation by the Vaidika scriptures themselves. Indeed it appears, if Cakradhara’s commentary on the Nyāyamañjarī expresses a widely held view, that in this aspect the Naiyāyika defense of the Śaiva scriptures had actually attempted to strengthen the case made by the Śaivas themselves by claiming that even the ceremony of Śaiva initiation (dīkṣā), the centrepiece of the Mantramārga’s bid to be considered superior to the religion of the Veda and for this very reason one of the principal grounds for its rejection by the theoreticians of Vaidika orthopraxy, has been validated by the unquestionable evidence of Vaidika scripture.65

1. Nyāyamañjarī-Āgamaprāmāṇya, p. 154, l. 31 to p. 155, l. 1: ‘For in the case of the teachings of the Buddha their being outside the Veda is fully manifest, since they stress that one should avoid behaving in keeping with the duties imposed by the caste in which one was born.’ Jayanta refers to the Buddhists and others as ‘Veda-rivalling’, p. 197 [156], l. 6: veda-spardhino bauddhādayo niṣeddhavyāḥ.
1. Cakradhara, Nyāyamañjarīgranthibhaṅga, p. 379, ll. 21–23: ‘Showing in the Dānadharma [of the Śāntiparvan of the Mahābhārata] that Upamanyu taught Kr̥ṣṇa the dīkṣā taught in those teachings he has made this validity of the Śaiva scriptures clear.’ He has in mind here Mahābhārata 13.15.4ab: ‘And on the eighth day I was duly initiated (dīkṣito ’haṁ yathāvidhi) by that learned brahmin.’ This is in fact a spurious argument, since Dīkṣā here is not Śaiva initiation but ‘[a period of] ascetic restraint’ (syn. vratam), a common usage in that text; see, e.g., 2.16.13c: ‘emaciated because of his Dīkṣā’ (dīkṣākr̥śatanuḥ); 5.118.7abc: ‘having reduced her body with various kinds of fasting, with Dīkṣās, and restraints’ (upavāsaiś ca vividhair dīkṣābhir niyamais tathā | ātmano laghutāṁ kr̥tvā); and 13.130.50ab: ‘having observed the Dīkṣā for twelve years’ (cīrtvā dvādaśa varṣāṇi dīkṣām).

A significant part of the Saiddhāntika defense of their system is lacking here, namely Sadyojyotis’s argument that the Śaiva scriptures presuppose the validity of the Veda to the extent that Śaivism collapses if that presupposition is not defended, which is to say that for the Śaivas the proof of the validity of scripture (āgamaprāmāṇyam) must of necessity encompass both the Śaiva and the Vaidika corpora. Evidently that is because the acceptance of this argument is incompatible with even the most tolerant Vaidika view, since it is inseparably connected with the doctrine that Śaivism is superior to the faith of the Veda, accepting the validity of the Veda in its sphere only because it needs to believe that its initiation is liberating the soul from real bonds.

It is in the same spirit, I propose, that Jayanta puts forward here the vague and inaccurate claim that the teachings of the Śaiva scriptures are consistent with those of the Vaidika Upaniṣads.

This in short is a view that accommodates the religion of the Śaivas but overlooks what makes that religion unique in their own estimation, choosing not to see the respects in which the teachings of the Śaivas differ from those of the Vaiṣṇava and Vaidika traditions in matters of metaphysics and soteriology, even though some of these positions bear strongly on their sense of identity and purpose. The price of recognition, then, is that the Śaivas must accept a watered-down version of themselves, one in which they are no longer the inheritors of a uniquely efficacious vehicle of salvation, but subscribers to an ecumenism that argues that there is but one god with many forms and names teaching various paths that lead to the same goal. They are invited in other words to see themselves as just another equipolent component of the complex that would come to be called Hinduism.

We might be tempted to see this view of Śaivism as idiosyncratic. It certainly does not seem to to be found in the work of any other Vaidika authority of this period.66 However, Jayanta himself blocks this line of thought by stating categorically that his position is that of the greater society (mahājanaḥ), which he defines as all who live in Āryadeśa within the boundaries of the system of the four caste classes and four life-disciplines in accordance with the ordinances of the Veda; 67 it is the consensus of this community which for him constitutes the true arbiter of orthopraxy and therefore of scriptural validity; and this community, he says, currently accepts as valid not only the Vedas and the secondary Vaidika scriptures that follow in their wake, but also such other scriptural corpora as are not in opposition to the Vedas, namely the Śaiva and the Pañcarātra.68

1. It has been claimed by Svāmī Yogīndrānanda, the editor of the Nyāyabhūṣaṇa, that the validity of the Śaiva scriptures was also defended by its author Bhāsarvajña (fl. c. 900), Jayanta’s near-contemporary and fellow-Naiyāyika (Introduction, p. 19: śaivagranthānāṁ prāmāṇyaṁ pratanoti). But this is based on a misunderstanding of Nyāyabhūṣaṇa, p. 402, ll. 6–10. The form and terms of Bhāsarvajña’s argument in this passage are in fact largely lifted from the Buddhist Dharmakīrti’s auto-commentary on 1.246 of his Pramāṇavārttika. Bhāsarvajña, like Dharmakīrti admits that Śaiva Mantras, like any other Mantras, produce supernatural effects (siddhiḥ). But he neither states nor implies that the scriptures that teach them are valid.
1. The term Āryadeśa ‘the territory of the Āryas’ in this context does not denote a particular region of India. Rather it refers to all regions within which the system of the four caste-classes and disciplines has been established, as opposed to mlecchadeśaḥ, ‘the territory of the barbarians’, where it has not. Consider, for example, Abhinavagupta, Tantrasāra, p. 133: ‘as the regions of the Āryas are for the adherents of the religion and the regions of the barbarians are for those outside it’ (āryadeśā iva dhārmikāṇāṁ mlecchadeśā iva adhārmikāṇām); and Nyāyamañjarī vol. 1, p. 595, ll. 11–12: ‘Or rather the [true] meaning of words is that established in Āryadeśa. Any other meaning, accepted by the barbarians, is certainly to be disregarded’ (athavā āryadeśaprasiddha eva śabdānām arthaḥ. itaras tu mlecchajana-sammato ’nādaraṇīya eva). This distinction between Ārya and Mleccha is cultural rather than racial. The term mlecchabhāṣāḥ ‘languages of the barbarians’ refers not only to foreign languages, such as those of India’s Śaka and Hūṇa invaders, but also to the Dravidian and other non-Indo-Aryan languages of the subcontinent. But the regions in which these languages were spoken were not mlecchadeśāḥ where the system of the four caste-classes and disciplines had been established, as was the case in the Dravidian-language regions during our period, at least in the nuclear regions of the various states that flourished there. Abhinavagupta, we may presume, did not consider the brahmins of the Tamil region who were his contemporaries to be Mlecchas bereft of religion.
1. Nyāyamañjarī-Āgamaprāmāṇya, p. 156, ll. 14–15: ‘By the greater society (mahājanaḥ) I mean this population established in Āryadeśa comprising all those within the four caste-classes and the four life-disciplines’; p. 197 (156), ll. 1–4: ‘Only when [a body of scripture] has the support of general acceptance by the orthoprax consensus can one say without difficulty that it is the teaching of a trust worthy source; and the orthoprax consensus recognizes as valid (1) the Vedas, (2) the Purāṇas and Dharmaśāstras that follow their lead, and (3) some scriptures [namely those of the Śaiva canon and the Pañcarātra] that are not in contradiction with the Vedas, but not those, such as that taught by the Buddha, which do contradict them.’

I see no reason to doubt the accuracy of this report of the current state of belief in the Vaidika community. Jayanta offers no statistics, as he himself admits; 69 but this would have been a very weak argument indeed if the evidence adduced were manifestly contrary to what his audience could see for themselves. It is more reason able to think that Jayanta is simply attempting to move Vaidika doctrine forward from its long-established theoretical position on the subject of the non-Vaidika traditions to take account of a change that had occurred in the lived relationship between the orthoprax and both Śaivism and Pāñcarātrika Vaiṣṇavism in the cen turies since the emergence and development of the Mantramārga.

As for what he means to include under the rubric of the valid Śaiva scriptures, it is clear, though not explicit, that he has in mind only the Saiddhāntika form of the Mantramārga. For elsewhere he strongly condemns those forms of religion whose practices violate Vaidika norms of purity and permitted conduct. Thus, after arguing for the validity of the Śaiva scriptures, to which he refers without differentiation simply as Śaiva,70 he turns to those forms of religion that he judges to be invalid.

Debating the matter with an imaginary Buddhist, Jayanta has told him that Buddhism is invalid because it is not accepted by the greater society (mahājanaḥ). The Buddhist then asks rhetorically, ‘What is this “greater society”; what is its form; where is it located; how big is its population; and what are its customs?’ and adds that in any case the Buddhists have their own “greater society” consisting of their own co-religionists. Jayanta then admits that he has no physical or quantitative data concerning this greater society. He cannot describe the physical appearance of its members or their total number (ākāras tu tasya kīdr̥śaḥ pāṇipādaṁ kīdr̥śaṁ śirogrīvaṁ vā kīyatī tasya saṁkhyeti puruṣalakṣaṇāni gaṇayituṁ na jānīmaḥ). But he does know that its values are pervasive, to the extent that the Buddhists themselves are unable to escape them, since they too avoid untouchables, and those (the Śākta Śaivas) who indulge in orgiastic rites do so covertly, not fully believing in the rightness of their transgressive actions; see Nyāyamañjarī-Āgamaprāmāṇya, p. 156, l. 8 to p. 157, l. 10. For the Buddhist prohibition against the ordination of untouchables see Guṇaprabha’s commentary on Vinayasūtra-Pravrajyāvastu, p. 151: ‘One should not ordain as monks chariot-makers, tanners, Caṇḍālas, Pukkaśas, and the like’ (na rathakāra[carmakāra]caṇḍāla-pukkaśatadvidhān pravrājayet).

1. Nyāyamañjarī-Āgamaprāmāṇya, p. 139, ll. 9–10: purāṇetihāsa-dharmāśāstrāṇi vā śaiva-pāśupata-pañcarātra-bauddhārhatādīni vā. tatra śaivādīni nirūpayisyāmaḥ; p. 152, l. 5: śaivādi-vat; l. 8: śaivādyāgamā nāṁ prāmāṇyaṁ; p. 153, l. 6: śaiva-pañcarātrayoḥ.

After dismissing Buddhism, he attacks the obscure Saṁsāramocakas (‘Those who Free Souls from Saṁsāra [by killing them in order to end their suffering]’),71 and then goes on to say: 72

1. On the Saṁsāramocakas and the ṭhags see Halbfass 1983, pp. 10–15.
1. Nyāyamañjarī-Āgamaprāmāṇya, p. 155, ll. 5–6.

How can anyone bring himself even to mention the question of the validity
o those systems whose rites are dominated by engagement in the forbidden?

which his commentator Cakradhara takes, no doubt correctly, to be an allusion to the Bhairava Śaivism of the Right Stream (dakṣiṇasrotaḥ), since to illustrate Jayanta’s point he quotes a verse that declares that the impurities of the body are considered pure in that system.73 Then, condemning the relativistic argument that no system should be judged by any standards other than its own, Jayanta states: 74

1. Nyāyamañjarīgranthibhaṅga, vol. 1, p. 380, ll. 22–26): ‘Without a doubt, for Sādhakas in the Bhairava system faeces, urine, fat, and blood are pure.’ Cf. Sanderson 2005, pp. 110–114, fn. 63 on the ‘five nectars’ (pañcāmr̥tam).
1. Nyāyamañjarī-Āgamaprāmāṇya, p. 157, ll. 7–10.

As for those others, who practice various impermissible forms of post initiatory observance (dīkṣā) that [claim to] transcend inhibiting duality (nirvikalpa-) through such means as eating the impure and having sexual intercourse with forbidden partners, [they evidently lack the strength of their professed conviction, because] they do not do these things openly but act in secret, shying away from the majority that abides by the rules that govern the four caste-classes and life-disciplines. For if their faith in their scriptures is so free of doubt why do they put their teachings into practice like thieves [avoiding detection].

Here he attacks what can only be Śākta-Śaiva traditions of the Kaula type. For the use of the term nirvikalpa- in the special sense that we see here, namely free of doubt, free of inhibition, or free of duality, in the sense of being free of discrimination between the permitted and the forbidden, is a hallmark of the Śākta leaning non-Saiddhāntika and Kaula literature.75

1. See, e.g., Bhairavamangalā f. 15r6–7: nirvikalpo ’viśaṇkī ca *pañcāmr̥tam (corr.: pañcāmr̥tas Cod.) upāharet; and Matasāra f. 62v1–3: bhaginī-bhrātaraiḥ sārdhaṁ śisyaiḥ pūrveva dīkṣitaiḥ || tataś cakropacāreṇa bhakṣayeta śanaiḥ śanaiḥ | mukhān mukhena saṁprāśya nirvikalpena cetasā || tataḥ prakṣālya hastau ca alinā+++(??)+++ siddhim icchatā | bhaktyā viśuddhayā yukto pūjayet parameśvaram.

Moreover, the passage brings to mind others in the Kashmirian literature of this period which use the same idiom in describing the activities of the Kaulas, such as the satirist Kṣemendra’s description of women in the initiatory circle of a fictional Kaula Guru: 76

1. Narmamālā 2.54.

Once initiated by that libertine Guru [and Guru of libertines] (jāraguruṇā) those beauties would make love with all and sundry, faithfully adhering to the non-dualistic observance (nirvikalpavrate sthitāḥ).

and of a caste-promiscuous Kaula orgy as a symptom of the degeneration of society that will herald the descent of Kalkin, Viṣṇu’s tenth Avatāra: 77

1. Daśāvatāracarita 10.26.

[At that time] the Gurus teach that liberation is attained in a circle gathering with dyers of cloth, weavers, tanners, cremation-ground attendants (kāpālika-), and other such persons of the service-castes (-śilpibhiḥ), by drinking [wine] from a single vessel with them and holding an ecstatic orgy of non dualistic/indiscriminate (nirvikalpa-) love-making.78

1. For the use of the term kāpālikaḥ in the meaning ‘cremation-ground attendant’ (→ Kashmiri kāwuj) see Sanderson 2009a, p. 294, fn. 699.

and the historian Kalhaṇa’s comments on Pramadakaṇṭha, the Guru of the
Kashmirian king Kalaśa (r. ad 1063–1089): 79

1. Rājataraṅgiṇī 7.277–278.

The Guru, by teaching forbidden [religious] practices to that [king], who was already wicked by nature, abolished in him all consciousness of the distinction between permitted and forbidden sexual partners, and he himself engaged in sexual intercourse without inhibition even with his own daughter. What greater evidence of the freedom from duality (gatavikalpatvam) 80 achieved by this Guru could I provide?

1. This expression gatavikalpatvam equals nirvikalpatvam, i.e., ‘being nirvikalpaḥ.’