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Svabodhodaya-Mañjarī by Vāmanadatta
Svabodhodaya-Mañjarī by Vāmanadatta
Svabodhodaya-Mañjarī by Vāmanadatta
Śaiva Tantra was not only a refined philosophical system (often but incorrectly called 'Kashmīr
Shaivism'), but once possessed a literature of yogic practice at least as extensive and detailed
as that of Buddhist Tantra. Having established this, scholars have only begun to scratch the
surface of the treasure trove of yogic techniques and teachings found in Śaiva Tantrik literature.
Below you will find a complete translation of a work of the Mahārtha (aka Krama) school of
Śaiva Tantra that is intended specifically for those who wish to access its sublime wisdom
directly through the embodied practice of its techniques. This text, the Svabodhodaya-mañjarī,
teaches inner yoga, that is, subtle but powerful techniques of awareness cultivation that effect
the unfolding of awakening and thereby give rise to the unconditioned joy of pure Being. As
Professor Sanderson eloquently puts it:
"The purpose and content of the Svabodhodaya-mañjarī is the teaching of a series of purely
mental practices to bring about liberation-in-life through the dissolution of contracted awareness
(cittam) by means of insight into the emptiness of objective and mental phenomena and
reversion into the uncontracted inner ground by observing the process of the arising and dying
away of cognition, especially where the latter is particularly intense, as in the perception of the
beautiful [or] meditation on the sensation of orgasm."
It is my hope that in time, at least one work from each Mahārtha Master may appear in English,
that students of yoga and tantra may begin to appreciate the power, beauty, and significance of
this lineage—which in many ways the most radical and innovative of all the traditions of Śaiva
Tantra.
First, some contextualization of the work you are about to experience. The documented history
of the Mahārtha lineage begins with the story of a great yogin, a devoted spiritual practitioner
and seeker of the truth, probably from Kashmīr. In the mid-800s this yogin made a pilgrimage to
the small kingdom of Uḍḍiyāna, in the far northwest of the Indian cultural region, a site later
considered one of the four most important Tantrik centers.[1] (Note that this is also said to be
the homeland of Padmasambhava, who brought Tantrik Buddhism to Tibet around this same
time—probably not a coincidence!) There he journeyed to a town called Mangalāpura, in the
heart of Uḍḍiyāna, where (it is said) nearly everyone was a practicing Tāntrika at that time.
Situated next to the town was a sacred power-center (śakti-pīṭha), the great cremation ground
called Karavīra. This cremation ground was said to be the dwelling place of the Goddess
Maṅgalā (“Auspiciousness” or “Felicity”), a local form of Kālī, together with the sixty-four Yoginīs
or Tantrik goddesses that make up her retinue.
There this pilgrim took up residence, propitiating and meditating on the Goddess until she
revealed herself to him in an awesome epiphany, granting him divine insight. Thereafter this
siddha (“perfected master”), now called Jñānanetra Nātha (“the Lord of the Eye of Wisdom”)
became the first human Guru of the Mahārtha lineage and the transmitter of its principal
scriptures. An account in Old Kashmīrī says:
The Nātha, after being taught in the sacred site where Oṃ resonates [Uḍḍiyāna], was filled with
compassion for living beings, and as the Revealer [he] emitted the internal and external silence
of ultimate reality as the scriptural corpus of the Krama [Mahārtha].[ii]
The tradition records that Jñānanetra was a fully awakened master. A later text called Hymn to
the Five Voids lauds his greatness; it purports to have been an oral transmission from the
Yoginīs of Uḍḍiyāna. The Yoginīs, in a great assembly, are said to have sung the praises of
Jñānanetra with the words:
The Lord called Jñānanetra has merged with the level where all experience is one! He is the
singular Hero of that beyond essence, in whom all conditioned states have been brought to
silence, radiant with the vision of his gnosis, who has realized the ultimate reality, who has
attained the bliss of understanding, and who has relished the highest awakening.[iii]
Note in the above passage the strong association made between realization (gnosis-
understanding-awakening) on the one hand and energy (radiance-bliss-relishing) on the other.
This is typical of the Mahārtha, and conveys the teaching that without the fruit of latter, the
former is merely sterile knowledge. The Mahārtha masters sought and taught fully embodied
wisdom, the universal sign of which is power, energy, love, juiciness, bliss. Not for this lineage
the dry and empty realization of Śiva’s spacious openness devoid of Śakti’s energy and love.
In fact, the Mahārtha teachings center on the symbol of the Goddess. The scriptures transmitted
by Jñānanetra teach the worship of different forms of Kālī as expressions of the phases (krama)
of awareness—the aspects of consciousness present in each and every experience.
Fundamental to the Mahārtha vision of reality is the teaching that the aspects of the Divine
normally considered wholly transcendent in fact are intimately interwoven with the tangible
world, like the warp and weft on the loom of reality. It is for this reason that in one breath a
Mahārtha master can speak of the loftiest, most abstract aspects of the Absolute, and in the
next of something seemingly quite ordinary and mundane: for him there is no disjunction
between the two.
Jñānanetra directly initiated seventeen disciples. He had three disciples who attained the full
fruit of his transmission, all of them women. One of these three became his successor, the
lineage-holder siddhā yoginī named Keyūravatī, informally yet respectfully known simply as “the
Goddess K.” We have no written works credited to Keyūravatī, though some of the oral
teachings of the Mahārtha tradition recorded in Old Kashmīrī may be hers. Additionally, it is our
view that some of the dhāraṇās (centering techniques) taught in the scripture called Vijñāna-
bhairava may derive from Keyūravatī. Reasons for this view will be mentioned below.
Keyūravatī’s successor was the author of our present text, a man named Vīranātha, a.k.a.
Vāmanadatta, a.k.a. Hrasvanātha. He was highly placed in Kashmīrī society, being the Minister
of War and Peace under King Yaśaskara in mid-tenth century Śrīnagara (then called
Pravarapura). He wrote two short works that have come down to us, including the present one,
which is titled The Bouquet of [Methods] for manifesting innate Awareness (Svabodhodaya-
mañjarī). This exquisite meditation manual in 44 verses teaches a “new and easier method”
(sukhopāya, a phrase that repeatedly characterizes the Mahārtha's teachings) for attaining the
Joy of Awareness (bodhānanda).
The Tantrik techniques taught here are “easy” compared to the type of yoga taught by Patañjali
in his Yoga-sūtra, which requires a level of renunciation and arduous practice that does not
come naturally to those not suited to the monastic life (i.e., the majority). Vīranātha clarifies his
project while explicitly setting himself against that earlier yoga of Patañjali, writing:
The nature of the mind is unstable, being indundated by the subliminal impressions arising from
false mental constructs; realizing this, one sets out to dissolve it. This dissolution was taught by
the ancients as occurring due to the yoga of renunciation and arduous practice.[iv] Here I will
teach a dissolution that is [comparatively] effortless. (v. 11-12)
The focus of Vīranātha’s manual is the most perennial and ubiquitous theme in the whole
literature of Yoga: how to achieve the dissolution (nirodha) of the everyday thinking mind in
order to reveal a more essential level of our being, ordinarily obscured by our conditioned
mental activity. It is a universal creed of yogic literature that the divine essence that is the
source of the unconditioned joy-of-being which we all consciously or unconsciously seek is not
something that needs to be obtained, achieved, or constructed. In fact, since it is our already
existent real nature (sadbhāva), to experience it we need only remove that which veils it—the
conditioned thinking mind. When this is done frequently enough, your sense of who you are re-
orients to your deeper nature. When that re-orientation is complete, then it no longer matters
whether the mind is present or not, since you no longer construct your sense of self on its basis.
Anyone familiar with modern cognitive psychology might object to this usage of the word “mind,”
since of course in the broader modern sense of the word, the mind cannot ever disappear. But
what Vīranātha and other yogic authors mean by “mind” (citta or manas) is the conditioned,
reactive, inner commentator or narrator that most people cannot turn off at will, however much
they may want to. “Mind” in this sense is a stream of discursive thought that articulates personal
judgments of self and others on the basis of its programming, absorbed from the surrounding
culture from a young age. It manifests not only these habitual thought-patterns that are
frequently unnecessary and/or poorly suited to the reality of the present moment, but also their
emotional correlates like greed, envy, self-righteousness, craving, and hatred.[v] These charged
emotional states seem to reinforce the validity of the mental states that gave rise to them and
cloud the clarity of one’s perception. There are more dimensions to the yogic understanding of
the term “mind,” but this one is key. (It is for this reason that Alexis Sanderson translates citta as
“contracted awareness” rather than “mind”.)
Vīranātha’s particular innovation is this: instead of the older method of cultivating distaste for
one’s own body (Yoga-sūtra 2.40) and the sensual experiences that the mind becomes attached
to, his uniquely Tantrik “easy method” was to allow oneself to become totally absorbed in a
beautiful sensual object that naturally dissolves or fades away, like the sound of a gong or the
taste of a sweet or the smell of a flower (refer again to Sanderson's quote near the top of this
post). The more complete one’s absorption in the object, the more complete the dissolution of
mind that can be achieved. The teacher’s two cues here are simple: first, focus even more
intently on the sense-object than you usually do; and second, when the sense-object dissolves,
instead of immediately looking for another object to engage with, or thinking about the one that
has just dissolved, one must repose in the space of simple open tranquil awareness that
immediately follows.
When the mind (or rather, contracted awareness) dissolves or comes to rest in the real Self, we
are left in a state of pure Being variously named by Vīranātha. Like all Tantrik authors, he uses
many words to describe the experience of the real Self, aka essence-nature; this diversity of
terms helps us avoid objectifying it or identifying it with a fixed concept. On the one hand he
uses a group of Sanskrit terms that indicate to us that the cessation or dissolution (nirodha) of
the thinking mind results in a state of extraordinary peace (mahā-śānti), stillness (nistaranga),
and equanimity (śama). However, unlike states of stillness that result from sedation, this is a
state of being utterly peaceful yet awake and aware (śānta-bodha). He also uses a cluster of
terms that describe this state in terms of freedom from dependence, attachment, or suffering.
Kaivalya is a word describing spiritual liberation that was inherited from the earlier pre-tantrik
tradition of yoga, where it suggests a state of purity, of standing apart from the causes of
suffering, of being free from the “taints” of worldly life. In the more world-embracing ethos of
Tantra, kaivalya acquires more of a sense of freedom and independence, needing nothing
outside oneself (nirāśraya) yet open to all phenomena as they arise and pass away.
While the sensual meditations tend to attract our attention, the text is in fact very diverse,
including many other methods, from gently intensifying awareness while hovering on the edge
of sleep to trying to find the locus of one’s cognition by asking gently and repeatedly “Where is
my mind?” For the practitioner who is ready for these methods, they do indeed constitute a far
easier path to successful centering in one’s essence-nature. Furthermore, all the dhāraṇās
(centering techniques) are prefaced in the text by a philosophical deconstruction of socially
conditioned mental constructs like “class,” “mind,” and “body” (v. 5-11). This passage, almost
startling in its congruence with postmodern philosophy of the late 20th century, deserves the
attention of academics and practitioners alike.
We can organize the twenty-six dhāraṇās that follow the philosophical verses into five
categories:
If we determine the degree of Vīranātha’s interest in the topics he covers in terms of number of
verses, then it is the sensual dhāraṇās and philosophical deconstruction that seems most
important to him, each receiving seven verses, slightly more than all the other topics. The other
topics are about equally weighted.
A few words about those other topics. The “dhāraṇās of inquiry” are those that use faculty of
discernment (buddhi) to shed conditioned perception and penetrate to a deeper vision of reality.
These are profound, but not as difficult to grasp as the very subtle “precognitive” dhāraṇās, in
which contemplation takes place prior to sense-perception, as a result of which accesses the
Void while remaining fully awake. (These dhāraṇās are examples of śāmbhava-upāya; see
Tantra Illuminated p. XXX) By contrast, the “dhāraṇās of spontaneous dissolution in everyday
life” are very straightforward, for they are not techniques in the same sense as the other
dhāraṇās. Here our author is simply pointing out moments in everyday life when the thinking
mind spontaneously dissolves, implicitly inviting us to dwell in that space a little longer.
Finally, like its predecessor and primary influence, the Vijñāna-bhairava-tantra, our text contains
some powerful teachings on esoteric yoga that are presented in a veiled form using coded
language and therefore require extensive training to interpret correctly.
In verse four of his text, Vīranātha tells us that the Tantrik teachings on the easeful dissolution
of the mind (the sukhopāya) were, in his view, in danger of being lost, and therefore he is writing
this work to clarify and promote them. The only work we know of that presents dhāraṇās similar
to Vīranātha’s is the Vijñāna-bhairava-tantra. Vīranātha attributes the sukhopāya teachings to
“the previous Guru(s),” calling them an āgama, which means a scriptural revelation or
something received from tradition. Now, the Vijñāna-bhairava-tantra is a scripture, and like all
scriptures is of anonymous authorship. However, if Vīranātha is referring to his own Guru in
verse four (using the honorific plural as is common in Sanskrit), then the logical conclusion is
that his Guru Keyūravatī is the true author of the Vijñāna-bhairava. Two facts seem to lend
weight to this conclusion: that women were not, in the culture of the time, supposed to be
scholars or authors, let alone gurus; and the fact that, when Abhinavagupta cites the Vijñāna-
bhairava, he never calls it a tantra, which he does in the case of every other tantra he cites
(thanks to Chris Tompkins for this observation). This might make sense if he knew it to have
human authorship. Nonetheless, the idea that Keyūravatī wrote the Vijñāna-bhairava-tantra is
not proven by this collocation of evidence, but is simply recorded here as a possibility.[vii]
Another possibility is that Vīranātha refers to earlier work(s) now lost, and that the Vijñāna-
bhairava came later and was itself influenced by Vīranātha. We regard this as less likely.
We envy you the experience you are about to have: that of encountering for the first time a
practice text of a venerated master of the Krama lineage of original Śaiva Tantra. Thanks to the
power of the union of the Awakened Mind transmitted through that tradition and the intention to
benefit all sentient beings held by its masters, this work has seen the light of day in the modern
era, an era that sorely needs its wisdom. May all beings benefit!
~~~
Join me at Tantra Illuminated for more teachings!
~~~
NOTES:
[1] Uḍḍiyāna is located in the Swāt valley of the now sadly war-torn Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
province of Pakistān.
[ii] Translated by Sanderson from the Old Kashmīrī Mahānaya-prakāśa (“Śaiva Exegesis,” p.
265), with minor alterations.
[iii] Sanderson’s translation from “Śaiva Exegesis,” p. 322, with minor alterations (e.g. I have
replaced “enlightenment” with the more literal “awakening” [bodha] and “phenomena” with
“conditioned states”). Key terms of the Svabodhodaya-mañjarī are already found here, such as
niḥsvabhāva (“beyond essence” or “without independent existence”) and śamita-sakala-bhāva
(“in whom all conditioned states have been brought to silence”).
[v] These habitual thought-patterns can also manifest the so-called “positive emotions” like
pleasure or happiness, which are not generally regarded as problematic, but yogically speaking
are in fact equally problematic to the so-called “negative emotions” when they arise from
conditioned thought, because in that case they are artificial, in the sense that they are
generated by an interpretive framework, a mental construct, rather than by connection to reality.
Happiness or pleasure spontaneously arising in someone connected to the reality of the present
moment is of course unproblematic, but for that matter so is any “negative” emotion arising in
that way.
[vi] Sanderson, “Śaiva Exegesis,” p. 277, emphasis mine. The reader may notice a similarity to
Buddhist language here, and indeed the Krama is the most “Buddhistic” of the Śaiva schools,
though it is more accurate to say that they both emerged out of the same Himālayan cultural
milieu, which fostered an interest in nondualist meditation in this period.
[vii] Against this hypothesis is the fact that the Vijñāna-bhairava-tantra is, at least nominally, a
text of the Kaula Trika school, while Keyūravatī is a guru of the Krama. The two schools are
connected, however, by their mutual Kaula influence, and by the fact that they merged in the
synthesis of Abhinavagupta and his successors, if not before.
~~~
TRANSLATION
1. By [realizing] the essencelessness of [all] entities and states of mind through a thorough
investigation of [the nature of] awareness (bodha), one attains an awakeness (bodha) which
gives rise to unconditioned joy. That joy is the natural state of the Self, and that is the deity I
worship.
OR
1. I venerate the natural condition of [our] innate being, which is the joy that arises from the
awakening (bodha) attained due to [realizing], through a thorough investigation of awareness
(bodha), the fact that [all] entities and states of mind (bhāva) have no separate or independent
existence [apart from Consciousness, which is the Self].
When the semen and blood is mixed, [producing the zygote,] the mind is nowhere to be found. It
is not in the embryo, nor in the fetus, it exists nowhere in the body [as a static, specific,
objectifiable thing].
Whether it is newborn, juvenile, or youthful, the body is decaying in every moment, ending in
complete destruction. It cannot be grasped [as a thing in itself]—[8.] name is one thing, form is
another, its parts such as hair etc. each have their individual existence [and name]—the whole
can be broken down [indefinitely] into parts, as we can see. So where is the “body” [as an
independent object]?
(since each thing has its individual name and existence from the perspective of the analytical
mind, yet in fact has no unique svabhāva, the drawing of the boundary by which one calls a
certain collocation of percepts (hair, skin, nails, form, etc.) “my body” and everything else “not
my body” is a mental construct.)
Upon reflecting in just this way, the concept of ‘caste’ or 'class' is likewise blocked [since it
consists only of specific individuals, subsumed into a category constructed by the mind]; it is not
actually connected [to reality], nor is it manifest to anyone [as an objective thing].
One’s name is given by one’s father; [to label someone with] a verbal noun [like ‘a teacher’ or ‘a
cook’] is illusion, since s/he is not restrained [to that action alone]. If someone is considered in
terms of the fact that s/he bears a certain quality, [we object that] there are many qualities
[therefore to label someone according to any one of them is arbitrary].
Explanation of verses 6-10
11. Seeing in this way that the mind is unstable, overwhelmed/ inundated [as it is] by the
impressions (saṃskāras) arising from false mental constructs, one can and should dissolve it.
12. ‘Cessation’ (nirodha) [of the mind] was taught by previous [masters] through the
yoga/method of renunciation [of the mind and senses] and arduous practice. Here I will teach a
cessation that is [comparatively] effortless.
13. Focus the mind upon something that then dissolves. Because it is not grasping anything
else [other than the dissolving object], the mind comes to rest in one’s Self.
14. It is similar to the case of a powerful thunder-clap gradually fading: when it dies away, the
mind, due to being [totally] focused on it, comes to rest.
15. One should give oneself to one-pointedness [i.e. meditate] on any enchanting (manohara)
sound that comes into one’s hearing, until ceasing it brings about the cessation [of mind].
16. In precisely the same way one may meditate on the beauty of the visible and other [objects
of the senses]; after the object-perception has dissolved, one should let one’s awareness
remain empty/clear [/not thinking on what has dissolved], invigorated by the sense of one’s own
immediate being (ātmabhāva). [translation of this verse follows Sanderson]
evam grāhya-samāveśān nirodhaḥ kathito mayā |
grahaṇād eva pūrvo ’yam idānīṃ saṃpradṛśyate || 17 |
17. Thus I have taught cessation through immersion into the perceptible. Now I will demonstrate
that [cessation] which can take place prior to perception.
18. One should awaken the senses, instruments of perception that are [by nature] equal [to their
objects]. [This] equanimity [or, this supreme state] arises [only] when craving has been lost and
aversion has wasted away.
19. Abandon all craving and likewise all aversion. Or, like a Buddha, be an all-craver, [yet] also
be averse to all, [like] Bhairava. (?) / OR perhaps: Like a Buddha, be attached to all and averse
to all—[such] is Bhairava. (?)
[Text is not at all secure, so the translation is very speculative. Torella conjectures we should
read "Like one who is bound (baddhavat), be attached to all and averse to all", but this hardly
seems satisfactory.]
Tantrik Pratyāhāra
20. When the sense faculties have nothing to grasp and are [therefore] empty, they dissolve into
one’s Self alone. When the activity of the senses has dissolved, the joy of freedom (kaivalya)
[naturally] arises.
21. Therefore, having fully withdrawn the mind into the void, which is free of ideation, the activity
of the sense faculties is paused, and dissolution [of the mind] is produced.
Explanation of verses 20-21
22. For the Yogin who is continuously ‘yawning‘ (coded language; see the video) [and is]
pervaded by ‘hunger’, or who is meditating on anything internal, freedom (kevala) will arise at
the end of that inner sensation.
23. When one is slowly falling asleep [but] his or her mental activity has not yet [entirely]
dissolved, a complete dissolution [of the ordinary mind] can occur since s/he is no longer
perceiving sense-objects.
dhāvataḥ pada-vikṣepa-prayatnānavadhāraṇāt |
niḥsaṅkalpa-manovṛtteḥ paramātmā prakāśate || 24 ||
24. If, while running, one is not [overly] conscious of the effort of placing one's steps, then the
activity of the mind will become free of intentionality and the supreme Self will shine forth.
SELF-INQUIRY
25. If one sitting on/in an āsana reflects diligently “Where is my mind located?”, he will come to
rest in the ‘supportless’ (nirādhāra).
26. “Through the prāṇa-vāyu(s) I make the body move; and [yet] the prāṇa is not situated in the
mind, nor does the mind reside in the prāṇa.”
EVERYDAY LIFE
28. Whatever desires arise, for objects like food etc., one should fulfill them to to the best of his
ability; then he will become fulfilled (pūrṇa) and ‘supportless’.
29. If someone is told something s/he was longing [to remember], but somehow forgot, then due
to being reunited with it again, he attains kaivalya for a moment.
30. One who sees something in the distance and ponders as to whether it is a pillar or a man,
when he clearly ascertains [what it is], dissolution of mind (nirodha) arises immediately.
31. Through the buddhi, one can see the perceiver of a perception by means of perceptible
objects. Having ‘seen’ it, one attains liberation. One who cannot do likewise remains bound.
32. Intensely seizing hold of awareness, [he realizes that] whatever he can be aware of does
not exist by its own independent nature; therefore, everything [that can be known] is cognized
and thus has the nature of awareness [alone]. / Realizing this, he becomes an embodiment of
awareness.
YOGIC PRACTICES
33. Again/next he should enter through the downward breath (apāna) and cause the
heart/center to expand. In this very way, when the in-breath dissolves, the mental functions
dissolve.
34. Taking refuge in the path of the suṣumṇā, due to becoming aware of the resonance of the
prāsāda mantra one transcends the six bindus, due to which one’s awareness instantly
becomes peaceful.
vāma-dakṣiṇa-sañcāra-bindu-dvaya-nigharṣaṇāt |
dvādaśānte mahāśāntiḥ siddhair uktā mukhāgame || 35 ||
35. It is said in the oral tradition of the Siddhas that the Great Peace arises in the dvādaśānta
(space above the head) due to the friction of the pair of bindus moving on the left and right
paths.
OR: . . . the Great Peace arises because of the pair of bindus, which [had been] moving in the
left and right channels, colliding in dvādaśānta.
[Cf. VBT 64: Due to the collision (sanghaṭṭa) of the two prāṇas, either externally or internally, at
the termination [of the breath-pause] the yogī becomes a vessel for the complete arising of
equality-consciousness.]
36. Gradually [proceeding] upward, at the end of the rise of the prāṇa (exhale?), there will be
quiescence. ~ Likewise, the mind dissolves in the 'piercing' of the eight-fold subtle body.
EVERYDAY LIFE
38. At the end of love-making one should cast one’s mind to the point between the genitals and
the navel (the kanda). As the bliss of orgasm is fading, one may suddenly become ‘waveless’.
dūrāgata-suhṛd-bandhu-pariṣvaṅga-niṣevitam |
ānandanirbharaṃ cittaṃ nivṛttiṃ labhate kṣaṇāt || 39 ||
39. When joyfully embracing a relative or friend returning from far away, the mind overflows with
bliss, and instantly attains dissolution.
40. When a word is uttered from a distance, one cannot discern its meaning; one who is
attentive cognizes it, and the blockage/tension melts away.
41. By the anointing and massaging of the feet, the blockage(s) of the mind are dissolved.
42. Keep an appetizing morsel—such as a sweet—on the tip of your tongue; when the bliss of
its savor dies away, kaivalya arises.
43. Similarly, one should meditate on the fragrance of flowers such as jasmine. Then, due to
having that as its support, the mind dissolves when they dissolve.
CONCLUSION
44. In this way, one who dissolves the mind into the Self in every [possible] moment attains the
essence/real state (sadbhāva) of Awareness—s/he is called liberated-while-living.
'END CREDITS'
45. This "Bouquet of [methods to bring about] the Arising of one’s Innate Awareness" was
written by Vāmanadatta, son of Harṣadatta, [that famous] lion in the forest of Vedic exegesis
(mīmāṃsā