महामनुस्तवः

THE GREAT DISCIPLINES

Kasmai devaya havisha vidhema—“To which God shall we offer our oblations? ” queried the ancient seers. As long as one believes in a Divinity presiding over the manifold creation, what does it matter whether one worships this god or that god ? ’It matters much,’ the Tantra would say. There abound readily-responding entities in the subtle world, a low order of deities who gratify the aspirant with petty gifts, lull him into a false sense of progress and security and finally bring his ruin. There are benevolent deities who take the seeker on the path steadily and safely and ultimately do him the utmost good. There are gods and gods and the whole creation is teeming with them. In the pyramidal structure of the cosmos spreading over a rising tier of consciousness, these gods are posited in serried sequence. At the top, there are certain cardinal Godheads, so many facets of the One Truth, that correspond to the Brahman of the Upanishads. The spiritual disciplines, leading to such cardinal Deities are known as Brahma Vidyas. These are also popular as Maha Vidyas, the great paths of discipline or Siddha Vidyas, the practices where accomplishment is assured.

Where the Supreme is adored as the great Goddess, the Tantra classifies the disciplines leading to the cardinal Deities as Dasha Maha Vidyas, the ten great paths of knowledge. Coming third in the order of these Vidyas is Sri Vidya, leading to Mahatripurasundari, the Beauty par excellence in the triple worlds. The Vidyas of Tripura Bhairavi and Kamalatmika, the fifth and the tenth of the Dasha Maha Vidyas are also known as Sri Vidyas, as these deities have much in common with Tripurasundari. Here, we propose to deal with the Vidya of the great Goddess, known as Lalita, Tripura-sundari and Rajarajeshwari.