Saubhagyahrdayastotra by Sivananda
by Brian Campbell and Ben Williams | 2024 | 11,962 words
This is the English translation of the Saubhagyahrdayastotra (“praise to the heart of auspiciousness”) by Sivananda (fl. 13th century South India), who was one of the earliest interpreters of the Tantric tradition of goddess worship known as Shri-Vidya. The Saubhagyahrdaya Stotra embodies Shivananda’s synthesis of foundational Shaiva doctrine, Kund...
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Verse 4 (text and translation)
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 4:
देशकालपदार्थात्म यद् यद् वस्तु यथा यथा ।
तत्तद्रूपेण या भाति तां श्रये सांविदीं कलाम्॥ ४ ॥deśakālapadārthātma yad yad vastu yathā yathā |
tattadrūpeṇa yā bhāti tāṃ śraye sāṃvidīṃ kalām|| 4 ||I take refuge in that dynamic power of consciousness! That [alone] shines forth as every reality that can be experienced in time and space, in all of their diverse modes of being.
Notes:
The nondual schools of tantric Śaivism, especially as developed by the great Kashmir Śaiva masters such as Somānanda, Utpaladeva, and Abhinavagupta, provided a doctrinal basis upon which several important Śrīvidyā commentators interpreted their own deity-specific revelation and doctrines. One of the defining features of nondual Śaivism is that consciousness is not a static observer, or a detached witness, as it is in other schools of Indic thought such as Advaita Vedānta. In the nondual tantric Śaiva view, consciousness participates, expands, enjoys, and becomes the world of experience in an all-encompassing form of nonduality.
From within the Śrīvidyā tradition, the Yoginīhṛdayatantra (1.56) teaches:
चिदात्मभित्तौ विश्वस्य प्रकाशामर्शने यदा ।
करोति स्वेच्छया पूर्णविचिकीर्षासमन्विता ॥ ५६ ॥cidātmabhittau viśvasya prakāśāmarśane yadā |
karoti svecchayā pūrṇavicikīrṣāsamanvitā || 56 ||“When [the supreme radiance] is endowed with desire to completely transform by her own will, she creates manifestation and contemplation of the universe on the screen of the self, which is consciousness.”[1]
In this verse, Śivānanda describes Tripurasundarī as the dynamism of consciousness (sāṃvidī kalā). Amṛtānanda uses this same term to describe the goddess as the central deity of the Śrīcakra in the nineteenth verse of his Cidvilāsastava and cites this verse of the Saubhāgyahṛdayastotra twice in his Dīpikā commentary on the Yoginīhṛdayatantra: first, in his commentary on chapter 1.2 where he explains how knowledge about the secret heart of the yoginī leads directly to the khecara state, and second in his commentary on chapter 2.74 where explains that the goddess exists beyond all parts and divisions.
Footnotes and references:
[1]:
Translation by Golovkova 2019, 113.