Kuṇḍalinī in the Mokṣopāya

This paper outlines the kuṇḍalinī doctrine that we find in the mid-10th C Mokṣopāya (MU). The depiction of kuṇḍalinī in the MU differs from any other known Śaiva Tantric or Yoga framework, and this depiction has not yet been considered within scholarship on kuṇḍalinī. This paper fills this gap by presenting this model for scholarly consideration. 

The depiction of kuṇḍalinī is presented in the MU in the telling of Queen Cūḍālā’s story of enlightenment. After her enlightenment, while delighting in her own state of knowledge, the queen decides that she wants to fly, just for fun. To do this, she harnesses the power of kuṇḍalinī. She sits in a firm posture, closes off the openings of her body and shoots the kuṇḍalinī-jīva out the crown of the head. While explaining how Cūḍālā is able to achieve this power through the manipulation of the kuṇḍalinī energy, Vasiṣṭha also explains the nature of consciousness, the nature of unconsciousness, and the bridge between the two. We hear why the kuṇḍalinī is dormant, what happens when kuṇḍalinī rises, how she rises, and the super human powers that come with her rising. 

The idea of the kuṇḍalinīśakti is most commonly known from Śaiva Tantric and Haṭha Yoga sources where she is either a goddess or a coiled energy or both. She lies dormant and must be awakened with mantras or through yogic practices so that she can rise up to the crown of the head. In the MU, kuṇḍalinī is also a dormant energy that coiled like a serpent and she is also awakened and rises to the crown. However, the nature of what she is, how and why she awakens and rises up, and the transformations and powers that she brings to the body is uniquely aligned with the nondual idealist philosophical Yoga of the MU and not found elsewhere. The MU teaches that everything in existence is a manifestation of the conceptualizing power of universal consciousness, and the description of kuṇḍalinī that we find in the MU extends from this doctrine.

In the MU, we learn that every object expresses an idea that is both its cause and its essential nature. In other words, an idea makes an object and is the fundamental essence of that object. The kuṇḍalinī is no different. She is a fragment of pure consciousness which means that she is an idea—a conceptualization or an imagining—of consciousness. Each fragment of consciousness has the full power of consciousness, and consciousness can imagine itself to be anything even unconscious. And this is the fundamental idea that kuṇḍalinī expresses, which is her cause and also essence. Kuṇḍalinī expresses the idea of concealment and awakening and to house this idea/function, she manifests a body. The kuṇḍalinī energy, as a fragment of consciousness, has the power to imagine herself to be dormant, unawake, invisible, and unconscious in a body. Likewise, kuṇḍalinī can also imagine herself to awaken. Thus, as the source of the body, the kuṇḍalinī is the highest power in the body. By virtue of kuṇḍalinī, consciousness lives in a body concealed and by virtue of kuṇḍalinī consciousness awakens in bodies and ceases to be reborn. 

Scholars have attempted to link the MU with multiple sectarian traditions. Śiva and Rudra appear as characters within its stories; tantric ritual settings appear within its narratives; the central plot depicts the Vaiṣṇava bhakti figure of Rāma; Kṛṣṇa’s teachings to Arjuna are re-told and reinterpreted; and the text has circulated as a scripture in Advaita Vedānta communities for centuries. And yet, the MU consistently rejects the authority of all gods, formalized doctrines and ritual practices while asserting a radical philosophy of inclusion in which all teachings, environments, objects, and experiences are equally imagined by the one all-encompassing consciousness. I take the position that the MU is Yoga-Sāṃkhya text. Both Sāṃkhya and Yoga have been adapted to multiple sectarian contexts in many ways throughout their histories, and the Yoga-Sāṃkhya of the MU continues this tradition of altering Yoga-Sāṃkhya to fit its own agenda. The doctrine of kuṇḍalinī that will be described in the proposed paper is grounded in the concept of a yogic-body that emerges from the distinctive Yoga-Sāṃkhya framework of the MU. In a world where everything is only made of mind, all bodies too are only imagined. The kuṇḍalinī, as a fragment of pure consciousness, is imagined and partakes of the power to imagine. When kuṇḍalinī imagines herself to be unconscious, she exists in a body and therefore a body exists. When she awakens and imagines herself to be pure consciousness, the jīva is liberated from the cycle of rebirth.  

This depiction of kuṇḍalinī represents a significant departure from Śaiva Tantric and Haṭha Yoga traditions. Although the model of kuṇḍalinī presented by Vasiṣṭha shares key elements with Śaiva Tantra sources—she has a coiled nature, a serpent-like shape, makes a hissing sound, is dormant in a centre in the abdomen until awakened, rises to the crown of the head—we also find many differences. Rather than being a power that must be activated by means of ritual or yogic method, in the MU the kuṇḍalinī is always existent as the prāṇa—she is all the winds of the body, the most powerful wind of the body, she is the jīva itself.

This interpretation, which distances the kuṇḍalinī model of the MU from Śaiva Tantra and Haṭha Yoga models, is the topic of the proposed paper. Kuṇḍalinī is a fragment of pure consciousness that, through the power of her saṅkalpa, imagines subsequent manifestations for herself. She creates new bodies in successive saṃsāras and lives within them as the dormant power of pure consciousness. The kuṇḍalinī sustains the illusion of embodiment through her dormancy and, when awakened, she exists as liberated consciousness expressed within but not bound to a body.

Reference

Krause-Stinner, Susanne and Peter Stephan. 2018. Mokṣopāya - Textedition, Teil 5, Das Sechste Buch: Nirvāṇaprakaraṇa. 1. Teil: Kapitel 1–119. Historical Critical Edition. Edited under the direction of Walter Slaje. Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz.