1 Introduction

A consistent concern in the study of early Śaivism is to understand the scope of the clientele texts were written for, and how representative this literature was of practices on the ground at given times. The methodological limitations we face in exploring this largely prescriptive body of literature in relation to actual practice are notorious. Yet, in his seminal works on Śaiva religious history, Alexis Sanderson developed groundbreaking insights into the socio-religious and political landscape in which the surviving texts were produced, reconstructing processes that led to the dominant position of Śaivism in the medieval Indic world. Thanks to his pioneering research, and that of other scholars who have taken up the subject in the wake of his work, our understanding of the relative chronology of Śaiva scriptures and medieval authors has also greatly improved.¹ This increasingly enables us to investigate these materials historically, and thus to pursue questions of a socio-historical nature, which are at the heart of Sanderson’s work. In his own words (Sanderson 2005, 230),

[…] it is possible, I would say necessary, to read the literature and inscriptions with the sort of questions in mind that a social historian would wish to ask.

For this felicitation volume, the present article is intended as a small contribution of this kind, applying a social-historical approach to a certain form of Śaiva initiation, namely the lokadharmiṇī dīkṣā. In essence, this denotes a form of initiation that is compatible with maintaining one’s socio-religious and ritual obligations in society—the lokadharma.

Scholars familiar with tantric traditions know well that initiation (dīkṣā) is one of the core tantric rituals. As Goodall explains, tantric initiation was novel and different from earlier Indic forms of religious initiation, being not only “a preparation for a particular religious undertaking, but … also a transformative rite that purifies the soul.”² This purification is achieved through an innovative ritual technology, using the power of mantras to destroy an individual’s karmas and connected rebirths at all reality levels (tattvas). This enables the Śaiva Guru to free the bound soul of all ties, and to guide the candidate to a cosmic level where he can either realize liberation through union with the highest form of Śiva, if he is a liberation seeker (mumukṣu), or attain divine powers, if he is a seeker of supernatural powers and enjoyments (bubhukṣu). As such, tantric initiation confers spiritual benefits to the candidate a priori to his practice. It is thus arguably the most powerful tantric rite, designed in principle for practitioners who intend to devote their lives to the religion, as was probably the case in its original setting of esoteric, probably ascetic, circles.

At the same time, we know from history that tantric Śaivism did not remain confined to the margins of society, but emerged as a religious movement which successfully interfaced with the mainstream, and gradually came to dominate the religious and socio-political discourse of the early medieval Indic world.³ As one would expect, this development is reflected in ritual and in changes to the constitution of the initiatory community, which by then encompassed not only ascetic practitioners fully devoted to Śaiva religious practice, but also brahmanical householders. The increasing engagement with the mainstream led to the creation of exoteric forms of initiation, including versions that would confer spiritual benefits without requiring the candidate to adopt a purely Śaiva ritual lifestyle. The most well-known example is the nirbījā dīkṣā (“initiation without the seed [of having to perform post-initiatory rites]”), which offers the candidate the highest soteriological goal of ultimate liberation at the time of death. However, according to the scriptures, such an initiation was only granted in special cases, namely when the candidates were considered unable to perform any kind of post-initiatory practice for special reasons. The list of such people classically comprises the king, but also the old, the young, the sick, and women.⁴

The other, lesser-known form of exoteric initiation is the lokadharmiṇī dīkṣā, which forms the subject of this paper. This term translates as “the initiation which contains/adheres to the lokadharma,” the lokadharma denoting the sphere of observance that Śaiva sources consistently define as the exoteric religion of śruti and smṛti, that is to say the domain of the brahmanical householder.⁵ Unlike the nirbījā, access to the lokadharmiṇī initiation is not limited to specific groups, and in its original context, the initiation is mainly benefit-oriented: a lokadharmī initiate is said to pursue mundane spiritual goals before attaining some kind of divine status. He does so by means of the merit procured through lay worship, and not through Śaiva rites that require the propitiation of mantras. This seemingly antithetical initiatory category is little discussed by Śaiva authors, probably precisely because of the doctrinal implications of such an initiation, which foregrounds a level of practice and spiritual goals that Śaivas claim to surpass. In the course of time, the lokadharmiṇī initiation underwent several shifts in application. These developments are deeply entangled with the complex history of the system of initiatory categories, which was subject to processes of division and reassignment reflecting local and historical circumstances. A historical investigation into this form of exoteric Śaiva initiation therefore touches upon the larger issue of how tantric initiatory communities related to the brahmanical mainstream, at various stages, after their emergence from esoteric ascetic circles.

The first part of the paper investigates the lokadharmiṇī in its original setting, as an initiation for Sādhakas, first by surveying the available sources and then by contextualizing them in the socio-religious setting of tantric Śaivism’s early stages. The second part will examine how this category of exoteric bubhukṣu initiation is subsequently re-assigned to the sphere of the mumukṣu, thus becoming integrated into the Śaiva soteriological path, especially in the Jayadrathayāmala. The third section looks into the usage of the lokadharmī category in the ritual manuals of the 11th–13th centuries, particularly sources from the South, tracing how in some works, notably the Jñānaratnāvalī, there is another shift in usage: the lokadharmiṇī dīkṣā comes to denote a regular Śaiva initiation for the householder, as opposed to the ascetic, who receives a śivadharmiṇī dīkṣā. The final section reflects upon how the initiatory category of the lokadharmiṇī fits within the larger context of tantric Śaivism’s development in medieval India.

2 The Original lokadharmiṇī dīkṣā as a Form of Sādhaka Initiation: Sources and Mechanics

The earliest sources that mention a lokadharmiṇī dīkṣā—always as the counterpart of the śivadharmiṇī dīkṣā—feature it as a form of Sādhaka initiation⁶ in the domain of the bubhukṣu, i.e. the seeker of power and enjoyment, as opposed to the liberation-seeker (mumukṣu). The first extant text to feature the lokadharmiṇī is the Svacchanda. In its fourth chapter, dedicated in its entirety to initiation, the text gives an overview of all the initiation categories, dividing the initiatory community into mumukṣus and bubhukṣus. The former may receive either a sabījā or nirbījā initiation, and the latter a śivadharmiṇī or lokadharmiṇī initiation.⁷ Of these, the śivadharmī Sādhaka is the Śaiva Sādhaka proper, who through initiation gains the ability to propitiate Śaiva mantras in order to attain benefits and supernatural powers, while the lokadharmī Sādhaka is his exoteric counterpart, seeking enjoyments and spiritual benefits through mundane religious acts rather than mantras:

The Sādhaka is of two kinds. On the one hand, there is the śivadharmī, for whom the cosmic path is purified by Śaiva mantras and who is yoked to [particular] mantras that are to be mastered; he is knowledgeable, consecrated [to office], and devoted to the propitiation of mantras. This Śaiva Sādhaka is capable [of mastering] the threefold supernatural powers.⁸ The second [kind of Sādhaka] adheres to the mundane path and is devoted to the performance of good and meritorious works (iṣṭāpūrtavidhau); desiring the fruits produced by [his] karma, he abides solely [devoted to] meritorious [karma], free of the unmeritorious. [The Guru] should always perform the destruction of the unmeritorious portion [of the candidate’s karma] with mantras.⁹

Kṣemarāja, in his commentary, further specifies that meritorious acts in the case of the lokadharmī consist of bathing at sacred places, providing food and building wells, tanks and monasteries.¹⁰ These are precisely the kinds of religious activity that we would expect of an ordinary lay worshipper. As we see in this passage, what the lokadharmiṇī initiation does is to enhance the initiate’s spiritual benefits by destroying bad karma connected to all reality levels, leaving only good karma and its positive outcomes in place.

This function of the lokadharmiṇī dīkṣā is reiterated later in the chapter, when the text explains how the two kinds of bubhukṣu initiations differ from that of the mumukṣu. These differences concern two points:¹¹ firstly, the portion of karma that is purified and thus removed for the candidate; and second, the cosmic level at which the candidate is united with the respective deity upon initiation’s conclusion:

Next, he should then bring about destruction of the past and future karma for the liberation-seeker (mumukṣu), because of his indifference [to the world]. He should not purify the one [part of karma] that is the prārabdha [karma], [which fuels his present existence]. But for the Sādhaka, he should purify [only] one [part of the] past karma for the purpose of power,¹² and having manifested the past and future karma together (ekastham), he should initiate [the candidate]. This is the śivadharmiṇī dīkṣā. The other form [of bubhukṣu initiation] is the lokadharmiṇī, which destroys both past and future demerit. That lokadharmiṇī [dīkṣā] is known to exclude the obligation to propitiate mantras [by means of purvasevā etc.]. However, when the current body breaks, [the candidate] experiences [the series of eight supernatural natural powers] starting with becoming very small (aṇimā). Having experienced [these] enjoyments he moves upwards to whichever [cosmic level] the Guru has joined him [by yojanikā]. Whether this is at the sakala or niṣkala level [of Śiva] depends on [the preference of] the candidate and Guru.¹³

Thus, we learn that the lokadharmī candidate can be united with any deity of any cosmic level at the end of the procedure, and could even choose to be united with the highest, niṣkala form of Śiva, a form of union synonymous with the state of ultimate liberation. In addition, while the lokadharmī initiate cannot propitiate Śaiva mantras, unlike the Sādhaka, he is nevertheless granted supernatural powers, which are usually said to result from mantra practice; the difference is that he experiences these powers after death.

Regarding the śivadharmiṇī dīkṣā, we note that there is some difficulty interpreting how karma is held to be eliminated at this point. As evident from the translation, the problematic phrase is 142ab, sādhakasya tu bhūtyarthaṃ prākkarmaikaṃ tu śodhayet; this is supposed to define the difference in procedure from the nirvāṇadīkṣā of the mumukṣu, for whom only prārabdha karma, the karma that fuels the current life, is to be preserved.¹⁴ Looking at the different treatments of this phrase, we find that commentators disagree on whether or not any additional karmic bonds are excluded from purification—and in effect, whether the dīkṣā of the Sādhaka is very close to that of the mumukṣu Putraka or not. Kṣemarāja, in his commentary, wants to see a clear difference, and interprets this passage to indicate that two kinds of karma are excluded from purification, in case of the Sādhaka, namely (1) the karma that is necessary for the attainment of supernatural powers (i.e. bhūtyarthaṃ), without making explicit what that means,¹⁵ and (2) the good portion of the prārabdha karma, which ensures the success of the siddhi practice by preventing its being blocked by bad karma.¹⁶ On the other hand, Abhinavagupta, when adopting this passage in his Tantrāloka, as discussed below, drops pādas 142cd and rephrases 142ab as prākkarmetthaṃ tu śodhayet, “He should purify the past karma in the same way [as in the case for the mumukṣu]”—thus indicating that for him, the procedure for the Sādhaka is exactly the same as for the mumukṣu Putraka, except that the prārabdha karma is directed towards supernatural powers rather than liberation. In his commentary on this passage, Jayaratha, in turn, criticizes Kṣemarāja’s reading of ekam instead of ittham, undermining his understanding that the bad portion of the prārabdha karma is destroyed, instead saying that neither is it possible to remove any part of the prārabdha karma, since this fuels the current life force, nor does this interpretation have scriptural support.¹⁷ At the same time, he remains silent about the fact that the text teaches the removal of only the bad karma in case of the lokadharmiṇī dīkṣā.¹⁸

Another early source which distinguishes between the śivadharmiṇī and lokadharmiṇī dīkṣā is the Mṛgendra, which was composed after the Svacchanda. This scripture maintains the same basic set of categories and organization of initiatory groups, even though it uses slightly different terminology. Thus, instead of referring to initiations for the mumukṣu and the bubhukṣu, the Mṛgendra uses the terms naiṣṭhikī and bhautikī,¹⁹ the former of which is divided into the sāpekṣā and nirapekṣā,²⁰ corresponding to the sabījā/nirbījā distinction, and the latter again into śivadharmiṇī and lokadharmiṇī, for which we find the following description:

The śivadharmiṇī [initiation] is the root of success for the fruits of the Śaiva religion for the individual soul. There is another [kind of śivadharmiṇī] taught without the destruction of the body, up until the dissolution of the world.²¹ The remaining one is taught to be the lokadharmiṇī, for the purpose of [attaining the eightfold supernatural powers] starting with aṇimā after the current life, after all the bad portions [of karma] were destroyed at all reality levels.²²

While the description of the śivadharmīṇī initiation differs somewhat, implying that there are two levels of Śaiva Sādhaka,²³ the explanation of the lokadharmiṇī resonates much with what we found in the Svacchanda, namely that all bad karma is destroyed and the initiate attains supernatural powers after death. Regarding the end point of union for the lokadharmī candidate, the Mṛgendra offers a choice similar to that of the Svacchanda, namely that the candidate is either lifted up to the cosmic level of his choice and absorbs the applicable deity’s divine powers, or that he is united with the highest form of Śiva, for liberation:

Having lifted up the lokadharmī to [the cosmic level of] the deity he desires, he should cause [this deity’s] qualities to be present in the candidate, or, for those desirous of liberation, [join him] in Śiva. He should establish the [regent] who is at the top of the [respective] path,²⁴ together with his powers, recite the OṂ at the end of the mantra, and then join [him with the deity], while remaining untouched by unmeritorious [karma].²⁵

However, the Mṛgendra goes even further than the Svacchanda and makes explicit that this procedure can also be applied in case a candidate wishes to be united with a non-Śaiva brahmanical deity:

In exactly the same way (evam eva), [the Guru] may guide a devotee to union [with a deity such as] Ambikā, Sūrya, Smara, Viṣṇu or Brahmā, after having purified that path [up to the cosmic level of the desired deity] [of all bad karma]. And the same procedure (evam eva hi) [is applicable] for any other deity that is on the path [that the devotee wishes to be united with].²⁶

As for the mode of religious practice of the lokadharmī, we learn in the Caryāpāda of the Mṛgendra that the lokadharmī is avrata,²⁷ presumably referring to his not being able to perform religious observances involving propitiation of mantras, just as we have seen in the Svacchanda.

Aside from the Svacchanda and the Mṛgendra, there is one more scripture that features the lokadharmiṇī as a type of Sādhaka initiation, namely the Tantrasadbhāva. However, this scripture does not provide any details concerning the lokadharmiṇī; it mentions this initiatory category only for the sake of completeness while introducing the śivadharmiṇī dīkṣā, here also called vidyādīkṣā,²⁸ as the initiation undertaken by the Śaiva Sādhaka before receiving consecration.²⁹

The lokadharmiṇī/śivadharmiṇī distinction between Sādhaka initiations is carried over into Abhinavagupta’s early-11th-century Tantrāloka,³⁰ since Abhinavagupta incorporates the Svacchanda passage into his work, somewhat modified.³¹ However, Abhinavagupta does not deal with the śivadharmī/lokadharmī Sādhaka distinction beyond quoting this passage. On the other hand, Jayaratha returns to this division among bubhukṣus in his commentary on the 13th chapter, which is dedicated to the different degrees of śaktipāta, the descent of Śiva’s divine power upon souls, which causes them to seek initiation. In this chapter, Abhinavagupta ranks the intensity of śaktipāta, relating each degree—from highest, middle, and lowest, each further divided into three levels—to a certain kind of initiatory category. The principle is that the more intense the descent of power, the more immediate is the candidate’s final liberation; and by this criteria he is to receive the appropriate form of initiation.³² On this scale, the enjoyment-seeking bubhukṣu is at the lower end, but Abhinavagupta himself does not make explicit how he correlates different degrees of śaktipāta to the śivadharmī and lokadharmī initiates. Rather, he restricts himself to the bubhukṣu, assigning the middle (madhya-madhya śaktipāta) and lower levels (manda-madhya śaktipāta) of the middling kind of śaktipāta to two unspecified categories thereof. Of those, the middle level is for the bubhukṣu who attains Śivahood after enjoying the siddhis of his respective tattva,³³ and the lower level for the bubhukṣu who enjoys siddhis in his subsequent rebirth and only attains union with Śiva after that.³⁴ In his analysis of this chapter, Takashima (1992, 73) points out that the śivadharmiṇī and the lokadharmiṇī division would fit these two respective levels well, yet Jayaratha’s commentary nonetheless interprets these differently. He instead equates the two levels of bubhukṣu with two levels of the śivadharmī Sādhaka, a distinction encountered in the Mṛgendra passage above, which spoke of an ordinary Sādhaka and one who retains his body until the time of cosmic dissolution.³⁵ It is of course not clear whether Jayaratha had precisely this distinction in mind, but be that as it may, by assigning these two levels to the śivadharmiṇī category, Jayaratha frees up the category of the lokadharmī Sādhaka to cover the three remaining, lowest levels of śaktipāta, which are concerned appropriately with practices focused on worldly enjoyments.³⁶ In order to create three levels of lokadharmī, he uses the following distinctions, according to which the way to liberation is increasingly remote: the highest (tīvra-manda śaktipāta) concerns the lokadharmī who automatically attains Śivahood after an interval of of some period, which he spends in a desired cosmic level—a category of lokadharmī Jayaratha equates with the standard form we have so far encountered;³⁷ the second highest (madhya-manda śaktipāta) concerns the lokadharmī who is initiated again in another world before reaching liberation;³⁸ and the third (manda-manda śaktipāta) concerns the lokadharmī who first experiences enjoyments for a very long period, as well as different levels of proximity to the deity (sālokyasāmīpyasāyujyāsādanakrameṇa)³⁹ of the chosen universe, and only then receives initiation again, through which he attains Śivahood.⁴⁰ In creating these different levels, Jayaratha might have had a system similar to the Mṛgendra in mind, where we also found various levels of lokadharmiṇī dīkṣā, whose recipients range from those seeking final liberation to those who want to be united with and experience enjoyments related to a non-Śaiva deity.⁴¹

3 Tracing the Socio-historical Context of the Emergence of the lokadharmiṇī dīkṣā

Thus, to sum up, the following five features consistently appear in descriptions of the lokadharmī initiate:

1. His source of merit lies in lay religion, the lokadharma, namely what is taught in śruti and smṛti.

2. During initiation all the bad karma connected with any level of reality is to be purified, leaving good karma intact to be enjoyed by the initiate.

3. He is not entitled to perform the propitiation of mantras (mantrārādhana).

4. He experiences supernatural powers after death.

5. He can choose whether he eventually attains ultimate liberation, or instead union with any deity of the cosmos he wishes; in the case of the Mṛgendra these include even non-Śaiva, brahmanical deities.

For obvious reasons, this initiatory category is difficult to position within a Śaiva doctrinal framework, for it offers not only enhanced merit through destruction of all bad karma, but also attainment of any cosmic level, including liberation, without the commitment to perform Śaiva ritual with mantras. In this light, even the very label “Sādhaka” to such a candidate appears inappropriate, given the Sādhaka’s paradigmatic association with seeking supernatural attainments through the power of mantras. Perhaps with this hesitation in mind, Kṣemarāja ad Svacchanda 4.85, offers a weak explanation for the lokadharmī being called a Sādhaka, leaning on the meaning of the underlying verbal root “sādh-,” “to be successful, achieve;” he says that the lokadharmī is referred to as a Sādhaka “because he achieves (sādhanāt) the fruit by his pious acts alone.”⁴² One could argue that a stronger reason to refer to the lokadharmī as a Sādhaka is that he will experience supernatural powers, like the Śaiva Sādhaka, except that he does so after death. Yet this addition to the professed outcome of the lokadharmiṇī dīkṣā seems almost to be a doctrinal elaboration added to warrant its place among Sādhaka initiations. Another sign that the lokadharmiṇī dīkṣā held a doctrinally difficult position might be the meager commentary these passages receive. Bhaṭṭa Nārāyaṇakaṇṭha, for instance, restricts himself to rather self-explanatory comments on the entire lokadharmiṇī passage in the Mṛgendra.

Regardless of this awkward near-silence, at least for these scriptural sources and Kashmirian Śaiva authors, such an initiatory category appears to have been a social reality that needed to be accommodated and acknowledged. In addition to the sources discussed, the lokadharmiṇī/śivadharmiṇī distinction also features in a fourteenth century Kashmirian initiation manual, the Kalādīkṣāpaddhati of Mānodatta,⁴³ and Kṣemarāja introduces these initiatory categories into his commentary on the Netratantra, even though the root text itself does not contain them.⁴⁴ Additionally, we have seen how Jayaratha uses the category of the lokadharmī Sādhaka to speak of initiates who pursue mundane spiritual goals, giving the impression that there exists a wide range of lokadharmī initiates with different degrees of involvement in the Śaiva religion, similar to the model in the Mṛgendra.

However, the question remains why such an initiatory category, which seems so counter-intuitive and difficult to justify doctrinally, came into existence in the first place. From a socio-historical perspective, the creation of a bubhukṣu-orientated exoteric form of Śaiva initiation appears to be connected to the position of tantric communities in an early phase, when the sphere of the power-seeking practitioner had a more prominent role. Brunner (1975, 439) long ago noted that the Svacchanda and the Mṛgendra—both of which contain the lokadharmiṇī, as we have seen—appear to preserve a comparatively prominent position for the power-seeking Sādhaka, which she suspects harkens back to an early phase of the tantric traditions, when the gulf between soteriological and power-orientated goals was not so vast. Her hypothesis finds confirmation in findings of the past decade, particularly those resulting from study of the Niśvāsatattvasaṃhitā (Goodall et al. 2015). As the earliest extant Śaiva tantra, the Niśvāsa affords important insights into the early stages of the “tantric age,”⁴⁵ particularly in that—as Goodall points out—it envisages a time when tantric communities appear to have been restricted to limited esoteric circles⁴⁶ with much focus on the propitiation of mantras for magical purposes, which were pursued prior to liberation. He further observes that the classical fourfold hierarchy of Samayin, Putraka, Ācārya and Sādhaka is entirely absent at this stage, with all practitioners simply referred to as Sādhakas—a category of initiates associated with the utilization of mantras for both supernatural powers and liberation. The community had not yet been divided into those who sought one to the exclusion of the other.⁴⁷ That the pursuit of power and soteriological goals belonged to the same spiritual path is reflected in the Niśvāsa’s initiation system, which teaches rites of two types, namely vidyādīkṣā,⁴⁸ through which a candidate is admitted to the community and becomes a Sādhaka with authority to propitiate mantras, and the muktidīkṣā, through which the confirmed Sādhaka attains liberation.⁴⁹ Of neither initiation is there an exoteric form at this stage.⁵⁰

Theoretical repercussions caused by separating the liberation- and power-seekers’ goals are visible, for instance, in the ambiguous treatment of karma’s elimination during the initiation ritual for the Śaiva Sādhaka.⁵¹ Nevertheless, we find that the status and centrality of the “original” Sādhaka’s position and practices are preserved in most early tantric scriptures, even after the community came to be divided into different initiatory ranks, and centered around the Ācārya and liberation-seekers. It is tempting to conclude that the creation of the lokadharmiṇī dīkṣā is directly connected to this early sphere of tantric religion, which put so much emphasis on the pursuit of magical powers and benefits. While in due course Śaiva literature grew to put more emphasis on the soteriological aspirations of the mumukṣu—reflected in the fact that the soteriological-orientated nirbījā dīkṣā has a more prominent role—the attraction of the powers and benefits gained through mantras must nonetheless have played an important role in the initial popularization of tantric groups. For the lokadharmiṇī dīkṣā would hold obvious attractions for laypeople desiring to enhance the fruits of their current practice without committing to the disciplinary regimen of tantric Śaiva ritual. Another appealing aspect may have been that through this initiation, a lokadharmī became part of the initiatory community and perhaps privy to services accessible only to initiates, especially those offered by Śaiva Sādhakas. That broadening access to initiation may have played an important role in popularizing tantric Śaivism at an early stage is suggested by the fact that the Mṛgendra extends the scope of the lokadharmiṇī dīkṣā to those who are not even Śiva-worshippers, people who may nonetheless have desired specific services distinctive to the Śaiva tantric domain. However, the doctrinally awkward position of the lokadharmī Sādhaka, combined with the increasing emphasis on purely soteriological goals, may have led to the gradual oblivion of this category, causing its reassignment in later sources, as will be seen below.

4 The lokadharmiṇī dīkṣā in the Context of the nirvāṇadīkṣā

The two other early Śaiva scriptures which make a distinction between śivadharmiṇī and lokadharmiṇī initiations are the Jayadrathayāmala⁵² and the rather later Bṛhatkālottara, both composed after the Svacchanda, and in the latter case certainly after the Mṛgendra as well. However, in both of these works the association of these initiatory categories with the Sādhaka gets lost; they become reassigned to the context of nirvāṇadīkṣā, the initiation for those seeking liberation rather than supernatural powers and enjoyments. However, unlike the Bṛhatkālottara, the Jayadrathayāmala preserves in part the original logic of karma-elimination seen in the bubhukṣu category of lokadharmiṇī dīkṣā, despite this reassignment.

In the Jayadrathayāmala we find both of the initiatory categories in question—here referred to as śivadharmadīkṣā and lokadharmadīkṣā—in the description of initiation types⁵³ outlined in the first ṣaṭka. This is the portion of the text which Sanderson (2007, 235–236) identifies as its oldest layer, deriving originally from a work called the Śiraścheda. Unlike the Svacchanda and Mṛgendra, the Jayadrathayāmala does not here employ the broad division between the mumukṣu and bubhukṣu in its exposition of initiatory categories, but rather makes a distinction between an initiation that bestows adhikāra, that is to say the authority to perform certain rituals,⁵⁴ and those that bestow liberation (mokṣadā).⁵⁵ In presenting the latter, the nirvāṇadīkṣā, the Jayadrathayāmala teaches the following options:⁵⁶ (1) the śivadharmadīkṣā, (2) the lokadharmadīkṣā, and (3) the kṣipraghnī, which appears to be a synonym of the sadyonirvāṇadīkṣā (i.e. “the initiation that instantly grants liberation”). Of those, the śivadharmadīkṣā is defined as twofold, namely sabījā (i.e. with the seed of post-initatory practice) and nirbījā (i.e. without the seed of post-initatory practice), which amounts to the bifurcation we typically expect of nirvāṇadīkṣā. The śivadharmadīkṣā initiate therefore attains liberation at death, either with the stipulation to perform post-initiatory rites (sabījā) or without this stipulation (nirbījā). The lokadharmadīkṣā variations, on the other hand, lead to liberation only after the initiate has enjoyed the merit earned through his mundane ritual practice. In this category, two versions are taught: first is the lokadharmiṇī kind, which we have already encountered in the Svacchanda, Mṛgendra and Tantrāloka, namely an initiation involving the elimination of all bad karma, leaving meritorious karma in place to be enjoyed before the eventual attainment of liberation. The second appears to be a version of the lokadharmadīkṣā in which only the impure universe is purified, the idea being that the initiate will go to some segment of the pure universe after death.⁵⁷ While our sources discussed so far did not teach such a variation of the lokadharmiṇī, we did see that the Mṛgendra and Jayaratha conceived of different levels of lokadharmī practice, the latter even adding a level in which the lokadharmī is reborn and then initiated again on another cosmic level.⁵⁸ The śivadharmadīkṣā and the lokadharmadīkṣā thus differ broadly from each other in that the former bestows spiritual liberation through the power of Śaiva ritual alone, being opposed to the worldly practice (i.e. mokṣvāptikarī yā tu lokācāraviparyayāt | śivadharmā smṛtā dīkṣā), while in the latter brahmanical ritual acts as the source of the immediate spiritual benefit, even though—as in the earlier cases—the power of initiation eventually brings about union with a deity on some or another cosmic level. That in the Jayadrathayāmala too this category holds a doctrinally awkward position can perhaps be inferred by the need the redactors felt to stress that the lokadharmadīkṣā is indeed a Śaiva ritual (Jayadrathayāmala, Ṣaṭka 1, 13.12).⁵⁹

In the case of the Bṛhatkālottara, the śivadharmiṇī/lokadharmiṇī terminology makes only a brief appearance. So far I have only been able to locate a single passage featuring this distinction, at the end of the chapter on initiation.⁶⁰ Here too these categories are not used in the context of the Sādhaka or bubhukṣu, but feature rather as variations of the nirvāṇadīkṣā. In contrast to the Jayadrathayāmala, the pair is used to describe the nirbījā dīkṣā and sabījā dīkṣā, respectively, and in the case of the lokadharmiṇī, there is no reference to the elimination of bad karma alone. What is curious is that the text, as preserved in the manuscript available to me, equates nirbījā dīkṣā with the śivadharmiṇī and sabījā with the lokadharmiṇī.⁶¹ This seems counterintuitive, since in all the classifications we have seen the sabījā is the initiation after which a candidate is obliged to observe Śaiva post-initiatory rites (samayas) until death, whereas in the nirbījā case, the initiate is free of this obligation and maintains his ritual obligations in accordance with his position in society. It is tempting to conjecture that the transmission of the text is simply wrong at this point—that we should emend the order so that the nirbījā is equated with lokadharmiṇī and the sabījā with śivadharmiṇī. However, this remains conjectural, and a more thorough study of the initiatory categories will require critically editing at least this portion of the text. Nevertheless, what we can extract for our discussion is that here the classification is associated neither with the Sādhaka, nor with the “karma logic” of the lokadharmiṇī dīkṣā found in the Jayadrathayāmala.

5 Pre-13th Century Saiddhāntika Manuals: Householders versus Ascetics

Labels for the initiation categories śivadharmiṇī and lokadharmiṇī are carried over into the Saiddhāntika manuals, though differently and inconsistently reassigned by various sources, and with weak links to the original Sādhaka context. The following surveys early Saiddhāntika manuals, with particular focus on the earlier sources, but is not exhaustive. Noticeably, the influential Somaśambhupaddhati, also called the Kriyākāṇḍakramāvalī, of Somaśambhu does not teach a mundane form of the sādhakadīkṣā, nor does it include lokadharmiṇī among the mumukṣu options; rather, the text speaks of the Śaiva Sādhaka receiving, as in the sources discussed earlier, a modified form of the nirvāṇadīkṣā right before his consecration to office.⁶² However, in the description of the sabījā nirvāṇadīkṣā, at the point when karmas are emplaced upon the pāśasūtra—representing all reality levels of the cosmos, which will be burnt and destroyed in the consecrated fire—the Somaśambhupaddhati presents various options for the karma that can be exempted from purification, namely the prārabdhakarma, the karma for mantrasiddhi, and the karma that results from meritorious acts, comparable to those of the lay devotee. While Somaśambhu himself does not explicitly correlate these options to specific initiation types, we may note that the latter two categories of karma, to be exempted for purification in certain circumstances, correspond to the procedures we have seen envisaged for the śivadharmiṇī initiation for the Śaiva Sādhaka, and the lokadharmiṇī initiation, respectively. In fact, in his commentary on this passage, Trilocana explicitely assigns these categories accordingly.⁶³

Another manual from this period is the Vimalāvatī of Vimalaśiva, who composed his work in 1101/2 and lived in Vārāṇasī (Sanderson 2014, 22). Vimalaśiva explicitly uses the categories of śivadharmiṇī and lokadharmiṇī; and though he partly draws on the passage from the Mṛgendra examined earlier, he does not assign these to different kinds of Sādhaka, but rather assigns the śivadharmiṇī initiation to the Putraka and Ācārya—a feature we also see in the Ajitāgama⁶⁴—and the lokadharmiṇī simply to the Sādhaka devoted to meritorious action.⁶⁵ However, it appears that in this passage the allocation of initiation categories has gone awry, such that the Śaiva Sādhaka is missing, unless the reason for this omission is the actual disappearance of the Sādhaka from medieval South-India.

Jñānaśiva wrote his Jñānaratnāvalī also while residing in Vārāṇasī, probably some decades later.⁶⁶ In his application of the śivadharmiṇī/lokadharmiṇī terminology he seems to be the most innovative of Saiddhāntika authors in this period. He also quotes sources for this classification that have yet to be identified. Jñānaśiva uses this terminology to denote divisions of the nirvāṇadīkṣā—that is to say, the full regular Śaiva initiation—in essence in order to distinguish, broadly, between initiations performed for the ascetic practitioner, here the śivadharmī, and those for the householder practitioner, here the lokadharmī.⁶⁷ The actual procedures for the śivadharmiṇī and lokadharmiṇī initiations are the same, being those for the nirvāṇadīkṣā, with only one difference: for the śivadharmī, the topknot is cut off during the initiation, while for the lokadharmī it is not.⁶⁸ The topknot is believed to contain the rodhaśakti,⁶⁹ that is to say the power to delude the soul,⁷⁰ which is apparently eliminated by cutting the topknot off in the case of the ascetic. This is not done for the lokadharmī, who, after all, is by definition still engaged in worldly activity. In terms of post-initiatory practice prescribed for the lokadharmī initiate, the Jñānaratnāvalī differs from the earlier scriptural sources discussed in the first part of the paper, in which an initiate who received a lokadharmiṇī or lokadharmadīkṣā was only required to continue his ritual obligations of the brahmanical ritual sphere (the lokadharma), without Śaiva-specific additions. In the Jñānaratnāvalī, however, we have seen that the lokadharmiṇī is clearly defined as a form of nirvāṇadīkṣā, which—unless otherwise specified—is of the sabījā kind. Thus, the significance here is that the initiate retains his socio-religious status in mundane society (lokadharma) as a householder and keeps up these practices in addition to his Śaiva post-initiatory ritual obligations, a principle that is already expressed in early Śaiva sources.⁷¹ There is no mention of the procedure to eliminate only the bad karma linked to all reality levels, which we have seen associated with the lokadharmiṇī dīkṣā.

However, while this seems to be the underlying basic division of the nirvāṇadīkṣā in the Jñānaratnāvalī, these distinctions subsequently become entangled with aspects of the śivadharmiṇī and lokadharmiṇī initiations stemming from their original Sādhaka context. This happens in the context of creating sub-categories for both the śivadharmiṇī and lokadharmiṇī categories, based on a division between those who desire something (sakāma), i.e. what would otherwise be called the bubhukṣu, and those who do not desire anything except liberation (akāma, niṣkāma), i.e. the mumukṣu. For ascetic practitioners, the śivadharmiṇī is divided into kinds for temporary ascetics (bhautika) and permanent ascetics (naiṣṭḥika),⁷² and each of these is further divided into the sakāma and niṣkāma type.⁷³ In the case of the naiṣṭhikī sakāmā initiation, the initiate is promised enjoyments of the pure universe, after which he is to attain liberation.⁷⁴ The naiṣṭhikī niṣkāmā initiation, on the other hand, bestows liberation immediately. On the division of the bhautikī into sakāmā and niṣkāmā types, Jñānaśiva quotes the first two verses of a passage from the Mṛgendra, which mentions that there are two types of bhautikī dīkṣā, the superior and the inferior, the first being śivadharmiṇī and the second being the lokadharmiṇī type.⁷⁵ However, since Jñānaśiva uses these as sub-categories of the śivadharmiṇī, this is not the way in which he wants the Mṛgendra to be understood; rather, the prose after the quotation explains that the difference lies in the sakāmā entailing purification of the impure universe only up to māyā, thus providing enjoyments within the sphere of the pure universe; the niṣkāmā type, however, entails purification of all levels of the universe, and the initiate thus attains liberation at death.⁷⁶ If we are to understand these as two sub-categories of the temporary ascetic, the second type makes little sense, a confusion that is probably caused by the terminology bhautikī and naiṣṭḥikī dīkṣā in the Mṛgendra, where the terms are not, in turn, synonyms of the bhautikavrata and naiṣṭhikavrata,⁷⁷ as they are understood in the Jñānaratnāvalī.⁷⁸

The lokadharmiṇī dīkṣā, in turn, is divided into superior (para) and inferior (apara) forms. Of those, the superior version is what we expect of the nirvāṇadīkṣā, with all karma but the prārabdha destroyed, the candidate thus being united with Śiva at the end of the initiation ritual in anticipation of his ultimate liberation at the time of death.⁷⁹ The inferior form is assigned to an initiation in which only bad karma is destroyed, thus the version of the lokadharmiṇī dīkṣā seen in the Svacchanda and the Mṛgendra.⁸⁰ Jñānaśiva even quotes a verse which is shared with or probably original to the Mṛgendra, though embedded in a quotation from a different, unidentified text, which reiterates that the initiate can be united with the deity of his choice at the end of the initiation ritual.⁸¹ However, what is not made explicit in any of these passages is what the practice after initiation consists of; since both of them are sabījadīkṣās, we expect some form of post-initiatory practice to be applicable, which is fitting for the superior kind, but not for the inferior kind, as we have seen it so far. But given the context, we can probably assume that the intention is the same as it was in the original context, namely that the initiate of the lower (apara) form simply follows his lokadharma after initiation. However, it is difficult to know whether this reflects actual practice—that is, whether this categorization intimates the convention of giving initiation even to lay worshippers of non-Śaiva deities—or whether this is an artificial distinction created in the process of accounting for the Mṛgendra’s shared terminology. Another place where Jñānaśiva invokes the śivadharmiṇī/lokadharmiṇī distinction is regarding the post-funerary śrāddha rituals, which vary according to initiatory types. Here, the mode of śrāddha for the śivadharmī appears to be that which is intended for ascetic initiates, while that for the lokadharmī is for householder initiates, thus being consistent with the basic distinction Jñānaśiva sets up in the beginning of the initiation section (Mirnig 2013, 292–295).

The Jñānaratnāvalī’s innovative application of the śivadharmiṇī/lokadharmiṇī terminology led to some interpretative confusion and inconsistencies in subsequent classifications,⁸² perhaps especially since the influential Somaśambhupaddhati does not mention this division of initiatory categories.⁸³ Thus Trilocana, for instance, who is a student of Jñānaśiva and wrote a commentary on the Kriyākāṇḍakramāvalī, when commenting on the initiation categories taught there, fits the śivadharmiṇī and lokadharmiṇī initiations into Somaśambhu’s system under the category of sāpekṣā initiation, even incorporating such details as the difference in cutting or not cutting off the topknot.⁸⁴ However, he runs into difficulties when mapping the initiatory categories onto the various forms of śrāddha, which differ according to the initiate’s spiritual status during his lifetime (Mirnig 2013, 296).

This distinctive idea that the topknot is be to cut off in the case of the śivadharmiṇī initiation, but not in the lokadharmiṇī, is carried over into subsequent sources that include these categories in their initiatory classifications. Thus, the Siddhāntaśekhara (18–22b)⁸⁵ of Viśvanātha, who wrote in Vārāṇasī in the first half of the thirteenth century (Sanderson 2014, 23), in essence teaches a structure similar to the Jñānaratnāvalī, with the śivadharmiṇī and lokadharmiṇī being the broad divisions of sabījā initiation, except that the lokadharmiṇī is not further divided; the śivadharmiṇī, in contrast, is divided into naiṣṭhikī and bhautikī varieties, but there is no further division into sakāma and niṣkāma kinds.⁸⁶

Even this brief survey of some early-medieval South-Indian sources, written some centuries after the sriptural material discussed in the first part of the paper, shows that there was no fixed consensus on what the different initiatory categories covered exactly; the same elements appear in various places, assembled together differently.⁸⁷ What the sources share, however, is that these categories are no longer in any case associated with the bubhukṣu category.

6 Conclusion

The material reviewed above allows us to trace how the emergence and development of the lokadharmiṇī initiation are linked to larger developments in tantric Śaiva history. To sum up: the initial stage appears to reflect an early phase of tantric Śaivism, when the power- and enjoyment-seeking aspects of tantric practice held a comparatively prominent role. It seems that the lokadharmiṇī dīkṣā was created in this milieu in order to extend the benefits and services of the tantric repertoire to various groups within the brahmanical mainstream, in this way appealing to the ordinary lay worshipper, who was perhaps attracted by the magical and merit-enhancing aspects of the religion but did not want to commit to the ritual life of a tantric practitioner. This initial function aligns with a gradual process of professionalization within tantric Śaiva communities, bridging the gap between esoteric practitioners and the laity. In this matter they followed in the footsteps of the Atimārga, for epigraphical evidence attests to members of these Śaiva ascetic initiatory circles serving as religious officiants for lay practitioners from as early as the fourth century (Sanderson 2013).⁸⁸ However, at the same time, the Sādhaka form of lokadharmiṇī dīkṣā is found only in the Svacchanda, Mṛgendra, and the Tantrasadbhāva, suggesting that in the broader Śaiva tantric world—apart from Kashmir—its function was of marginal or no importance, a circumstance likely contributing to its disappearance from subsequent sources.

We have seen that in other sources using the lokadharmiṇī category, this was reassigned to the sphere of the liberation-seeker. This allocation, in turn, may be correlated with two further developments. Firstly, increasing emphasis was given to the liberation-seeking aspect of the religion, a development that in the South culminates in the disappearance of the figure of the Śaiva Sādhaka, as Brunner (1974, 440) observes. Consequently, retention of an exoteric form of the enjoyment-seeker category may have gradually become obsolete. Secondly, we know that tantric Śaivism was successful in gradually adapting to the ritual needs of the brahmanical mainstream, even to the point of incorporating its practices within the tantric ritual repertoire, so that full initiation also became available to brahmanical householders, giving them unrestricted access to the religion.⁸⁹ This development is reflected in the use of the category lokadharmiṇī dīkṣā in the 12th-century Jñānaratnāvalī, where it is prescribed for precisely those householder initiates who had full access to the tantric repertoire but maintained their position and brahmanical ritual obligations in society (the lokadharma). Again, the need for a lokadharmiṇī dīkṣā, which made the bubhukṣu aspect of the religion more accessible and may originally have been a catalyst for outreach, may thereby have become less meaningful. The increasingly large-scale inclusion of the brahmanical mainstream from this time onwards is also visible in other areas of ritual, especially in South-Indian sources. Thus, for instance, we find the emergence of literature on penance rites regulating social interactions, such as the two works known as Prāyaścittasamuccaya by Hṛdayaśiva and Trilocana, respectively, the latter having been edited and translated by Sathyanarayanan (2015). In his introduction to this volume, Dominic Goodall draws attention to the socially all-encompassing nature of the work, showing how its prescriptions include even women as part of the community, and how the focus shifts to public temple ritual.⁹⁰ Goodall also points out another change within these tantric traditions, which we may find reflected in the history of the lokadharmiṇī dīkṣā, namely that along with these developments the goal of individual liberation gradually waned in importance. He observes also that the “colonization by the Śaiva Siddhānta of many large South Indian temples, and the dominance of Vedāntic non-dualism appear to have diminished the significance of ritual salvific dīkṣā.”⁹¹ As the tradition’s focus shifted from individual to public ritual life, it may be this waning importance of dīkṣā’s salvific function that has contributed to the confusion evident in Saiddhāntika manuals concerning how to categorize the lokadharmiṇī and śivadharmiṇī dīkṣās. The dominant concern in allocating these initation types eventually became simply to differentiate the householder initiate from the ascetic, rather than to distinguish the spiritual goals attained through various initiations. This usage of the terminology is far removed from its original purpose: designating special types of tantric intiation for those seeking powers, access to higher cosmic realms, and, ultimately, liberation.

Acknowledgements

I am very grateful to Shaman Hatley for his careful reading and extremely helpful comments, suggestions and edits of the text.