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This dictionary is not in the treatise. It is compiled from those very Sanskrit annotations
that appear in parentheses next to each Russian word: annotations in the translation of the analysis
2 232, and at the top by frequency, as always, function words — iti, eva,
tad, ca. Here is left what the reader stumbles over.
Whose work this is. Kṣemarāja’s analysis has been translated for this site: the source has no Russian version, only English. But the twenty sūtras themselves are a translation by Gabriel Pradīpaka, taken ready-made from him, from the page of the twenty sūtras. The Sanskrit — in Devanāgarī and transliteration — is also his. The interpretations in this dictionary were written here and are not presented as his words.
This book has its own list, not shared with its neighbors, and this was decided by measurement.
«Tantrasāra» takes its vocabulary from
«Tantrāloka» entirely — the book is the same, condensed by the same
author. Here the author is different, Kṣemarāja, and the book is different: of the one hundred twenty
chapters of «Tantrāloka» thirty do not occur in it at all — the entire ritual, —
and its most frequent word, citi, is entirely absent from that vocabulary.
The margin here is twenty times smaller than that of the “Tantrāloka,” and the last column rests on a fine count: for some articles, the reference comes out as one, not three. This is not a malfunction, but all that the book says about the word.
The reverse path also exists: a Sanskrit word in the translation’s interlinear gloss leads here by itself.
The ♪ button pronounces the term. The sound is synthesized in advance from the Devanagari spelling using the voice Lekha (hi_IN) — this is not a recording of a reader and not a reference for pronunciation: be careful with aspirated, retroflex, and long vowels.
The voice reads according to the rules of Hindi, and Hindi swallows the final short “a”:
शिव he pronounced “śiv”. Therefore, to a word ending in a consonant, a
visarga is appended — and the voice pronounces the nominative case, śivaḥ, by which the word is
named aloud. The only price for this is: at the end a slight aspiration is heard,
which is not present in the spelling above the button.
Voice:
| Term | Sanskrit | Devanāgarī | Meaning | Where in the text |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Citi | citi | चिति | Consciousness taken as Power: the very word with which the book opens. Not “consciousness of something,” but self-luminous, free, and therefore capable of unfolding the universe from itself. | 1 · 14 · 19 |
| Cit | cit | चित् | Consciousness as such — the Light in which everything appears. citi is the same thing, named from the side of Power. | 12 · 16 · 4 |
| Saṁvid | saṁvid | संविद् | Awareness — Consciousness taken as that by which any thing at all is something for someone. In Kṣemarāja this same word also stands in the place of the Highest. | 1 · 20 · 8 |
| Prakāśa | prakāśa | प्रकाश | Light: that by which a thing is manifested at all. Without entering into it, says Kṣemarāja, nothing can be manifested. | 1 · 20 · 3 |
| Vimarśa | vimarśa | विमर्श | the Light’s response to itself — that by which the Light knows that it is. The pair to prakāśa, and they are not two. | 1 · 12 · 20 |
| Ahantā | ahantā | अहन्ता | I-consciousness — not self-conceit, but that “I” in which every experience rests. Full I-consciousness (pūrṇāhantā) is the fruit of the whole book. | 19 · 20 · 3 |
| Ānanda | ānanda | आनन्द | Bliss — not joy about something, but that by which fullness feels itself. | beg. · 18 · 20 |
| Camatkāra | camatkāra | चमत्कार | Wonder: that taste with which Consciousness recognises itself — as one starts on recognising a long-familiar face. | 11 · 12 · 20 |
| Sphurattā | sphurattā | स्फुरत्ता | a flashing, a trembling of the Light — Consciousness taken as living, not as a motionless ground. | 12 · 20 · 3 |
| Śakti | śakti | शक्ति | The Power of God, His I-Consciousness. In Kṣemarāja it is also citi: Śiva without Power manifests nothing, and there is no difference between them. | 12 · 18 · 9 |
| Svātantrya | svātantrya | स्वातन्त्र्य | Absolute Freedom: that by which Consciousness depends on nothing — and by which it is free to bind itself. | 1 · 8 · 9 |
| Icchā | icchā | इच्छा | Will — the first of the three Powers: will, knowledge, action. | 10 · 2 · 9 |
| Jñāna | jñāna | ज्ञान | Knowledge as the Power of God — and the knowledge of an individual person, when the same Power is contracted. | 18 · 20 · 5 |
| Kriyā | kriyā | क्रिया | Action — the third Power: that by which God not only knows, but also does. | 12 · 18 · 20 |
| Śiva | śiva | शिव | God as the resting side of Reality — the Light of Consciousness, not different from His own Power. The book ends with the words “iti śivam”: “thus, everything is Śiva.” | 20 · 3 · 7 |
| Bhairava | bhairava | भैरव | the name of the Highest Lord in Trika: He who holds the universe, bears it, and draws it back in. | 12 · 18 · 20 |
| Parameśvara | parameśvara | परमेश्वर | “Highest Lord” — God taken as the master of manifestation. | beg. · 20 · 3 |
| Bhagavatī | bhagavatī | भगवती | “Blessed One,” “Mistress” — Power named as a person; in the masculine, bhagavat, “Blessed Lord.” | 1 · 10 · 12 |
| Anuttara | anuttara | अनुत्तर | “that above which there is nothing”: the Highest Reality — and the sound “a,” with which the alphabet begins and in which the universe comes to rest. | 1 · 20 |
| Sadāśiva | sadāśiva | सदाशिव | the third tattva: the stage where the universe is already visible, but as a vague “this,” covered by “I.” | 1 · 15 · 3 |
| Anāśritaśiva | anāśritaśiva | अनाश्रितशिव | “Śiva supported by nothing” — the moment when the universe is not yet manifested and unity with Consciousness is not visible even to Him: an emptiness emptier than emptiness. | 4 · 5 |
| Term | Sanskrit | Devanāgarī | Meaning | Where in the text |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Saṅkoca | saṅkoca | सङ्कोच | contraction: that by which boundless Consciousness becomes this, particular. Not damage and not loss — a device of its own Freedom. The book’s main word along with citi. | 4 · 5 · 9 |
| Vikāsa | vikāsa | विकास | unfolding — the pair to contraction. Liberation here is described precisely as the unfolding of the middle, not as arrival somewhere else. | 10 · 17 · 18 |
| Prathā | prathā | प्रथा | spreading out: how Consciousness lays itself outward. The verb prathate — “spreads out” — and by it Kṣemarāja describes every appearance. | 11 · 12 · 20 |
| Ābhāsa | ābhāsa | आभास | appearance — a thing taken as that by which it shines in Consciousness, not as something standing outside it. | 10 · 11 · 15 |
| Svarūpa | svarūpa | स्वरूप | one’s own essential nature — that which a being has always been and which is hidden from it. svabhāva — the same thing in another word. | 12 · 19 · 20 |
| Viśrānti | viśrānti | विश्रान्ति | repose — not rest after work, but that into which every movement comes and in which it holds. Utpaladeva says: the repose of all experience in oneself is what is called “I.” | 1 · 20 · 8 |
| Bala | bala | बल | Strength — that by grasping which mantras do their work; and that, having acquired which, a person makes the universe like himself. | 11 · 12 · 15 |
| Unmeṣa | unmeṣa | उन्मेष | “opening of the eyes”: the moment in which Consciousness opens outward. Its pair is nimeṣa, closing. | 18 · 2 · 20 |
| Term | Sanskrit | Devanagari | Meaning | Where in the text |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Viśva | viśva | विश्व | universe — everything from Sadāśiva to the earth element. For Kṣemarāja it is not made of something, but unfolded on the very canvas of Consciousness. | 20 · 3 · 4 |
| Jagat | jagat | जगत् | world — the same universe, taken as moving and living. | 1 · 16 · 2 |
| Tattva | tattva | तत्त्व | principle, "that-ness": a stage of Reality. There are thirty-six of them, from Śiva to earth; in this book they are counted in the seventh aphorism. | begin. · 4 · 7 |
| Māyā | māyā | माया | not illusion, but the Power of separation: that by which the One manifests itself as many, losing nothing in the process. | 1 · 20 · 3 |
| Kañcuka | kañcuka | कञ्चुक | sheath: five constrictions of omnipotence, omniscience, fullness, eternity and omnipresence — kalā, vidyā, rāga, kāla, niyati. | 7 |
| Kalā | kalā | कला | portion: the sheath that leaves a being with "the ability to do something" instead of omnipotence. Elsewhere — simply "portion", a part. | 1 · 12 · 20 |
| Vidyā | vidyā | विद्या | knowledge — and that tattva, śuddhavidyā, where "I" and "this" still hold together; below māyā it becomes the narrow knowledge of a single person. | 18 · 3 · 5 |
| Prakṛti | prakṛti | प्रकृति | nature — the source of the material world and its three qualities. | 1 · 8 |
| Pāda | pada | पद | "place", stage, state: cetanapada — the level of pure Consciousness, pāśavapada — the state of the bound. | 1 · 10 · 14 |
| Bheda | bheda | भेद | separation, duality — that because of which the universe is seen as many. Its opposite is abheda, non-duality. | 12 · 3 · 9 |
| Abheda | abheda | अभेद | non-duality: not "merging of two", but that there never were two. A pair to bheda. | 12 · 2 · 3 |
| Term | Sanskrit | Devanāgarī | Meaning | Where in the text |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pramātṛ | pramātṛ | प्रमातृ | the knower — the one for whom something exists. Its levels are seven, from Śiva to the bound being. | 14 · 15 · 5 |
| Pramāṇa | pramāṇa | प्रमाण | means of cognition — that by which the knower takes the knowable. | 1 |
| Prameya | prameya | प्रमेय | the knowable — that which is taken. The same word from another side — vedya. | 1 · 12 · 3 |
| Grāhaka | grāhaka | ग्राहक | “the taker” — the knower, taken as the one who grasps. A pair to grāhya, the grasped; their separation makes the universe manifold. | 1 · 3 · 4 |
| Cetana | cetana | चेतन | the conscious one; cetanapada — the level of pure Consciousness, cetya — that which is conscioused by it. | 13 · 4 · 5 |
| Citta | citta | चित्त | mind. The fifth sūtra says the main thing about it: the mind is not something else, but Citi itself, contracted to an object. | 13 · 5 · 6 |
| Buddhi | buddhi | बुद्धि | the discerning faculty: that which decides “this is that.” | 17 · 8 |
| Manas | manas | मनस् | mind as an instrument: that which assembles impressions into an image. | 18 |
| Bodha | bodha | बोध | understanding, wakefulness — Consciousness, taken as that which comprehends. | 20 · 3 |
| Śūnya | śūnya | शून्य | emptiness — a state where there is nothing knowable. Not a goal: even in it, says Kṣemarāja, traces of the mind remain. | 12 · 3 · 4 |
| The term | Sanskrit | Devanāgarī | Meaning | Where in the text |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sakala | sakala | सकल | "with parts" — a bound being who has all three impurities: an ordinary person. | 14 · 18 · 3 |
| Pralayākala | pralayākala | प्रलयाकल | knower of emptiness: one who has no māyic dirt, but who sleeps in dissolution. | 3 |
| Vijñānākala | vijñānākala | विज्ञानाकल | pure Consciousness without action: it retains only the first impurity. Above māyā and below Pure Vidyā. | 3 · 5 · 8 |
| Paśu | paśu | पशु | “cattle” — a bound being taken as tied. Not abuse: the word speaks of bonds, not of worth. Its counterpart — pati, O Lord. | 12 · 17 · 18 |
| Pati | pati | पति | The Lord is the same being, but one that has recognized itself. The state pati and the state paśu differ not by nature, but by whether it is visible. | 12 · 5 |
| Bhūmikā | bhūmikā | भूमिका | "role" — that which the actor plays. The eighth sutra speaks of the philosophical schools: they are all roles of the same Consciousness. | 10 · 12 · 13 |
| Term | Sanskrit | Devanāgarī | Meaning | Where in the text |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mala | mala | मल | dirt, stain: that by which consciousness is closed off from itself. There are three of them, and in the ninth sūtra they are derived from the contraction of the three Powers. | 7 · 9 |
| Āṇava | āṇava | आणव | the first dirt: “I am incomplete.” Not a transgression and not ignorance of something, but the contraction of Will itself. | 7 · 9 |
| Akhyāti | akhyāti | अख्याति | “non-manifestation” — primordial ignorance. Kṣemarāja catches it at its word: if it does not manifest, only knowledge remains; and if it does manifest, then it is knowledge itself that manifests. | 12 · 13 · 4 |
| Vyāmohitatā | vyāmohitatā | व्यामोहितता | being led astray by one’s own powers. The twelfth sūtra says that this is what it means to be a soul in the cycle: not sin and not punishment, but non-recognition. | 12 · 13 |
| Saṁsāra | saṁsāra | संसार | the cycle — not a place, but a state: to be a soul in it means not to know that the five acts are performed by you. | beginning · 12 · 9 |
| Vikalpa | vikalpa | विकल्प | thought, a discriminating notion: “this is not that.” avikalpa — a state where they are absent, and the first of the means of the eighteenth sūtra leads there. | 12 · 18 · 5 |
| Abhimāna | abhimāna | अभिमान | a mistaken notion of oneself: taking the body, breath, or mind for the Self. | 12 · 15 · 20 |
| Saṁskāra | saṁskāra | संस्कार | imprint: the trace of what has been experienced, which will raise it again. By them samādhi is also held in the state after samādhi. | 11 · 14 · 16 |
| Pāśa | pāśa | पाश | fetters. They dissolve not by force, but by the recognition of one’s own nature. | 15 · 16 · 18 |
| Term | Sanskrit | Devanagari | Meaning | Where in the text |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pañcakṛtya | pañcakṛtya | पञ्चकृत्य | fivefold action: manifestation, maintenance, withdrawal, concealment, and grace. The Lord performs them — and everyone performs the same, but does not know it; the whole book rests on knowing this authorship. | 10 · 11 · 12 |
| Sṛṣṭi | sṛṣṭi | सृष्टि | manifestation, emission of the world — the first of the five actions. | 12 · 19 · 20 |
| Sthiti | sthiti | स्थिति | maintenance: that by which what is manifested is held. | 1 · 11 · 8 |
| Saṁhāra | saṁhāra | संहार | withdrawal, dissolution — not destruction, but return into the One who manifested. | 1 · 10 · 12 |
| Vilaya | vilaya | विलय | concealment: the fourth action, by which God hides Himself from Himself. Without it there would be no grace either. | 10 · 11 |
| Anugraha | anugraha | अनुग्रह | grace — the fifth action: that by which He reveals Himself. Here it is described as the disclosure that the thing is one with the Light. | 10 · 11 |
| Kartṛtva | kartṛtva | कर्तृत्व | activity, authorship: that which you do. The limited kiñcitkartṛtva — “ability to do a little” — is omnipotence itself, compressed by the sheath. | 12 · 20 · 9 |
| Devatācakra | devatācakra | देवताचक्र | circle of the deities of Consciousness: the powers of the senses and the mind, taken not as instruments but as deities. Mastery over it is the fruit of the twentieth sūtra. | 12 · 20 |
| Vāmeśvarī | vāmeśvarī | वामेश्वरी | “The Lady who pours forth” — the Power that emits the universe; she also leads by the reverse course out of the cycle. Her four circles are khecarī, gocarī, dikcarī, bhūcarī. | 12 |
| Khecarī | khecarī | खेचरी | “moving in space” — the circle of powers of the knower himself. In the bound one it hides the Heaven of Consciousness, in the free one it reveals. | 12 |
| Gocarī | gocarī | गोचरी | circle of the powers of the soul’s inner instrument — mind, ego, and intellect. | 12 |
| Dikcarī | dikcarī | दिक्चरी | circle of the powers of the outer instrument — the senses, looking to the sides. | 12 |
| Bhūcarī | bhūcarī | भूचरी | circle of the powers of things themselves: that by which objects stand outside and apart — or, in the free one, reveal the Heart. | 12 |
| Term | Sanskrit | Devanāgarī | Meaning | Where in the text |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Deha | deha | देह | body. Not an obstacle: for Kṣemarāja liberation happens in the body, not after it. | 12 · 15 · 20 |
| Prāṇa | prāṇa | प्राण | breath-life — and its ascending current in particular. The fivefold breath: prāṇa, apāna, samāna, udāna, vyāna. | 12 · 16 · 17 |
| Nāḍī | nāḍī | नाडी | channel through which breath flows. The central one is suṣumnā, and the seventeenth sūtra speaks of it as the middle of everything. | 17 · 18 |
| Madhya | madhya | मध्य | middle. For Kṣemarāja this is not a place in the body but Consciousness itself: that innermost to which everything is attached. Its unfolding is the path. | 12 · 17 · 18 |
| Hṛdaya | hṛdaya | हृदय | Heart — not an organ but a center: that to which everything converges and from which everything issues. | beginning · 12 · 18 |
| Dvādaśānta | dvādaśānta | द्वादशान्त | “end of twelve” — a point twelve fingers from the body where breath ends and begins. | 18 |
| Puryaṣṭaka | puryaṣṭaka | पुर्यष्टक | “eightfold aggregate” — the subtle body made of eight: the five subtle elements, intellect, ego, and mind. By it a person is besieged until rooted in the One. | 12 · 20 · 7 |
| Cakra | cakra | चक्र | wheel: both a circle of deities, an assembly of powers, and a center in the body. For Kṣemarāja, more often the former. | 12 · 18 · 20 |
| Term | Sanskrit | Devanāgarī | Meaning | Where in the text |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Upāya | upāya | उपाय | means. The easy means (sukhopāya) is what this book boasts of: a path requiring neither breath retention nor postures. | 1 · 18 · 8 |
| Samāveśa | samāveśa | समावेश | absorption in which the being coincides with Śiva. āveśa is the same word, entering. | beginning · 19 · 20 |
| Samādhi | samādhi | समाधि | concentration. The nineteenth sūtra is about how to make it constant (nityodita) — that is, not to lose it even in the state after it, vyutthāna. | 11 · 16 · 19 |
| Mudrā | mudrā | मुद्रा | seal. bhairavīmudrā — the gaze outward while attention is inward; kramamudrā — the one that encompasses at once the external and the internal and therefore holds samādhi always. | 12 · 18 · 19 |
| Krama | krama | क्रम | succession, sequence — and the name of the school from which Kṣemarāja takes kramamudrā, haṭhapāka and alaṅgrāsa. | 12 · 17 · 19 |
| Haṭhapāka | haṭhapāka | हठपाक | “cooking by force” — a technique of Krama: to hold an object in Consciousness until it becomes equal to it, as food with fire. | 11 |
| Alaṅgrāsa | alaṅgrāsa | अलंग्रास | “absorption to satiety” — a pair to haṭhapāka: the object is absorbed without remainder, and no seed for a new cycle remains. | 11 |
| Bhāvanā | bhāvanā | भावना | contemplative holding in the mind — not imagination, but bringing into being. | 18 |
| Pariśīlana | pariśīlana | परिशीलन | exercise: to discern the same thing again and again until it becomes one’s own. | 10 · 15 · 18 |
| Turya | turya | तुर्य | the “fourth” state — beyond waking, dreaming sleep, and deep sleep. Beyond it is turyātīta, “that which has surpassed the fourth.” | 12 · 18 · 19 |
| Term | Sanskrit | Devanāgarī | Meaning | Where in the text |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pratyabhijñā | pratyabhijñā | प्रत्यभिज्ञा | “recognition”: not the acquisition of something new, but the acknowledgment of what has long been familiar — as one recognizes a face. The name of the books and of the entire school. | beginning · 1 · 18 |
| Mukti | mukti | मुक्ति | Liberation; the same as mokṣa. | 12 · 16 · 4 |
| Jīvanmukti | jīvanmukti | जीवन्मुक्ति | liberation while living: freedom without leaving the body. The sixteenth sūtra is about it alone. | 10 · 12 · 16 |
| Īśvaratā | īśvaratā | ईश्वरता | lordship: mastery over the circle of deities of one’s own Consciousness. That very fruit with which the book ends. | 12 · 18 · 20 |
| Pūrṇatā | pūrṇatā | पूर्णता | fullness — a state in which there is nothing to add and nothing to desire. | 11 · 18 · 20 |
| Bhoga | bhoga | भोग | tasting, enjoyment. In Trika it is not opposed to liberation: the path leads to both. | 1 |
| Siddhi | siddhi | सिद्धि | accomplishment. In the very first sūtra it means not a superpower, but a threefold deed: the manifestation of the world, its sustaining, and its reabsorption. | 1 · 12 |
| Term | Sanskrit | Devanāgarī | Meaning | Where in the text |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Śaktipāta | śaktipāta | शक्तिपात | "descent of Power": the moment when Grace touches a person. Without it, says Kṣemarāja, one's own power will not unfold. | 12 · 20 |
| Guru | guru | गुरु | teacher. The eleventh sūtra ends with the statement that without his instruction the secret course of the five actions opens to no one. | 11 · 12 · 15 |
| Upadeśa | upadeśa | उपदेश | instruction: the oral indication of the teacher, not knowledge gleaned from reading. | beginning · 11 · 12 |
| Bhakti | bhakti | भक्ति | devotion. The book is written for those who have it, but lack the sharp intellect for the "Īśvarapratyabhijñā." | beginning · 10 · 11 |
| Śāstra | śāstra | शास्त्र | scripture, treatise; āgama — transmitted revelation. | beginning · 12 · 4 |
| Sūtra | sūtra | सूत्र | "thread" — a brief saying that does not unfold without commentary. There are twenty of them here. | 12 · 13 · 6 |
| Spanda | spanda | स्पन्द | quiver, vibration: the living tremor of Consciousness taught in the "Spanda-kārikā." Kṣemarāja refers to them most often. | 10 · 16 · 18 |
| Trika | trika | त्रिक | "triad" — the name of the school: Śiva, Śakti, and the bound being, taken as one. | 1 · 8 |