Yoga of Synthesis in Kashmir Shaivam

Author(s): S S Toshkhani
Publisher: S S Toshkhani

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belonging to the realm of 'Pure Creation' come to an end and the domain of Māyā or self-obscuration begins. This is what Dyczkowski calls "the sequence of descent into matter" xxix
Māyā is the principle of limitation and obscuration that separates subject from object, the dotted line below which the "Impure Creation" begins creating contraction and confusion. With Māyā taking the centre stage, Shiva looses his svātantrya or freedom and becomes anu or limited individual with restricted powers of cognition and agency.
It is Shiva himself who though beyond Mäyä initiates this process of self-coagulation (rodhana) as without it cosmic creation is not possible at all. He suffers atomicity of his own free will to become the bound person because he enjoys it as part of His sporting activity, His Lila or play of assuming diverse forms. But even while performing his part as the Cosmic Actor, Shiva remains Shiva, unaffected by limitation.
But the Maya of Kashmir Shaivism is not the Māyā of Advaita Vedānta, an indefinable and inexplicable cosmic principle that creates the world of illusion superimposed on the reality of Brahman. Māyā in Kashmir Shaivism is Shiva's own power of self-limitation that splits universal consciousness into subject and object and creates the delusion of separate identity.
Māyā accomplishes its act of obscuration with the help of sheaths or coverings called kanchukas. These evolutes of Maya are five in number and are called kalā or limited action aptitude, vidya or limited knowledge, räga or feeling of attachment, käla or power of time and niyati or power of natural law. As Māyā plays her part through these pañcha-kanchukas or five powers of obscuration to mask "His undifferentiated luminosity", the Supreme Shiva enters the spatio-temporal sphere of finitude "through myriad diverse manifestations". Forgetting his infinite nature, he becomes the limited individual soul, bound and bereft of the ability to recognize his predicament. The kanchukas, it must be noted, are not ontological but conceptual entities.
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