Chapter One: The Daily Lesson

original: "Prathamāhnikam"

Some come and go, while others stay; some are ignorant, and others are envious.

Some are full of doubt. What can I say of those listeners who have not even arrived? ||5||

Because the deep meaning—sweet with the skill of my own heart—is not heard [properly] by others, my mind wavers, even though this work is filled with profound intent. ||6||

Whatever unconstrained power shines forth here, though it exceeds my own share of strength, it is but the expansion of the Great Bliss mahānanda|The supreme state of aesthetic and spiritual rapture in Kashmir Shaivism of the Venerable Supreme Lord. ||7||

Now, indeed, at the very beginning of this treatise, the author contemplates the appropriate Chosen Deity iṣṭadevatā|A personal or preferred deity invoked for the success of a task through an extraordinary blessing. This blessing encapsulates the essence of the Six-and-a-half-fold Scripture original: "ṣaḍardha-śāstra"; a traditional name for the Trika system of Tantra that is about to be explained:

The Mother is the great support of pure arts and fresh creation,

And the Father, whose body is full, has his radiance hidden within five faces.

May my heart—which is the Lineage of the Nectar of the Unsurpassable

anuttarāmṛta-kula|A technical term for the supreme reality that is both 'beyond' (anuttara) and 'embodied' or 'familial' (kula)—

consisting of the creative emission of reality flashing from the union of those two, shine forth!

||1||

Line 2: In manuscript 'Kha', the reading is "he should say" original: "brūyāt" instead of "should I say."