The Essence of Tantra

of very old Kashmiri paper. It belongs to the collection of books which one Manmōhan Chandra of Srinagar received as a heritage from his ancestors. During the tenure of the Emperor Shah Jahan the great Moghul's reign, the aforesaid Manmōhan Chandra left Kashmir for Dehli and, finding favour at the Emperor's Court, settled down there. Of the precious books of Manmōhan Chandra's, only about one fifth were available when, in 1895 A. D., on my visit to Agra, I saw them in a state of preservation with the widowed wife of Kidār Nāth, the source of all this information, being, through her husband's side, one of the relatives of Nārāyan Chandra, a descendant of Manmōhan Chandra. When I revisited this city in 1912, the widowed wife of Kidār Nath, who had no male issue by her deceased husband, found the further preservation of the few remaining books a burden and willingly presented them to me in the sanguine hope of their utility in some way or the other. Of these, the Tantrasāra written on very old Kashmiri paper in Shārada characters is bound in one cover with ten more books. 1 All of them appear to have been copied by one and the same scribe, Krishna Swami, as stated by himself at the end of Mahānaya Prakāsh Light of the Great Path, one of the books of this collection, in two shlokas verses which run thus:

‘This Mahānaya Prakāsh has been transcribed by Krishna Swami,
For his own sake and for the sake of the practitioners, as an illuminator of the Great Meaning.
In the auspicious month of Bhadrapada, on the most excellent day of the full moon,
In the year measured by the sun a cryptic chronological reference, may this be auspicious and reach completion.’

Thus.

1. (a) Janma Marana Vichāra Inquiry into Birth and Death; (b) Amaraugha Shāsan Teachings on the Deathless Stream; (c) Mahānaya Prakāsha; (d) Kāma-kalā-Vilās Play of the Aspects of Desire; (e) Vatūla Nātha Sūtra Vritti Commentary on the Vatula Natha Sutras; (f) Munimata Vārtikam Notes on the Sage's View; (g) Bhavopahāra-stotram Savivaranam Hymn to the Lord of Existence with Commentary; (h) Spanda Vivriti by Rām Kantha Exposition on Vibration; (i) Ajada Pramātri Siddhi Proof of the Sentient Subject; (j) Spanda Vritti by Kallata Commentary on Vibration.