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The Question of Dualistic Ritual (Verse 143)

1. Exercise Title & Verse

The Question of Dualistic Ritual (Verse 143)

2. Sanskrit (IAST)

evam uktavyavasthāyāṃ japyate ko japaś ca kaḥ | dhyāyate ko mahānātha pūjyate kaś ca tr̥pyati || 143 ||

3. English (Literal)

If such is the established nature, who is invoked in recitation and what is the recitation? Who is meditated upon, O Great Lord? Who is worshipped, and who is gratified?

4. Main Commentary (Bhāṣya)

Padārtha. Evam uktavyavasthāyāṃ means "in the state thus described," referring to the nondual condition Bhairava has just established. Japyate ko japaś ca kaḥ asks both halves of the ritual act at once: who is doing mantra-recitation, and what could that recitation now be? Dhyāyate ko asks who could still stand apart as an object of meditation. Mahānātha addresses Bhairava as the Great Lord. Pūjyate kaś ca tṛpyati asks who is worshipped and who is satisfied by that worship. The verse systematically dismantles the whole devotional triad of practitioner, practice, and deity.

Anvaya. O Great Lord, if reality truly stands as you have described it, then who performs recitation, what is recited, who is meditated upon, who is worshipped, and who is gratified?

Tatparya. This verse contributes something sharper than the previous line's opening question: it expands the challenge from mantra alone to the entire machinery of dualistic religion. Devī is not asking for abstract metaphysics. She is forcing Bhairava to account for meditation, worship, and devotional satisfaction once nonduality has been granted as the real condition. If the practitioner has become divine and all phenomena are only expressions of that one consciousness, then ritual can no longer be understood as a subject addressing an external object. The verse therefore functions as a full-scale philosophical audit of religious action. It presses until the ordinary grammar of worship breaks.

Sādhana. Use the verse as a diagnostic, not as permission for premature rejection of practice. When you meditate, chant, or offer reverence, notice exactly where duality is being smuggled back in. Who is the one trying to reach? What "other" is being imagined as the receiver? The point is not to become careless about practice, but to expose the subtle split that turns contemplation into transaction.

5. Jaideva Singh — The Logical

Singh clarifies the grammatical and doctrinal thrust of Devī's question. She is asking what becomes of the distinction between the devotee and the object of devotion, a distinction fully accepted by orthodox religion. If the aspirant becomes divine by mastering even one dhāraṇā, and if everything is an expression of the Supreme Śakti, the very foundation of ritual worship—the triad of worshipper, worshipped, and the act of worship—is dismantled. The verse methodically questions the core actions of religious life: japa (recitation), dhyāna (meditation), and pūjā (worship), asking who exactly is performing them and who is receiving them when only non-dual consciousness exists.

6. Swami Lakshmanjoo — The Lineage

Lakshmanjoo does address this grouped question in his oral explanation of the closing verses. His hinge is uncompromising: in the real state of supreme energy, "these two are gone" - both the recitation and the one for whom recitation is done. He extends the same collapse across the rest of the verse: who can meditate, who can worship, who can be satisfied, and who is there to offer or receive oblation? The practical correction is that the whole subject-object structure of ritual fails in nondual realization.

7. Mark Dyczkowski & Christopher Wallis — Context & Philology

Direct support exists from both available lines of evidence. Dyczkowski translates this verse directly: "Who meditates, O Great Lord, who is worshipped and gratified (by it)?" Wallis treats the Goddess's question as a grouped unit spanning 142c-144b and translates it as a challenge to mantra, visualization, worship, gratification, and fire offering within this teaching. His accompanying comment is important: the text does not simply discard mainstream tantric practices, but prepares to reinterpret them in a nondual mode. So Section 7 is not N/A; the verse has direct translation support and direct contextual commentary, even though Wallis discusses it as part of a larger syntactic unit.

8. Daniel Odier — The Somatic Grounding

Odier is brief but not absent. In his grouped appendix rendering, this line appears as part of the Goddess's sequence of questions: "Who enters contemplation? Who is contemplated?" and "Who then is worshipped? Who is the worshipper?" He adds no further somatic instruction, so the safe use of his material is only to confirm the same collapse of ritual duality.

9. Paul Reps — The "Sudden Hit"

N/A — Reps does not cover the Epilogue verses.

10. Upāya Type

N/A — This is a doctrinal and interrogative verse in the epilogue, not a discrete practice. Its function is to unsettle the dualistic assumptions behind practice so that Bhairava can redefine them in the verses that follow.

11. Resonance Check (Adhikāra)

This verse challenges the practitioner who is deeply attached to the comfort of dualistic devotion or the mechanics of ritual. It requires the maturity to question the separation between the one who practices and the goal of the practice, without falling into nihilism.

12. The "What Else?" — The Pitfall

The pitfall here is either clinging defensively to conventional ritual out of fear of non-duality, or prematurely abandoning all practice while the mind is still trapped in dualistic grasping. The verse asks you to see through the illusion of separation, not merely to drop the outward form of worship before the inward realization is secure.

13. Verse-Specific Glossary

  • uktavyavasthāyāṃ: in the established condition just declared; referring to the non-dual realization described in the preceding verses.
  • japa: recitation or repetition of a mantra; here questioned as a dualistic act.
  • dhyāna: meditation; conventionally implying a meditator focusing on an object of meditation.
  • pūjā: formal worship or adoration of a deity.
  • tr̥pyati: is gratified or satisfied; referring to the deity receiving the offering.