Lakṣmī Tantra Chapter 21—Structure of a Mantra
Channel: Consciousness Research Centre
Date: 30/12/2020

This series is classified Vivartha-vāda | Rāja-yoga | Suśupti | Viśuddhi-cakra
Śakra: “I salute Thee who art the differentiated revelation of śabda and artha (sound and object), who traversest the six courses of creation, who art called the avabodha (illuminating knowledge) that lies beyond these ways, and who art the Beloved of Hari. O Goddess, the mātṛkā system of sounds from which all else springs has been fully dealt with. Now please duly explain the system and usage of mantra.” 
Śrī: “The greatest Puruṣa (person), the possessor of Śrī, is the one Absolute God, the ocean of the six attributes; who is the divine inner principle underlying and pervading everything in all directions. I, Śrī, am His supreme Śakti identical with His I-hood, the substratum and Śakti of everything, omniscient and all-pervading.” [21.1–4]
“Through Me the universe becomes visible, in the same way as a mountain is reflected in a mirror. My svarūpa (essential nature) is bodha (intelligence) characterized by pure bliss. I follow the dictates of My will without hindrance. Evolving the part of Myself that represents bodha I become śabda-brahman, and continue to evolve further by means of the kalās, the six qualities belonging to the supreme God. The term kalā denotes jñāna, aiśvarya, śakti, bala, vīrya and tejas. With these, arranged in three pairs, I evolve by means of the tattvas.” [21.5–7] 
“O thou most valiant of all gods, the deities Saṅkarṣaṇa etc. are represented by the tattvas. Again I evolve by means of mantras through combinations of sounds. Now listen whilst I reveal the system of mantras. This science has developed out of śabda-brahman and is endowed with millions of rays. Consciousness is mantra’s main characteristic; infused with the six divine qualities, it can be classified in four types. Sometimes it is bīja, sometimes it is piṇḍa, sometimes it is saṃjñā and at other times it is pada.” [21.8–10]
“Although bīja, piṇḍa, saṃjñā and pada together form a complete mantra, each of these is in itself efficacious as a mantra. Especially bīja is often used independently. Therefore these four together form a mantra-complex appropriate to a particular deity; but one, two, or three of them may also serve for purposes of meditation. It should be noted however that the bīja invariably constitutes the essential part of a particular deity’s mantra.” [21.note 1] 

“O lord of the gods, the four stages of conscious development of the individual soul—turīya, suṣupti, svapna and jagrat—are represented by bīja, piṇḍa, saṃjñā and pada respectively. A bīja-mantra may contain either one or two vowels; it may be formed by coupling a vowel with a consonant, or it may even contain several vowels. The haris (consonants) inserted between the bīja and the remainder of the mantra are known as the piṇḍa section, in which the consonants are sometimes connected with vowels.” [21.11–12]
“The samjñā is the name of a particular deity addressed in association with the words namas and praṇava. A laudatory and vocative combination of verbal utterance with nominal concepts, fraught with recollections from the past and used to further the purpose envisaged, is the essential form of the pada-mantra. Together these four sections of mantras make up a whole that bears relation to the nature of the deity addressed. Approached by means of a mantra composed of these four sections, the deity grants the adept the fulfilment of his desire. O lord of the gods, the wise should refrain from applying these mantras until they can clearly distinguish between kṣetra and kṣetrajña mantras—those pertaining to the body and those pertaining to the soul.” [21.13–16]
Śakra: “O Ambujā, please elaborate on the distinction between kṣetra and kṣetrajña mantras, which safeguards an adept from delusion and enables him to achieve speedy fulfilment of his aspiration.
“In the case of mantras consisting of only a bīja or a piṇḍa section, the a is regarded as the soul and the rest as the body. In cases of mantras without an a, another vowel is taken to represent the soul. In the case of mantras containing only vowels, the first mātrā (prosodic unit) refers to the soul, whilst the body is represented by the second and so on. When there is only one mātrā in a mantra, the saṃskāra (subtle sound: madhyamā), characterized as transcendental, is considered to represent the soul, while the uttered sounds relate to the body. In the case of piṇḍa mantras that contain no vowel, the first letter represents the soul and the rest the body.” [21.19–21]

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