Matharavritti 72
English (machine translation) 72
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72.1
Now 'the treatise' (tantra) is explained: 'Darkness indeed this was in the beginning.' In that darkness the knower of the field first emerges. Nature is called darkness; the knower of the field is the spirit. That treatise in which sixty categories are woven (tantryante) is the Ṣaṣṭitantra. Knowing the Ṣaṣṭitantra, there was a competent man named Īśvarakṛṣṇa. By that Īśvarakṛṣṇa, afraid of taking up an extensive text, for the sake of benefit, the Ṣaṣṭitantra was greatly abridged. Thus he says:
72.2
And this, handed down through a succession of pupils, was abridged in āryā verses by Īśvarakṛṣṇa, / of noble mind, having correctly comprehended the established doctrine.
72.3
'Handed down through a succession of pupils': from Kapila this knowledge was obtained by Āsuri; from him by Pañcaśikha; from him it came to Bhārgava, Ulūka, Vālmīki, Hārīta, Devala, and others; then from them it was obtained by Īśvarakṛṣṇa. That very Ṣaṣṭitantra was abridged in āryā verses by the one of noble mind, of expansive intellect, 'having correctly comprehended the established doctrine'—meaning the identity of liberation, which is the non-recurrence of existence, the end of the body accomplished through cause and effect. Or, the end, the destruction of form, of the subtle body produced at the beginning of creation, which is made of the subtle elements, accomplished by that [series]. This is the purport of the Ṣaṣṭitantra.