History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c92.230

v7.c92.230

In the Mahānirvāṇa (II. 14-15 and 20) it is said that Vedic mantras yielded desired results in Satya and other yugas, but in Kaliyuga they are like serpents without poison or like dead ones, that in the Kaliyuga the mantras declared in tantra works yield fruits quickly and are commended for employment in all actions such as *japa* and sacrifices. There is no such path as the one propounded in Tantras that would lead to mokṣa or to happiness in this world and the next. The Mahānirvāṇa prescribes that 'oṁ sac-cid-ekam brahma' is the best of mantras (III. 14), that those who perform the upāsanā of the highest *brahma* are in need of no other sādhanā and that by the mere perfection of that mantra the individual soul merges in *brahma*¹⁸¹³ So *Mokṣa* was one of the aims. Another aim was the attainment of miraculous or supernormal powers The Prapañcasāra enumerates¹⁸¹⁴ the eight siddhis and states that one who is endowed with these eight is a liberated soul and is spoken of as a *yogin*. The theory of siddhis is an ancient conception and occurs in the Āpastamba-dharmasūtra.¹⁸¹⁵ The eight siddhis are named and explained in the Yogasūtrabhāṣya as follows¹⁸¹⁶: Aṇiman (becoming small like an atom, atomization), laghiman (levitation), mahiman (becoming magnified like a mountain or the sky, magnification), prāpti (all objects becoming near to him such as touching the moon with one's fingertip, extension), prākāmya (the non-obstruction of his desire such as diving into the earth underground and coming up as if he were in water), vaśitva (mastery of the five elements and their products such as a jar), īśitva (sovereignty over the production, absorption or arrangement of elements and their products), yatra-kāmāvasāyitva (the power to determine things according to his wish or will i. e. he may will that poison should have the effect of nectar and brings about that result). A siddha would be one who has secured these eight siddhis. The Gītā (X. 26) says that the sage Kapila is the great one among siddhas ('siddhānām kapilo muniḥ'). The Yogasūtra further speaks of siddhis as fivefold viz. proceeding from birth, from drugs, from mantras, from *tapas* (austerities) and from concentration. There were other objects also sought to be achieved by mantras, such as the six cruel rites and making women to have passion for a man. This shows that not only Tāntrikas, but those who practised yoga believed in the power of mantras to confer supernormal powers on the yogin. The Yogasūtra provides that some of the siddhis (as in III. 37) are obstacles to the attainment of *samādhi* and they are siddhis only to those who have awakened from trance.¹⁸¹⁷ Yāj (III. 202-203) provides that the power to disappear, to enter another body and temporarily to abandon one's body, to create at one's will objects-these and other powers are characteristic signs of the attainment of siddhis by Yoga and that when one attains perfection in Yoga one can cast away the mortal coil and be able to become immortal in brahma.