Rupa Bhawani: The Breath You Are Already Taking

What they are

Vakhs, in Kashmiri, in the same form Lal Ded used three hundred years earlier, and the tradition places her deliberately in that line.

How they differ from Lal Ded's

They are harder.

Lal Ded wrote in the spoken language, using ordinary images: a boat, a thread, a stone, a plate. Her verses can be understood by somebody with no philosophical training, and that is why they became proverbs.

Rupa Bhawani writes for readers who have been trained.

• Heavily Sanskritised Kashmiri
• Trika technical vocabulary used directly and without explanation
• References to the system's structure: the tattvas, the chakras, the channels, the states of consciousness
• Dense, and frequently requiring a commentary

Which is a consequence of her having been properly taught. She is writing as a practitioner to practitioners, in a tradition with an established vocabulary, and she does not stop to explain.

Her central subjects

One. The guru.

A very large proportion of her verses are about the necessity of the guru, and she is emphatic that the practice cannot be assembled from books.

Her own guru was her father, and the verses on the guru relationship are among the warmest things she wrote.

And this app's standing note applies: the doctrine of the guru's necessity is real in this tradition and has been the mechanism of serious abuse elsewhere. No legitimate teacher requires money for blessings, sexual contact, secrecy or isolation from your family. Police 112, women's helpline 181, Childline 1098, Tele MANAS 14416.

Two. The formless and the formed.

She returns repeatedly to the relationship between nirakara, the formless, and akara, form, and to the position that the two are not two.

Which is the Trika position: the world is not an illusion to be seen through, it is the formless expressing itself, and it is as real as the formless is.

Three. The breath.

And this is her most practically useful material, treated in its own section below.

Four. Cutting away.

A recurring instruction to remove: attachments, opinions, the sense of being somebody in particular, and specifically the accumulated identity that a person builds and defends.

Five. Self reliance in practice.

Several verses insist that nobody can do this for you, that pilgrimage and ritual by themselves accomplish nothing, and that the work is internal and is yours.

Availability

Her verses are collected in Kashmiri, and translations and studies exist, though far fewer than for Lal Ded.

The standard route in is through Kashmiri Pandit devotional publications and through scholarly work on Kashmiri literature, and both Kashmiri and Hindi editions circulate. English material is limited but growing.

Her most useful teaching, and it is available to anybody.

Ajapa japa

Japa is repetition of a mantra. Ajapa means unrepeated, or not recited.

Ajapa japa is therefore: the repetition that is already happening without anybody doing it.

What it refers to: the breath.

The claim

The traditional analysis: the sound of the inbreath is ham, or so in some formulations, and the sound of the outbreath is sa, and together they form hamsa or so ham.

So ham means: I am that.

And the count given is 21,600 breaths in twenty four hours, which is the traditional figure, and which is therefore the number of times the mantra is said each day without anybody saying it.

Whether the arithmetic is exact does not matter. The claim is that the mantra is not something added to you. It has been running since you were born, it will stop when you stop, and the practice is not to start it but to notice it.

Which is exactly the Kashmir Shaiva position applied to breathing: liberation is recognition, pratyabhijna, not acquisition. Nothing has to be obtained. Something has to be seen.

How the practice works

This is teachable and it requires nothing.

• Sit, or lie down, or do not: it can be done while walking or working
• Do not change the breath. This is the whole discipline. Not deeper, not slower, not counted, not controlled
• Notice the inbreath, and let the syllable so be attached to it, without saying anything
• Notice the outbreath, and let ham be attached to it
• When you lose it, which is immediately, come back
• Stop after a few minutes

Why it is unusually accessible

• It requires no initiation, no ritual, no equipment, no posture and no time set aside
• It cannot be done wrong, because you are not doing it
• It works in short intervals, which is what most people actually have
• It is compatible with any tradition or none, since the observation is about breathing
• It does not require belief in anything

And a warning that belongs here

Do not do breath control on the basis of an article.

Ajapa japa as described above is observation and is safe, because you are not altering anything.

Pranayama, which is deliberate manipulation of the breath, holding, forced exhalation and the rest, is a different matter:

• It should be learned from a qualified teacher, in person
• It is not appropriate for everybody, and there are real contraindications, including uncontrolled high blood pressure, heart conditions, glaucoma, detached retina, epilepsy, and pregnancy
• If you have any medical condition, ask a doctor before beginning a breathing practice that involves retention or force
• People have been harmed by aggressive breathing practices done from books and videos, and the traditional texts are consistently emphatic that these techniques require supervision

Rupa Bhawani's own teaching does not require any of that. It is the observation that the breath is already doing this.

Her end

In 1721, at a hundred, on Kartika Krishna Ashtami.

Where she is: her samadhi is at Vaskura, also Vuskur, in Ganderbal district, and it is the principal Rupa Bhawani shrine.

The four sites

Kashmiri Pandit tradition names four places of her practice, and they form a circuit:

• Safakadal, Srinagar: her birthplace, where there is a shrine
• Chashme Sahibi, by the spring: an early period of practice
• Manigam, Ganderbal
• Lar, Ganderbal
• Vaskura, Ganderbal: the samadhi

Her observances

• Jyeshtha Purnima, generally in June, is her birth anniversary and the principal observance
• Kartika Krishna Ashtami, generally October or November, is her samadhi day

The tradition now

A plain statement of fact, without commentary.

The Kashmiri Pandit community was displaced from the Kashmir valley in and after 1990, in very large numbers, and the community now lives largely outside the valley, in Jammu, Delhi and elsewhere in India and abroad.

What that means for the tradition:

• The observances are kept largely outside Kashmir, in the displaced community
• Rupa Bhawani Jayanti on Jyeshtha Purnima is observed at community centres and temples wherever Kashmiri Pandits live
• Some of the shrines in the valley have been maintained, some damaged, and the position varies site by site
• A substantial effort has gone into recording the tradition, publishing the texts and preserving the practices, precisely because the community is dispersed

This app does not comment on the politics of Kashmir, and states the above because it is the practical reality of how this saint is currently venerated and where.

The wider Kashmiri Shaiva tradition

Rupa Bhawani sits in a long line, and the line is worth having:

• Vasugupta, ninth century, the Shiva Sutras
• Somananda, the Shivadrishti
• Utpaladeva, the Ishvara Pratyabhijna Karika and the Shivastotravali, treated in his own entry
• Abhinavagupta, tenth to eleventh century, the Tantraloka, treated in his own entry
• Kshemaraja, his student, the Pratyabhijnahridayam
• Lal Ded, fourteenth century
• Rupa Bhawani, seventeenth to eighteenth century
• Sahib Kaul, her contemporary
• Swami Lakshman Joo, twentieth century, who is the figure through whom most modern readers encounter the tradition

Swami Lakshman Joo, 1907 to 1991, is worth naming specifically. He taught in Srinagar for decades, and his lectures and translations are the principal route by which Kashmir Shaivism reached readers outside the valley, in India and abroad. Recordings and published transcripts are widely available.

One. Her father taught her.

Almost every woman in this series had to work around exclusion from formal training. Rupa Bhawani was initiated and taught by her own father, in the full technical tradition, and it shows in the difficulty of her verses.

The general point: the difference between a woman who was excluded and one who was taught is visible in the work, and it is a difference of access rather than of capacity.

Two. She left and went home.

When the marriage failed she returned to her father's house and stayed there, which was a serious social step in the seventeenth century.

And her father took her in and taught her, which is the part worth noticing about him.

Three. Ajapa japa.

The mantra is already running. You did not start it and you cannot stop it while you are alive. The practice is to notice.

Which is the most accessible practice in this entire series, because it requires no time, no equipment, no initiation, no belief, no posture and no privacy, and cannot be done wrong.

And the caution that goes with it: observation is safe; manipulation of the breath is not, and pranayama with retention or force should be learned in person from a qualified teacher and is contraindicated in several medical conditions. Ask a doctor.

Four. Recognition rather than acquisition.

The whole Kashmir Shaiva position, and hers: nothing has to be got. Something has to be noticed.

Which changes the question you ask. Not what am I missing, but what am I not looking at.

Five. She wrote for people who had done the work.

Her verses do not stop to explain, assume the reader knows the system, and are considerably harder than Lal Ded's.

That is not a fault. Some material is for beginners and some is not, and a tradition needs both. Lal Ded is the way in and Rupa Bhawani is what you read afterwards.

A daily practice from this entry:

• Om Namah Shivaya
• Ajapa japa, three minutes, without changing the breath, once a day
• On Jyeshtha Purnima, her jayanti
• And the recognition question, asked once this week: what is already here that I have not been looking at

A closing thought

A girl was born at Safakadal in Srinagar in 1621, was married as everybody was, was badly treated by her husband's family, and went home.

Her father, who was a Shaiva scholar, did not send her back and did not marry her off again. He initiated her, taught her the whole system, and let her get on with it.

She practised for the next eight decades at four places in the valley, and wrote verses so technical that most people need a commentary.

And the thing she taught that anybody can use is that the mantra you are looking for has been running since you were born, twenty one thousand six hundred times a day, and that all you have to do is stop adding to it and listen.

Who: Rupa Bhawani, 1621 to 1721, born Alakheshwari at Safakadal in Srinagar into a Kashmiri Pandit family. The second great woman saint of the Kashmiri Shaiva tradition after Lal Ded, and much less known outside Kashmir than she should be.

Her father: Pandit Madho Joo Dhar, a Shaiva scholar and practitioner, and the central figure in her life.

The marriage: she was married into a family of the Sapru community, was ill treated, and went back to her father's house, which was a serious social step in the seventeenth century. Withholding, cruelty and mistreatment in marriage are covered in India today by the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005: women's helpline 181, police 112, One Stop Sakhi Centres, free legal aid 15100.

What distinguishes her: her father initiated and trained her in the Trika system at home, with the full technical apparatus. Almost every other woman in this series had to work around exclusion from formal training, and the difference shows: her vakhs are considerably harder than Lal Ded's, use heavily Sanskritised Kashmiri and Trika terminology directly, and assume the reader knows the system.

Her subjects: the necessity of the guru; the relationship between the formless and form, which in the Trika position are not two; cutting away accumulated identity; self reliance in practice; and the breath.

Ajapa japa: japa is repetition of a mantra and ajapa means unrepeated, so ajapa japa is the repetition already happening without anybody doing it, which is the breath. The inbreath is heard as so and the outbreath as ham, together so ham, I am that, at a traditional count of 21,600 times in twenty four hours. The practice is not to start it but to notice it, which is the Kashmir Shaiva position of recognition rather than acquisition applied to breathing. It requires nothing and cannot be done wrong. Manipulating the breath is a different matter and should be learned in person from a qualified teacher.

Her four places: Chashme Sahibi in Srinagar, Manigam, Lar and Vaskura in Ganderbal, where her samadhi is.

Observances: Jyeshtha Purnima, generally June, is her jayanti; Kartika Krishna Ashtami is her samadhi day. Since the displacement of the Kashmiri Pandit community from the valley in and after 1990, the observances are kept largely outside Kashmir.