Uttaramanya Rituals in Newar and their Philosophies

Author: Ashish Shrestha | Independent Researcher on Culture and Tantra

Published 16th April, 2026

It has been a long time since I wrote something like this. Work, routine, and other responsibilities kept me away from sustained reading for quite some time, and I found myself mentally scattered in ways that made careful reflection difficult.

Recently, though, I returned to an article that I felt deserved not just a quick reading but a slow one. The piece stayed with me because it was not only about one hymn or one ritual tradition.

It raised a much larger question about what we count as philosophy, where we look for it, and how much intellectual depth may be hidden in texts that are usually treated as merely ritual or devotional.

What follows is my own writing based on my readings and findings.

I am trying here to bring together what I understood from Pongsit Pangsrivongse’s article Discerning Philosophy in the Uttaramnaya Liturgies of the Newars, especially its discussion of the Kalisutra and its philosophical implications.

This is my own synthesis, and there may be errors, omissions, gaps, or misunderstandings in it.

I remain open to correction, clarification, and further insight from those who know the field, the texts, or the tradition more deeply.

Key Takeaways

The Tridasadamaratantra survives only in chapters 81 and 82, but these two chapters form a complete and functional tantra.
It belongs to the Northern Kaula tradition (Uttaramnaya) centered on the goddess Siddhilakshmi.
The opening myth shows the goddess as fully autonomous and supreme.
Meditation centers on the goddess as inner fire and the main source of power, with Shiva shown as inert without her.
The yogic practices link breath, mantra, and kundalini, with kundalini understood as the goddess herself.
The final section lists practical rituals for protection, prosperity, and other real-life needs.

Everything about Uttaramanya Rituals and thier Philosophies

The article begins from a very important but often neglected problem. When scholars speak about Indian philosophy, they usually mean formal schools, systematic doctrines, explicit argumentation, and named philosophical authors.

This is understandable. Traditions such as Vedanta, Nyaya, Buddhism, and Kashmir Shaivism produced highly developed theoretical works in which concepts were defined and debated in a rigorous way. But this also creates a bias.

It encourages us to look for philosophy only where it appears in recognizable scholastic form. Once we do that, vast areas of religious literature begin to seem intellectually secondary.

Ritual manuals, liturgical sequences, hymns, and recited invocations are then often treated as practical or devotional rather than philosophical. Pangsrivongse’s article questions that habit.

He asks whether philosophical thinking might also be present in liturgical texts, even when those texts do not present themselves as formal philosophy.

To explore this, he turns to the Newars of the Kathmandu Valley. This is an extremely important choice. The Kathmandu Valley was a major center of Shaiva patronage and tantric practice, but it did not produce a formally systematized philosophical school on the scale of the Pratyabhijna system of Kashmir.

That fact has often shaped the scholarly perception of Newar materials. Kashmir is remembered as philosophically brilliant because of figures such as Somananda, Utpaladeva, Abhinavagupta, and Ksemaraja, whereas the Newar world is more often approached through ritual, manuscript culture, and local practice. Pangsrivongse does not deny that difference, but he refuses the conclusion that Newar tantric texts therefore lack philosophical depth.

On the contrary, he argues that if one reads the liturgies carefully, especially the non-prescriptive portions embedded within them, one can detect a coherent ontological outlook.

It may not be “philosophy” in exactly the same genre as a scholastic treatise, but it is far more than mere ritual formula.

To make this argument concrete, the article studies a short hymn called the Kalisutra. This hymn appears in Newar liturgies associated with the Uttaramnaya, the “Northern Transmission,” a Kaula tantric stream centered on the worship of Kali. The article does not treat the hymn casually.

It first locates it within manuscript traditions, reconstructs its transmission as far as possible, analyzes its wording philologically, and then explores the metaphysical ideas it carries. The Kalisutra is short, but the article argues that it is densely packed with theological and philosophical meaning.

It presents Kali not merely as a deity to be worshipped in ritual, but as the very ground of reality, as consciousness itself, as both the cause and substance of the universe, and as a principle that includes transcendence, immanence, cognition, embodiment, and non-dual reabsorption.

Before reaching the Kalisutra itself, the article places the Newar Uttaramnaya in a broader historical and scriptural context. This matters a great deal.

The Kathmandu Valley preserved materials from across the spectrum of Shaiva traditions, including Atimarga, Mantramarga, Saiddhantika, Bhairava, Shakta, Kaula, and even older Bhuta and Garuda traditions. Nepalese manuscript archives are among the most important repositories for Shaiva texts in general.

The Valley also seems to have produced tantras of its own, including works such as the Paratantra and the Haharavatantra, as well as a great number of paddhatis, that is, ritual manuals, many of which remain unpublished.

Before reaching the Kalisutra itself, the article places the Newar Uttaramnaya in a broader historical and scriptural context. This matters a great deal.

The article’s central historical claim is that the Newar Uttaramnaya should be understood in relation to the canonical Krama tradition.

This is crucial because the philosophical importance of the Kalisutra depends partly on the fact that Krama materials were already deeply implicated in the development of Kashmiri non-dual Shaivism.

Modern scholarship, especially Alexis Sanderson’s work, has shown that the Pratyabhijna system did not arise in isolation but developed in close relation to Trika and Krama scriptural traditions.

This becomes even more significant when we remember that major Pratyabhijna authors such as Somananda, Utpaladeva, Abhinavagupta, and Ksemaraja were themselves initiated into Krama lineages.

Pangsrivongse also notes that important Krama texts used by Kashmiri exegetes, including the Jayadrathayamala, the Kalikakulapancasataka, and the Kalikulakramasadbhava, were widely reproduced in Nepal and cited in Newar ritual texts.

This allows him to argue that comparing Newar Uttaramnaya liturgies with broader Krama and even Pratyabhijna thought is historically justified.

At the same time, he is careful not to make lazy identifications. He does not claim that the Newars were simply reproducing Pratyabhijna philosophy.

In fact, he notes that there is no clear evidence that specifically Pratyabhijna works circulated in pre-modern Newar manuscript culture in the same way they did elsewhere, such as in South India.

Nor do Newar liturgies openly spell out ritual-philosophical equivalences in the direct manner found in certain later Kashmiri Krama works like the anonymous Mahanayaprakasa.

So the article’s method is disciplined: if we want to understand the philosophical orientation of the Newar Uttaramnaya, we must read the liturgies themselves.

This is where the Kalisutra becomes central. The author focuses especially on the Kalikulakramarcana, which he considers arguably the most important surviving Krama paddhati from the Kathmandu Valley.

It is the oldest known Krama work from the Valley and the most comprehensive ritual manual currently known there, covering both routine and occasional rites.

It is attributed to Vimalaprabodha, who is identified as the preceptor of Arimalla, the first king of the Malla dynasty, whose reign is roughly dated to 1200–1216. The Kalisutra appears in this text, but not in the simple way one might expect.

Its first verse appears separately as the mangalacarana, the auspicious opening verse of the Kalikulakramarcana. The remaining five verses appear later in the Mahashivaratri rite, where they are explicitly identified as the “Kalisutra.”

Because Vimalaprabodha refers to the latter as a distinct named text, Pangsrivongse concludes that these five verses were probably not composed by him.

He then traces the hymn’s later transmission. As far as he can determine, the first witness to the Kalisutra as a unified six-verse hymn is the Guhyakalinirvanapujapaddhati, dated by colophon to 1380 CE during the reign of Jayasthitimalla.

This text shares with the Kalikulakramarcana the same pantheon, sequence, and mantras of worship. Later manuscripts also preserve the hymn in six verses, such as the likely eighteenth-century Stotrasamgraha, where it appears under the title Srikalikadevinityastuti.

The article suggests a plausible editorial history: a redactor likely combined the original mangalacarana verse of the Kalikulakramarcana with the five-verse Kalisutra embedded in its Mahashivaratri section, thereby creating the six-verse form later transmitted.

The history becomes even more interesting because several Siddhilakshmi liturgies preserve the hymn without its first verse. These include the Siddhilakshmyadhivasanasthandilarcanavidhi and the Siddhilakshmikramasthandilarcanavidhi.

This is significant because Siddhilakshmi and Kali were closely associated in tantric sources, and in Nepal both were linked with the Uttaramnaya.

In addition, Pangsrivongse points out that the second and sixth verses of the six-verse Kalisutra also appear, in slightly altered form, as the mangalacarana of three early Krama tantras: the Devidvyardhasatika, the Kalikakulapancasataka, and the Yonigahvara.

This suggests that the oldest core may have been a single canonical verse, which was later expanded into a five-verse hymn and only later combined with the opening verse of the Kalikulakramarcana to form the six-verse version.

So the likely sequence is: first, an older single-verse mangalacarana in canonical Krama tantras; second, an expanded five-verse Kalisutra embedded in the Mahashivaratri section of the Kalikulakramarcana; and third, a six-verse liturgical hymn in later Newar sources.

The article then edits and translates the hymn, mainly on the basis of two manuscripts of the Kalikulakramarcana whose readings are nearly identical.

Pangsrivongse openly notes that several compounds are highly ambiguous and that some parts of the translation are speculative. This is especially true of the first verse, which is compressed, symbolic, and numerically coded.

He therefore pauses after translating it and devotes substantial effort to unpacking it.

That first verse, he argues, is a compressed map of the Five Kalis and their mandalic arrangements. In the Kalikulakramarcana, routine worship proceeds through eleven ancillary phases before reaching the central Kalis.

These ancillary groups include the Pancapitha, Pancavaha, Murti, Prakasa, Ananda, and the Vrndacakra, among others. At the center stand the Five Kalis: Srsti, Sthiti, Samhara, Anakhya, and Bhasa.

These five are especially important because they organize the ritual and doctrinal heart of the system. Each Kali has her own cakra, and each corresponds not only to cosmological processes but also to phases of cognition.

Pangsrivongse argues that the first verse of the Kalisutra encodes the arrangements of these cakras using symbolic language and number codes.

The verse uses images such as moon, sun, and fire, and these correspond in Krama materials to Srsti, Sthiti, and Samhara. Drawing especially on the Kalikakulapancasataka, he explains that these three Kalis are explicitly arranged vertically there, with Srsti as moon above, Sthiti as sun in the middle, and Samhara as the Fire of Time below.

Once this symbolic grammar is recognized, the verse becomes more readable. The word “moon,” paired with bhuta, points to Srstikali and the number five, since bhuta can denote the five elements. This refers to the five ancillary Kalis around Srstikali known as the Pancayoni, arranged on five petals.

“Sun,” paired with gotracandra, points to Sthitikali and the number seventeen, because gotra can denote sixteen and candra one, making seventeen. These correspond to Sthitikali plus her sixteen surrounding deities, namely the four Yuganathas and the twelve Rajaputras.

“Abode of oblation,” as a term for fire, paired with rudra, conventionally eleven, points to the Samharacakra: Samharakali plus ten surrounding Samharinis.

The verse also places these three cakras in the body: heart, navel, and root cakra. This is important because the bodily axis matches the same vertical order described in the Kalikakulapancasataka: Srsti above, Sthiti in the middle, Samhara below.

The verse then mentions the “cavity of the three fires,” which Pangsrivongse identifies with Anakhya. This reading is supported by the verse’s statement that this form is present “as thirteen,” which corresponds to the standard Krama structure of Anakhyakali plus twelve surrounding Kalis.

Anakhya’s place as the void of the three fires also makes doctrinal sense, because in Krama each Kali dissolves into her successor, so Anakhya is the void into which Srsti, Sthiti, and Samhara disappear.

Since the system here has five Kalis, Bhasa must also be included. Pangsrivongse argues that the grammar supports that conclusion: the first four Kalis appear in nominative phrases, while the final descriptors belong to the direct object of “I praise,” namely Bhasa.

He reads the phrase trikalakhakhayutam as referring to Bhasa, not merely as the “void of the three kalas,” but more strongly as the “void of the void of the three Kalis.” Bhasa therefore marks a transcendence beyond even the void already represented by Anakhya.

After this philological and ritual unpacking, the article turns to its larger philosophical claim: the Kalisutra contains the core tenets of Shaiva non-dualism.

Pangsrivongse explains this carefully by contrasting Shaiva non-dualism with two other positions. Against the dualistic Shaiva Siddhanta, the non-dual traditions hold that Shiva is not merely the efficient cause of the universe while maya serves as material cause. Rather, Shiva, or in this hymn Kali, is both efficient and material cause.

Against Advaita Vedanta, the non-dual Shaiva traditions do not treat ultimate reality as merely quiescent and inactive, nor do they explain multiplicity simply through ignorance.

Instead, supreme consciousness is inherently active, autonomous, and free. It manifests the universe while remaining non-dual.

The Kalisutra, Pangsrivongse argues, expresses exactly this kind of non-dualism. Kali is described as that reality which causes creation, maintenance, and dissolution. But she is also described as taking the form of the differentiated world itself.

Phrases such as srstisthitipralayakaranatattvarupa, sakalabhavavibhagabhinna, and sarvatattvaikavrttim indicate that she is both the cause of the universe and the very activity or unfolding of all the tattvas.

In other words, she is not external to the world. The world is her manifestation. At the same time, she is not reducible to the world. The hymn describes her as one though worshipped in many cakras, as having both a state with support and a radically transcendent sky-going state, and as the supreme in whom both existence and non-existence abide.

Pangsrivongse sees here a form of non-dualism that reconciles unity and multiplicity rather than cancelling one in favor of the other.

This is why he compares it to the Pratyabhijna doctrine of sarvasarvatmavada, the claim that all things exist in one another because all are pervaded by Shiva.

A major part of the article deals with apophatic language, especially words like void, cavity, and emptiness. Krama literature often describes the supreme through such negative language, and Pangsrivongse argues that this is not merely a matter of ineffability.

It is also a way of expressing non-duality. If the supreme Kali is described as void, this does not mean she is a simple nothingness. It means that when all limited realities have been reabsorbed, no separate thing remains outside her. This becomes especially clear in the imagery of fire.

The hymn describes the goddess as the radiance arising from the cavity of the Fire of Time. The Fire of Time is the cosmic fire that destroys the universe at the end of an aeon. Because it burns without leaving residue, it becomes an image of total reabsorption.

When Kali arises from the cavity of that fire, she is being described as the non-dual ground beyond which no independent reality survives.

This helps explain another striking phrase: Kali is described as “greedy for the three worlds.” Pangsrivongse notes that lampata usually has negative connotations, but here the image is that of a fire eager for fuel.

Kali is greedy for the worlds because she consumes them into herself. He supports this reading with parallels from the Kalikakulapancasataka, where she is called eager to consume the tattvas or greedy solely for devouring the universe.

He also notes that this fire symbolism shaped later Pratyabhijna discourse. Ksemaraja, for example, describes consciousness as fire because it consumes the universe just as ordinary fire consumes fuel.

In liberation, that consuming consciousness becomes so powerful that even the latent traces of otherness are destroyed.

Pangsrivongse then argues that the Kalisutra is not only non-dual but idealistic, in the sense that ultimate reality is consciousness. Kali is described as jnanatmika, of the nature of knowledge or awareness.

The most difficult phrase in this context is ciccetyacittavisayaksavilinabhava. Pangsrivongse discusses this in detail. He notes that Dyczkowski, reading a parallel in the Yonigahvara, interprets it to mean that in Kali there are dissolved consciousness, object of thought, mind, sense-objects, and senses.

Pangsrivongse proposes another reading that he cautiously prefers: the compound may allude to the threefold epistemological structure of knower, means of knowledge, and object of knowledge.

On that reading, the phrase would mean that the states of cognition related to the knower, means of cognition, and object of cognition are dissolved in Kali.

He explores several grammatical possibilities, including readings of cit, cetya, citta, visaya, and aksa, but his central conclusion remains the same regardless of the exact parsing: all factors of cognition are dissolved into Kali because she is the non-dual consciousness underlying them all.

This leads him to connect the hymn with broader Shaiva idealism. The Pratyabhijna develops a carefully argued version of this by contesting Buddhist theories of cognition and external objects, but the Kalisutra reaches a similar destination in liturgical-poetic form.

The world of knowing, known things, and acts of knowing is grounded in one consciousness. Pangsrivongse notes that Abhinavagupta explains the twelve Kalis precisely in relation to phases of cognition involving knower, means, and object, which makes the comparison even more meaningful.

The article also emphasizes that the Kalisutra’s non-dualism is world-affirming, not world-denying, and this includes the body.

The hymn repeatedly locates the goddess in bodily structures such as the heart, navel, root cakra, and channels. It says that her physical form is made of nadis. Pangsrivongse reads this carefully in light of Kaula traditions, where kala can also suggest units of speech and hence language, while nadi evokes the subtle body.

He therefore suggests that the goddess has both a mantra-body constituted by kalas and a bodily manifestation constituted by nadis. The hymn also links her to important mantras, especially the nine-syllabled, seventeen-syllabled, and one-hundred-syllabled mantras.

In the Kalikulakramarcana, these mantras are central to the worship of the Five Kalis, and Pangsrivongse notes that the seventeen-syllabled mantra of Bhasa seems especially important.

The body, then, is not incidental. It is a site where cosmic and divine processes are internalized. Pangsrivongse shows that this matches wider Newar Krama ritual logic.

In one doctrinal passage, Kali is called supreme because she is established at the dvadasanta, the point twelve finger-breadths above the head associated with the culmination of the ascending Kundalini. She is also described as the one who unites inward and outward breath.

The article also discusses ritual steps such as Atmapuja and Sanyasadhyanavidhi in the Kalikulakramarcana, where cosmic structures and goddess forms are installed into bodily loci so that the practitioner’s body becomes the goddess’s body.

This reflects a broader Shaiva tantric principle: the macrocosm is deposited into the microcosm, outer worship is interiorized, and the body becomes a vessel of realization rather than an obstacle to it.

One especially striking point concerns the epithet chidravarna. At first it might seem to be just another abstract word meaning something like “having the nature of an opening.”

But Pangsrivongse notes that chidra also has a technical meaning in earlier yogini tantras, where it denotes a vulnerable opening through which spirits or harmful forces enter the body, as in possession or the evil eye. In earlier contexts, such possession was dangerous.

In later Kaula traditions, however, possession by the goddess could become a positive sign of the descent of divine power, even a symptom of successful initiation.

In that light, Kalisutra’s use of chidravarna may not simply be abstract apophatic language. It may also evoke the body as the place where divine force enters and transforms the practitioner.

Pangsrivongse supports this by mentioning related epithets in Newar liturgies, such as marmaghatini, “she who pierces the vulnerable points.”

The article’s final conclusion is careful but powerful. Pangsrivongse does not claim that the Newar liturgies contain a fully systematic philosophical school equivalent to Pratyabhijna.

What he does claim is that the Kalisutra clearly contains philosophical positions. More specifically, it expresses a distinct non-dualism that is both idealistic and world-affirming.

Reality is consciousness, yet the world and the body are not denied. In this respect, the ontology of the Kalisutra is not far from that of Pratyabhijna, and that resemblance is historically plausible because both emerge from the same broader Krama scriptural background.

The hymn does not create a new philosophy from nothing. Rather, it condenses into six verses ideas already present in Krama tantras such as the Kalikakulapancasataka, but does so with unusual clarity and force. Because of the hymn’s importance and repeated appearance in Newar liturgies, the article concludes that the Uttaramnaya paddhatis of the Newars were not merely practical ritual texts. They were also guided by genuine philosophical reflection.

What stayed with me after reading the article was not only its argument about one hymn, but its larger challenge to how we read intellectual history. It asks us to widen our understanding of philosophy.

A liturgy may contain ontology. A hymn may preserve a theory of consciousness. A ritual manual may encode a world-affirming non-dualism. In that sense, the article is not just about the Kalisutra, or Kali, or the Newars.

It is about learning to recognize thought where formal philosophy has not always bothered to look.

Again, this is my own writing based on my readings and findings. I may have misunderstood some points, missed some nuances, or compressed things too much in places. There may well be errors and gaps, and I remain open to correction, refinement, and better insight.

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