Svacchanda
स्वच्छन्द svacchanda'Self-willed', 'acting of his own accord': the name of the five-faced, eighteen-armed form of Bhairava worshipped in the Svacchanda Tantra, and by extension the name of that scripture. His consort is Aghoreshvari.
Where this term appears
- The Types of Tantra Lineages
Major Śaiva scriptures carry "Tantra" in their titles, the Svacchanda , the Netra , the Mālinīvijayottara , and Pāñcarātra texts are also called Āgamas.
- What are the Āgamas and Tantras? Lineages
The Goudriaan-Gupta catalogue of tantric literature reports it from the Piṅgalāmata ; other recensions give it to the Paramasaṃhitā , others to the Svacchanda Tantra .
- Mantroddhara: the key printed above the lock Lineages
The Svacchanda puts the point negatively, that the phonemes do not yield liberation absent realised union with Śiva, which is a statement about efficacy and not about secrecy at all.
- Samaya: the fetter and who was spared it Lineages
…pacity, and Ramakantha's commentary glosses their initiation with the Svacchanda 's own phrase.
- The Nisvasa: the oldest tantra, and what it does not yet know Lineages
The Svacchanda was in turn cannibalised, in much the same way, by the Tantrasadbhava .
- The Svacchanda Tantra: the fight over what was in the cup Lineages
…, in the rite of the three daily junctures." — Svacchandatantra 2.136 Svacchanda Tantra 2.136, printed at page 75 of the first volume of the Kashmir Series of Texts and Studies.
- The two seats: how the tantric canon was actually organised Lineages
What matters here is what that early text does with the Svacchanda .
- The Kashmir Foundation Treatise
…(commentary on the Shiva Sutras), and a substantial commentary on the Svacchanda Tantra , together composing the operational textual heritage the post-Abhinavagupta tradition would carry forward.