54 THE SAIVA AGAMAS
currents of scripture, viz., Left, Right and Middle. The JY has, however, rearranged their contents. The Siddhant agamas have been entirely
excluded from the pitha classification.280 Therefore, the Middle Current is now vacant and a new category is created to take its place, namely, the
Saktitantras. However, this is just a new name for old familiar Tantras
amongst which are the Siddhayogesvarimata, the Sarvavira and the JY itself. It is worth noting that the SYM is regularly assigned to this .pitha. The BY does so and Abhinava tells us that it is this pitha which dominates in this, the root Trika Tantra, and hence also in the Malinivijaya, which presents the essentials of the former.281 In fact, the SYM itself tells us that it belongs to the Vidyapitha.282
The BY locates the Vidya and Mantra pitha in the current of the Right281 while the JY extends the Vidyapitha to include the Tantras of the Left amongst which are the Mahasammohana and Nayottara. Although the Vinasikha is not amongst the major Tantras, it may be the Sikhatantra listed as one of the secondary Tantras associated with the Sammohana.284
The Right Current of the Vidyapitha consists of the Yamalas amongst which the BY is considered to be the most important. The JY thus allots a major category to the Yamalas and they are, as we have already had occasion to remark, treated at times as a category on their own. The Tamil poem, the Takkaydgapparani by Ottakkuttar written in the twelfth century, frequently refers to the " Yamalasastra. " According to this work there are ninety-one secondary Yamalas and Tantras associated with the main Yamalas of which one of the most important is the BY.285 It is indeed an extensive and interesting work which deserves to be edited and care fully studied.
The Mantra and Vidya pithas are closely related, so much so that Jayaratha says that they stand for Siva and Sakti.286 Similarly, the JY states that the Mantrapitha is associated with masculine words and the
Vidyapitha with feminine ones.287 Perhaps we can understand this to mean that the Tantras in the former group are more Siva-oriented than those belonging to the latter. The Svacchandatantra, which is said to belong to the Mantrapitha, is indeed markedly more 'Saiva' than the Siddha
yogesvarimata of the Vidyapitha which is more 'Sakta Moreover,
Abhinava's statement that the Vidyapitha sustains and strengthens the
Mantrapitha288 is exemplified in the context of the Trika exegesis of Saiva
scripture by the secondary and yet vitally important place given to the
Svacchandatantra which supplies, amongst other things, along with the Malinivijaya, the cosmology of the Trika.
In Kashmiri circles the Vidyapitha was considered to be the most important of the pithas. Abhinava quotes the Kularatnamalatantra to say that Trika, as a Kaula school which embodies the essence of the doctrines
Vidyapitha 55
of the Tantras of the Left and the Right currents, is superior to them all.289 He does this immediately after he has extolled the superiority of the
Vidyapitha, implying perhaps in this way that Trika as a whole belongs to
this pitha. Thus Abhina va exalts the Vidyapitha as the ultimate essence of the other pithas by stating, on the authority of the Anandasastra, that all the pithas ultimately derive from the Vidyapitha in such a way that, as Jayaratha puts it: "there is only one pitha which is of the nature of them all."29"
The Vidyapitha is also important in Nepal. Most of the Tantras preserved there, which affiliate themselves to a pitha, belong to this one. Amongst them are two texts which represent themselves as elucidating the essentials of the doctrines of this pitha. One is called "Vidyapitha"and is quite short291 while the other, the Srividydpithamatasara, claims to be
12,000 verses long.292 The Vidyapitha and its importance in Nepal is particularly relevant to our present study because major Tantras of the Kubjika cult affiliate themselves to it. The Manthanabhairavatantra, which is a mongst the most important Tantras of this school, belongs to this
pitha293 and tells us that the goddess of this tradition resides in it.294 Certain manuscripts of the KMT bear long colophons that are very similar in form and content to those of the MBT and include a reference to the affiliation of the KMT to the Vidyapitha. As these colophons are not uniform in all the manuscripts, it is hard to say on the basis of this evidence alone whether the KMT did, in fact, originally affiliate itself to this pitha. Although, as we have noted above, the KMT does consider its doctrines to be the essential teachings of all theseptthas,295 it does not expressly say that it belongs to any pitha. Possibly the J Y is right to assign it to the Mudra-
pitha. If this is so, it appears that later tradition shifted the KMT's
affiliation to the Vidyapitha. Anyhow, many later Tantras of the Kubjika cult most certainly do belong to this pitha. Thus the Srimatottaratantra which is considered to be a direct successor of the KMT (which is also called Srimata) is a Vidyapithatantra,296 and so is a Tantra closely
associated with it, namely, the Kadibheda of the Gorak sasamhita.297
To conclude the first part of this monograph, let us recall what K. C. Pandey wrote more than three decades ago concerning Saivagamic studies: "How can any correct conclusion be possible unless all of (the Agamas) or at least a respectable number of them be carefully read?"298 Indeed, we cannot say much about the structure, history and form of the Saiva canon without having access to. and carefully studying, the extant material in manuscripts which, although a tiny fraction of this vast corpus of sacred literature, is vast in itself. This is a major area of Indology which has, sadly, not even gone past the stage of preliminary assessment.