The Great Liberation Tantra

महानिर्वाणतन्त्र

Mahānirvāṇatantra

The Mahānirvāṇa Tantra ("Tantra of the Great Liberation") is a Śākta-Kaula tantra cast as a dialogue between Sadāśiva and Pārvatī. It is the PUBLIC, reformist face of the Kaula tradition: unlike the esoteric, dīkṣā-gated Kaula scriptures, it foregrounds householder ethics, the worship of the one supreme Brahman, and means of liberation suited to the Kali age, and it was widely printed and circulated (it is the tantra Sir John Woodroffe / Arthur Avalon rendered as "The Great Liberation"). This non-esoteric, non-initiatory character is what informs the KaulaContentAdvisory display. This staged sample covers only ullāsas 1-3 (279 verses). The Sanskrit mūla is extracted verbatim from the Muktabodha M00049 e-text (Tantrik Series Vol. 13, ed. Arthur Avalon, 1926; data entry supervised by Mark S. G. Dyczkowski), separated from Hariharānanda Bhāratī's interleaved ṭīkā, which is not included.