The Śivasūtra — a short, cryptic text of Kashmiri Śaivism — opens with three words: caitanyam ātmā, 'consciousness is the Self.' The Śivasūtravimarśinī, a commentary on those sūtras preserved in this manuscript, spends its pages unpacking what those three words mean, and why everything in the tradition follows from them.
The first sūtra
The commentary announces its subject with an invocation that already contains the whole philosophy — a Śiva who expands the universe within himself, filled with the non-dual bliss of consciousness.
I bow to Śiva, the all-pervading one, who, through the pervasion of the Self by Śakti, expands the universe within himself, filled with the non-dual bliss of consciousness. Here indeed, the Supreme Lord, desiring to create, out of supreme grace, appeared on the stone of the mansion of the blessed Mahādeva-giri.
Then comes the sūtra itself, and the commentary's account of why it is first.
Consciousness is the Self. In the first sūtra, to reveal the unmediated sovereignty of Śiva, it is said — 'It perceives, knows all, and acts' — these are the powers of consciousness, meaning that they shine forth in the form of the universe.
The three powers
Perception, knowledge, and action — the three powers of consciousness — are, in this tradition, not things the Self has but what the Self is. The universe is consciousness shining forth in a form; the perceiver, the act of perceiving, and the perceived are all one movement.
A philosophy of unmediated sovereignty
What makes the Śivasūtra radical is the word 'unmediated.' The Self does not need instruments to know or act — it is knowing and acting. This manuscript, a commentary attributed to the lineage of Śrīmahendra, preserves that teaching with its invocations, its sūtras, and its careful unfolding — a window into a tradition that made consciousness, not matter or God, the first principle of reality.