Śivasaṃhitā 1.81

The correspondence between senses and qualities closes the cosmological cycle and connects it to direct experience. The five senses are not doors to the exterior: they are the instruments through which Consciousness knows itself in its own projections. Hearing, touch, sight, taste, and smell are the ways in which the universe touches itself. The yogi who understands this does not struggle against the senses but refines them.

The enumeration cakṣuṣā… ghrāṇena… rasanayā… tvacā (by the eye… by the nose… by the tongue… by the skin) establishes the correspondence between jñānendriya (sense of knowledge) and tanmātra (subtle quality). The introduction of Durgā and Lakṣmī as manifestations of avidyā according to the dominant guṇa brings cosmology into devotion: the goddesses are not external entities but projections of cosmic potency according to the predominance of tamas or sattva.

The association between tamas and Durgā (the fierce protector, the one who destroys ignorance) and between sattva and Lakṣmī (the luminous one, the one who brings spiritual prosperity) reflects the Tantric theology of śakti as an active cosmic principle. In the Śivasaṃhitā, this theme is introduced briefly but announces the later chapters where Tantric practices—working with the goddesses, with the tattva—will take center stage.