Śivasaṃhitā 5.113

This verse enumerates one of the most striking fruits of advanced yogic practice: the direct darśana, or vision, of perfected beings and cosmic powers. The Siddhas are masters who have attained liberation while retaining embodied capacities, while the Yoginīs represent feminine cosmic energies central to Tantric cosmology. Their appearance signals a radical opening of the practitioner’s perceptual field.

The Sanskrit darśana (दर्शन) carries a weight absent in the English ‘vision’: it denotes a mutual beholding, a sacred encounter. The beings listed—Yakṣa, Rākṣasa, Gandharva, Apsarā, and Kinnara—are intermediate entities inhabiting the layered cosmos of classical Indian thought, each associated with specific qualities of sound, beauty, or elemental force.

Historically, the subjugation of such beings appears across Tantric and Śaiva literature as a marker of siddhi (perfected power), not an end in itself. The Śivasaṃhitā places this attainment within a devotional and meditative framework, distinguishing it from mere magical ambition and grounding it in the discipline of sustained contemplation.