காலனவன் நடப்பதெந்தக் காலினாலே
கால்வாசி யாங் காலே காலன் காலாம்
காலினையண் ணாக்குண்ணாக் கேற்றிக் கப்பி
கல்லிணையும் தேரையங்கே கால னில்லை
காலிணையும் மைய்யத்தே வாலைத் தூக்கி
கண்ணையதோ முகம்வைத்த பாம்பைந் தாக்கி
வேலிணையும் தண்டினிலே செலுத்தி வீக்கி
வேலகரம் பிடறிக்கண் ணூடே தூக்கி
kālanavan naṭappathenthak kālinālē
kālvāci yāṅ kālē kālan kālām
kālinaiyaṇ ṇākkuṇṇāk kēṟṟik kappi
kalliṇaiyum thēraiyaṅkē kāla nillai
kāliṇaiyum maiyyaththē vālai(th) thūkki
kaṇṇaiyathō mukamvaiththa pāmbain thākki
vēliṇaiyum thaṇḍinilē seluththi vīkki
vēlakaram piṭaṟikkaṇ ṇūḍē thūkki
“By which leg does Death (Kālan) walk?
At the ‘quarter-foot’—that very foot becomes Death’s time.
Lift the foot up to the throat/uvula and clamp it in place;
Where ‘stone’ and ‘frog’ are joined there, Death is not.
In the center where the legs meet, lift up the tail;
Strike the five-(hooded) snake whose face is placed in the eye.
Drive the spear that is joined into the staff and make it swell;
Holding the spear-hand, lift it—through the back of the head—through the eye.”
Death advances by the movement of prāṇa/time; discover the “leg” it rides upon and arrest it. Reverse the ordinary downward current: lock and turn the inner winds upward (a throat/uvula lock is hinted), and bring the divided currents to a single junction where death cannot enter. From the pelvic “tail” (root/coccygeal power), rouse and lift the coiled energy; confront the “fivefold serpent” at the eye-center (the knot of the senses/minds or the fivefold prāṇa). Then send the awakened force (the “spear”) into the spinal axis (the “staff”) and intensify it, raising it through the back-of-the-head pathway and through the inner “eye” (ājñā) toward the deathless state.
The verse plays on kāl/கால் (leg) and kāla/காலம் (time): Death is not merely an external deity but the principle of time that “walks” by means of motion—especially the motion of breath and mind. Siddhar strategy is to discover the carrier of time (prāṇa’s habitual flow) and interrupt or reverse it.
Several images are classical haṭha–tantric markers rendered in Siddhar code: - “Lift the foot to the throat/uvula” suggests an upper lock/closure at the throat-palate region—often associated with restraining downward dissipation and redirecting force upward (bandha / khecarī-related imagery appears in Siddhar texts with palate/uvula references). - “Where stone and frog are joined” evokes a secret junction where inert heaviness (“stone”: earth, fixedness, or bodily solidity) meets a hopping/living impulse (“frog”: leap, prāṇic jump, or a mudrā/posture allusion). In yogic reading, it points to a place where dualities or elements meet and are fused—commonly the central channel’s stabilization—resulting in the claim “there Death is not.” - “Lift the tail” is a direct root-base cue: the tail-like end of the spine/coccyx and the latent coiled force (kuṇḍalinī) are to be raised via root lock and internal heat. - The “five snake” can signify the five senses, five vital airs, or a five-hooded nāga motif: whatever is “fivefold” and binds awareness is to be ‘struck’ (pierced, mastered) at the eye-center. - “Spear” (vēl) and “staff” (daṇḍa) map cleanly onto inner anatomy: the spear is a sharp, penetrating current of awakened power; the staff is the spinal axis/central channel. “Make it swell” implies intensification—heat, pressure, or fullness (kumbhaka-like fullness of prāṇa) that enables ascent. - “Through the back of the head—through the eye” indicates the subtle passage from the occipital region to the brow center and beyond, i.e., the crossing of a decisive knot where ordinary perception is transcended.
Overall, the philosophical claim is: death is the tyranny of time sustained by dispersed prāṇa and sense-mind activity. By compressing, uniting, and elevating life-force into the central pathway—piercing the knots at base, heart/throat, and brow (implied rather than named)—one enters a state described as beyond death (kāya-siddhi / amṛta / jīvanmukti), while the text intentionally keeps the operations veiled in martial and animal symbolism.