In the celebrated tantric manual, the Tantrāloka, Abhinavagupta and his commentator Jayaratha establish a non-dual Śaiva theory of reflection using the key metaphors of light and reflective awareness. This paper attempts to explain the philosophical problem of reflection from the standpoint of these non-dual Śaivas. It also evaluates the problem in its hermeneutical context, analysing multiple layers of meaning and interpretation. Is the metaphor of reflection only a way of explaining the particular currents of the Śaiva phenomenology represented by the (...) concepts of prakāśa and vimarśa? What philosophical problem does Abhinavagupta seek to solve by complicating the category of reflection and giving it a quasi-paradoxical status? Why does he use the model of the subtle elements to explain the theory of reflection? What does the ‘untaintedness of the mirror of consciousness’ mean for his system? These questions form the focus of this paper. (shrink)

In the celebrated tantric manual, the Tantrāloka, Abhinavagupta and his commentator Jayaratha establish a non-dual Śaiva theory of reflection using the key metaphors of light and reflective awareness. This paper attempts to explain the philosophical problem of reflection from the standpoint of these non-dual Śaivas. It also evaluates the problem in its hermeneutical context, analysing multiple layers of meaning and interpretation. Is the metaphor of reflection only a way of explaining the particular currents of the Śaiva phenomenology represented by the (...) concepts of prakāśa and vimarśa? What philosophical problem does Abhinavagupta seek to solve by complicating the category of reflection and giving it a quasi-paradoxical status? Why does he use the model of the subtle elements to explain the theory of reflection? What does the ‘untaintedness of the mirror of consciousness’ mean for his system? These questions form the focus of this paper. (shrink)

The paper reviews some of the links between the notion of “ultimate reality” and everyday life, mainly art, beauty, the creative processes in art, and citizenship. If, according to M. Heidegger, art reveals the truth of being (i.e., also of ultimate reality), then we may find some historical descriptions of creative processes that are very close to descriptions of ultimate reality. Three examples of these kinds of descriptions are discussed (Abhinavagupta, St. Augustine, F. Engels). The final aim is to show (...) how the interpretation of ultimate reality can contribute to a better understanding of the creative process in art. These considerations can also throw light on one particular aspect of civil life—the relations between everyday life and its final goals. If we are to gain an understanding of the relations between ultimate reality, art and civil life, then the disciplines of aesthetics, philosophy, history and anthropology, and cultural history should all contribute together. (shrink)

In this essay, it is argued that Abhinavagupta’s theory of error, the apūrṇakhyāti theory, synthesizes two distinguishable Pratyabhijñā treatments of error that were developed in three phases prior to him. The first theory was developed in two stages, initially by Somānanda in the Śivadṛṣṭi (ŚD) and subsequently by Utpaladeva in his Īśvarapratyabhijñākārikās (ĪPK) and his short autocommentary thereon, the Īśvarapratyabhijñāvṛtti (ĪPVṛ). This theory served to explain individual acts of misperception, and it was developed with the philosophy of the Buddhist epistemologists (...) in mind. In a third phase, Utpaladeva developed in his Śivadṛṣṭivṛtti (ŚDVṛ) a second theory of error, one that involved the noncognition of non-duality ( abhedākhyāti ) and served to explain both the appearance and perception of multiplicity, despite the strict monism to which all Pratyabhijñā authors subscribe. Abhinavagupta’s treatment of error, then, is significant not only because it was meant to explain all the various theories of error offered by opposing philosophical schools, as Rastogi has shown, but more importantly because it synthesized the thinking of his predecessors on the matter in a single, elegant account of error. (shrink)

Some of Wilber’s “holoarchies” are gradations of being, which he views as truth itself; however, being is delusion, and its gradations are gradations of delusion. Wilber’s supposedly universal ontogenetic holoarchy contradicts all Buddhist Paths, whereas his view of phylogeny contradicts Buddhist Tantra and Dzogchen, which claim delusion/being increase throughout the aeon to finally achieve reductio ad absurdum. Wilber presents spiritual healing as ascent; Grof and Washburn represent it as descent—yet they are all equally off the mark. Phenomenologically speaking, the Dzogchen (...) Path is “descending,” but not in Washburn’s or Grof’s sense—and “transpersonal” is not a synonym of “sanity.” A synthesis of Wilber, Grof, Washburn, Jung, Laing, Cooper and non-transpersonal authors in the framework of Wisdom traditions is imperative. (shrink)

This article is an attempt at understanding the use that Abhinavagupta, the Kashmiri Śaiva philosopher and scholar of poetics, makes of a few concepts and theories stemming from the tradition of Vedic ritual exegesis. Its starting point is the detailed analysis of a key passage in Abhinavagupta’s commentary on the “aphorism on rasa” of the Nāṭyaśāstra, where the learned commentator draws an analogy between the operation of the non-prescriptive portions of the Veda in the ritual and the “generalisation” taking place, (...) according to him, in the appreciation of a work of art. Arguing against the tendency of modern historiography to explain this analogy exclusively in terms of Kumārila’s theory of effectuation in its two modalities, the article endeavours to show how Abhinavagupta relies on a variety of other textual sources he knew extensively and presumably first-hand. Some of them belong to the great Mīmāṃsaka tradition ; others, to different trends of medieval Brahmanism claiming exegetical heritage, as in the case of Jayanta Bhaṭṭa’s Nyāyamañjarī The nature of Abhinavagupta’s debt to Bhaṭṭa Nāyaka and his concept of bhāvanā is also reconsidered in light of these new findings. This investigation finally leads to identify, in the Abhinavabhāratī, an original theory of scriptural narratives and their efficacy, irreducible to any of its exegetical sources. According to this theory, mythological passages of the Veda directly prompt action, through the same capacity of abstraction or “de-temporalisation” that is at work in our appraisal of literature and theatre. (shrink)

The Pauṣkara briefly discusses the meaning-expressing nature of śabda (constituted of phonemes, varṇa) and the means to the cognition of word and sentence meaning. According to this dualistic Śaiva Tantra, meaning is denoted by nāda, a capacity of varṇas. Varṇas also are the means to the cognition of meaning through a capacity (saṃskāra) manifested in them. Although the meaning-denoting capacity is natural to varṇas, the relation of words (which are nothing but groups of varṇas) with objects is fixed by convention. (...) This article translates and analyzes the relevant passages from the sixth and eighth chapters. Certain arguments of plagiarism levelled against the eighth chapter of the Pauṣkara are examined in the concluding part of the article. (shrink)