Kashmir Shaivism

Published in Knut Jacobsen, ed., The Theory and  Practice of Yoga: Essays in Honour of Gerald James Larson  ( Leiden: Brill, 2005): 143-180.

In this essay I utilize Abhinavagupta’s fourfold system of mystical practice (upāya-catuṣṭayam) as a heuristic for critiquing certain Western assumptions about the mind/body relationship. Specifically, I examine the hermeneutical limitations one encounters when applying W. T. Stace’s model of comparative mysticism--which gives a Cartesian privilege to the ‘introvertive’ mystical experience of mental inwardness over its ‘extrovertive’ counterpart--to Abhinavagupta’s eleventh-century
Trika-Kaula system. Abhinavagupta’s own discourse on mystical states of consciousness inverts Stace’s model and ultimately collapses the distinction between introvertive and extrovertive. In the preparatory stages of Trika-Kaula practice, the adept harnesses an inward, regressive power (visarga-śakti) in pursuit of an introvertive mystical experience with eyes closed (nimīana-samādhi ). In the later stages, however, the same regressive power is inverted to reveal its progressive side and the Tantric thereby attains an extrovertive experience with eyes opened
(unmīlana-samādhi ). At the culmination of his or her practice the Tantric attains a state of consciousness in which the inner and outer become united in the singular continuum of consciousness. At this ‘no-path’ stage of transcendent experience (bhairavīmudrā) the Self within and the world without are one.

Paper for the panel: The Viṣṇudharma and the Śivadharma: points of influence and divergence, 33. Deutscher Orientalistentag, Jena, Germany, 18–22 September 2017 

* Published now in the Introduction to the book "A Śaiva Utopia" on Academia * :
https://www.academia.edu/67886226/A_%C5%9Aaiva_Utopia_The_%C5%9Aivadharma_s_Revision_of_Brahmanical_Var%E1%B9%87%C4%81%C5%9Bramadharma 

In a recent papers examining the Śivadharma[śāstra], I analyzed that way the author of this work has recast several of the distinctive categories of Smārta Brahmanical dharma, particularly the four-āśrama model, affirming the varṇa (social class) categories but extending the range of ritual agency available to Śūdras and women through devotional observances (and in one verse, even to foreigners, 1.26), and generalizing acts of generosity and hospitality prescribed in Dharmaśāstra only for high-status recipients so as to benefit the needy regardless of status. In general terms, the Viṣṇudharma, apparently dating to roughly the same period, likewise adapts the varṇāśrama-dharma of early Dharmaśāstra to a sectarian religious orientation — in this case, Bhāgavata rather than Māheśvara — but with notably different results. First, where the Śivadharmaśāstra evidently presupposes the older non-sequential āśrama model of the Dharmasūtras, the Viṣṇudharma adopts the sequential model introduced in Manu's code (ca. 200 CE). Whereas the Śivadharma redirects the Smārta guest-reception rite and madhuparka meal for the benefit of Śiva-bhaktas (lay Śaivas adhering to a formal vow), no comparable rite appears in the Viṣṇudharma (where the elements of guest reception appear only as part of the ceremony of worshiping deities or ancient sages). Most notably, the Viṣṇudharma (especially in chapters 24–25, 66, and 105) enters into sectarian polemic against the threat posed in this decadent Kali age by " heretics " (pāṣaṇḍas) of many stripes, including Buddhists, Jains, Sāṃkhyas, skeptics, and false ascetics. Arguments framed in foreign languages (hetuvādair … mlecchabhāṣānibandhaiḥ) are singled out for condemnation (105.44), and Śūdras who become ascetics and go about without caste-markers provoke serious concern. The Śivadharmaśāstra makes no reference to " heretics " (and only the most circumspect allusion to other religious groups), and adopts a more inclusive social policy. In short, the Viṣṇudharma's conception of Viṣṇu-bhakti pointedly defends classical Smārta status hierarchy and its prerogatives, foregoing the Śivadharma's modest moves toward social inclusion. This paper concludes by setting these observations in the context of later trends in the two traditions.

1. We look through the mind and we gaze within awareness…becoming aware of awareness is the path of gazing (whether eyes or open or closed)…we can gaze into awareness and we are immediately the field, the field of being. If we look and look for awareness with our mind only blankness arises, a blank state. Sunyata, primordial knowingness is not blankness, it is not blanking out. As we become aware of awareness we enter the gaze, we become the place of the gaze…this gazing from within awareness opens the multidimensionalness….the different dimensions of the field manifest within the gaze, within us. The gaze is both within us and beyond us. Within the gaze, there is neither simple inside nor simple outside. The gaze is place...a vast place beyond inside and outside.

The purpose of the panel is to explore a specific aspect of the concept of originality in Indian knowledge systems, literature and the arts. We would like to discuss the relation of innovation and perpetuation of earlier forms and contents of knowledge and aesthetic expressions. Although within the South Asian intellectual traditions this relationship is rarely the topic of explicit reflections, it can be investigated by taking a closer look at the treatment of older materials by later authors. With a view to this, we would like to discuss, for example, the following questions.

Lilian Silburn  " Kundalini - energy of  the depths"
A Comprehensive Study Based on the Scriptures Of Non-dualistic Kashmir Shaivism
Russian  translation

Lilian Silburn is Director of Research at the Centre National
de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris. For many years she has been
respected worldwide as a leader in studies of the Shaivism of Kashmir.

The development of
the book parallels the development of the Kundalini within. Part
One exposes the awakening and unfolding of the Kundalini; Part
Two describes the piercing of the energy centers and the stages of
ascent through the body; and Part Three examines Kundalini's relation
to sexual expression.
The book provides a deep understanding of Tantra and of the
underlying purpose of Tantracism. The author carefully considers
the Caryakrama practices of sexual expression as a means of
awakening and controlling Kundalini.
Silburn draws together passages from the Trika, Krama, and
Kaula systems ranging through Abhinavagupta and Lalla and provides
both translation and commentary for them. Chapters on the
Chakas. the Nadis, and on mantras further elucidate the topic and
lead to a forceful conclusion: Kundalini is the source of ultimate
human knowledge and power.

Yoga fundamentally is the discipline of reconciliation and harmonisation among the three forces of our nature, namely the vital, mental and spiritual and has nothing to do with religion.
There is nothing more purifying than yoga, nothing more auspicious than yoga, nothing subtler than yoga and therefore better than yoga (in any respect).

What is the range of possibilities of experience possible in dreams?

Paul Muller-Ortega explores this question in relation to the Indian philosopher Vasugupta's  account of experience of absolute consciousness in relation  to his Siva Sutras.

How to read a text and how to hear a text. How to open words and syllables so that knowledge arises within your own body, within your inner awareness. When you are located in mind alone, when you are located in conceptualness and concrete mind alone, you will be locked in and contained. William Reich described concrete minds as living machines. Concreteness can be described as rigidity, a mode of tense cognitive activity. Strangely enough, concreteness with its compulsiveness, its drivenness can distort the sense of presence and the sense of reality. The concrete mind in its literalness struggles to find the right solution. The literal view can be narrow, highly vigilant and stimulus−stimulation bound. The concrete mind struggles to find the right solution relentlessly. Of course whatever the solution, it never is enough. One becomes stuck in the stimulus of the word and stuck in the signification of the word. The nexus between the signifier and signified is without space and is densely bound.

The Recognition of the Lord (Īśvarapratyabhijñā) by the Kashmirian Utpaladeva (c. 925–975) is a landmark in the history of nondual Śaivism, and one of the masterpieces of Indian philosophy. The detailed commentary (Vivṛti) on it by the author himself was so far considered almost entirely lost, but three chapters of this major work were recently recovered from marginal annotations in manuscripts of other commentaries on Utpaladeva’s treatise. The book provides the first critical edition, annotated translation and study of the chapter devoted to the examination of the “power of action”, which endeavours to justify a fundamental paradox of the system – namely, the idea that Śiva (understood as an infinite, omniscient and omnipotent consciousness) has a dynamic essence since the core of consciousness is a subtle form of action, and yet is by no means limited by the temporal and spatial sequence that affects all ordinary acts and agents.
Isabelle Ratié, Utpaladeva on the Power of Action. A First Edition, Annotated Translation and Study of Īśvarapratyabhijñāvivṛti, Chapter 2.1, Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard University Press, Harvard Oriental Series 96, 2021, xv+395 pages.
https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674270817

Pratyabhijñā is a school of thought within the nondual Śaiva tantra tradition. Along with the Kula, Krama, and Spanda systems, it is also one of the four subsystems that make up the Kashmiri Śaiva tradition. Together, these four influenced the Trika system, taught by Abhinavagupta. The Pratyabhijñā school teaches the spontaneous recognition of the self as identical with the divine.

With the passing away of Lakshman Joo in  1991, Kashmir lost a noble son and Kashmir Shaivism a living link with an old  tradition. This brief sketch of his life highlights his influence on some of  the persons who came in touch with him. I have written it with the belief that he should be more widely  known among all those who care for a spiritual message of oneness of  all in our present troubled world.

This paper will examine possible connections between the Sanskritic and the Slavic worlds. The connections will be sketched based on new evidence from Sogdia regarding representations of Maheshvara and the Goddess for this region served as the mediator between the two worlds. It will also consider the representation of Svetovid, the pan-Slavic god with four faces, that has interesting parallels with Maheshvara and Brahma with correspondence in the four colors of white, red, black, and green/gold.

Настоящая работа исследует возможные связи между санскритским и славянским мирами. Наличие возможной связей предполагается на основе новых свидетельств из Согда относительно представлений ох Махешваре. Богиня этой страны служила здесь посредником между двумя указанными мирами. Также рассмотрено представление о Световиде, общеславянском боге с четырьмя лицами, у которого есть интересные параллели с Махешварой и Брахмой, в том числе в рамках структуры, образованной четырьмя цветами: белым, красным, черным, и зеленым/золотым

The present paper offers the first Polish annotated translation and edition of the Tantrasāra, an important text of Kashmiri Shaivism written at the turn of the first and second millennium by Abhinavagupta. The translation og Abhinavagupta’s work covers the chapters 1-5, 21, and the beginning of the chapters 6 and 8. It includes also the translation of the very helpful marginal glosses of the oldest available manuscript of the Tantrasāra from 1527 A.D. In the introductory part of the paper are given a brief description as well as a summary of the whole treatise.

ISSN 1232-4663 STUDIA INDOLOGICZNE 21 (2014),
Wydział Orientalistyczny,  Uniwersytet Warszawski
Warszawa 2014

Our lack of awareness of Being results in bewildering experience. The intrinsic inner radiance, the inner light of Being arises out of primordial luminous spaciousness, the unbound openness of unbound pure potentiality. When this primordial ground of Being is veiled and obscured by the lack of experiential awareness, we can be locked into dualistic experiences, and consequently the non-dual nature of the field of Being is experientially foreclosed. The sense of indivisibility of all phenomena and awareness is experientially foreclosed. The capacity to see into, feel into and see through the lucidity of phenomena as the very field of Being becomes foreclosed and densified. We then live contained in mind alone. There is no experience of the field of Being. Without the field of Being we easily become things and objects both to our self and to others.

Hinduphobia is a contentious topic. Is it
the right term? Does it describe the
range of religious persecution and the
modus operandi of the perpetrators? Is it a
fear, a hatred or contempt of Hindus that
results in anything from casual discrimination
to the heavy consequences of legislation that
targets 'non-believers' in Islamic Theocratic
States? The problem for those attempting to
define the concept is that the scope of violation
and sentiment is wide...This article unpacks the concept of Hinduphobia as applied to the ethnic cleansing of Kashmir Pandits and provides a framework of indigenous persecution by Abrahamic Supremacists that helps reframe concepts like anti-Hindu sentiment as a minor problem of diasporas, and to place Hinduphobia within the historic setting of silencing and victim blaming aboriginals of Kashmir for seven centuries of colonialism, cultural and ethnic genocide and looming epistemicide.

ज्ञान और उसके स्वरूप के तात्त्विक चिन्तन से ओतप्रोत भारतीय दर्शन परम्परा में स्मृति की संकल्पना विचार का एक महत्त्वपूर्ण बिन्दु रहा है। प्रमाणों के अन्तर्गत न होते हुए भी स्मृति प्रमाणों का बीजभूत है। प्रस्तुत पत्र में प्रत्यभिज्ञा दर्शनानुसार स्मृति को विभिन्न चरणों में स्पष्ट करने का प्रयास किया गया है। सर्वप्रथम प्रत्यभिज्ञा के अनिवार्य अंग के रूप में स्मृति का महत्त्व बताया गया है। प्रत्यभिज्ञा दार्शनिकों के अनुसार स्मृति ईश्वर की शक्ति है। ईश्वरप्रत्यभिज्ञाकारिका एवं विमर्शिनी में स्मृति से सम्बन्धित पूर्वपक्ष के आक्षेपों को उपस्थित कर उनका निराकरण कर, स्मर्ता महेश्वर रूप आत्मा को सिद्ध किया गया है। इसी प्रसंग में न्याय के आत्मानुमेयवाद का खण्डन किया गया है। स्मृति ज्ञान का अनुभव ज्ञान से पार्थक्य, स्मृति के भ्रान्तित्व का निराकरण तथा अर्थ-प्रकाश के विमर्श के रूप में स्मृति की प्रक्रिया को प्रस्तुत पत्र में विस्तार से विवेचित किया गया है।

The Shiva Sutra was revealed to and written down by Vasugupta (ca 875--925 CE). The Sutra is considered mystical and of divine origin. For Kashmir Shaivism, it is one of the most important key sources. It outlines the teachings of Shaiva non-dualism, where the focus is on attaining the Ultimate Reality in which everything is created and dissolved. This ultimate state is called Param Shiva and is beyond description. For attaining this state of Shiva for those who remember to reside in their own inherent-self-nature, which is of the nature of Shiva, no effort or no way is needed. For everyone else there are three ways for the attainment of Param Shiva described in the Shiva Sutra. There is no strict order given for meditating on the Sutra. It depends on one's stage of evolution. Translation from the original Sanskrit with notes.

Ecological interconnectedness studies are a portal into dual and non-dual frameworks for bioculturally embedded human identity. This field is part of the transdisciplinary, holistic epistemology shift across academia. The discourse is catalysed by concern over injustice, conflict, climate change, ecosystem collapse and extinction. It coincides with an increasingly modernised, interconnected—and vulnerable, “old world order” of pan-global industrial capitalism. Environmental philosophy of the 1990s laid the foundation of deep ecology, ecofeminist and social ecology that inform western eco-justice activism, and the ecocritical theory to which this essay belongs. The discourse of ecocritical literary theory is a fertile ground for intersecting paradigms within contemporary western and medieval Indian philosophy on the liminal boundaries of self and world, and how these permeable systems motivate action through flexible parameters of human and non-human agency.

In the Gudyargarbha tantra there is this most wonderful verse. Appearances, sounds, and thoughts are the diety, mantra and the state of dharmakaya. What this wonderful language brings forward into our awareness is the amazing understanding that self liberation is the direct experiencing of the appearing of appearances.

A somewhat problematic book has recently been devoted to one of the most fascinating (and neglected) works of Kashmirian Śaiva Advaita: the Śivadṛṣṭi by Somānanda. This furnishes the occasion for broader reflection on the role of philology in dealing with the complex texts of the Pratyabhijñā tradition (or perhaps in dealing with any philosophical-religious Sanskrit text).

forthcoming. “Nīlakaṇṭha Dīkṣita and the Saubhāgyacandrātapa: A Study of the Role of Śrīvidyā
among Prominent Intellectual Families in Early-Modern South India.” In Raffaele Torella, ed. Proceedings of the Fifteenth World Sanskrit Conference, Tantra and Āgama.

It is a well-known fact that the Śaiva nondualistic philosopher Utpaladeva (fl. c. 925-975) has adopted the Sāṃkhya principle according to which the effect must exist in some way before the operation of its cause (satkāryavāda). Johannes Bronkhorst has highlighted the paradox inherent in this appropriation: Utpaladeva is a staunch supporter of the satkāryavāda, but whereas Sāṃkhya authors consider it as a means of proving the existence of an unconscious matter, the Śaiva exploits it so as to establish his monistic idealism, in perfect contradiction with the Sāṃkhya dualism of matter and consciousness. How does Utpaladeva achieve this complete reversal of meaning of the satkāryavāda? The present article argues that the elliptical verses of the Īśvarapratyabhijñākārikā dealing with this issue have been partly misunderstood so far due to the loss of Upaladeva’s own detailed commentary (Vivr̥ti) on this passage: Abhinavagupta’s two commentaries, however terse in this respect, clearly show that a crucial part of Utpaladeva’s reasoning remains implicit in the verses. The article therefore attempts to reconstruct the gist of Utpaladeva’s strategy by having recourse to various other Śaiva sources, including Somānanda’s Śivadr̥ṣṭi and Utpaladeva’s own commentary thereon. This examination shows that Utpaladeva’s appropriation of the satkāryavāda rests on a profound transformation of the Sāṃkhya notions of manifestation (abhivyakti) and potentiality (śakti), and that his criticism of the Sāṃkhya understanding of causality might target the Śaiva dualists as well as Sāṃkhya authors.
[“A Śaiva interpretation of the satkāryavāda: the Sāṃkhya notion of abhivyakti and its transformation in the Pratyabhijñā treatise,” Journal of Indian Philosophy 42(1), 2014, pp. 127-172.]

Shaiva bhakti tradition has been part of the larger bhakti context and literature of medieval India. This paper attempts to understand the history of Kashmir Shaivism and Shaiva semiotic in the works of two Shaiva poets of Kashmir. The Shaiva tradition developed through three major branches across the Indian heartland. The dvaita (dualist) Shaiva Siddhanta system of sixth century Tamilnadu, followed by the advaitavad (non-dualism) of Kashmir Shaivism in the eighth century, and thirdly the dvaita (dualist) Virasaiva or Lingayat movement that burst across Karnataka in the twelfth century. At its inception, Kashmir Shaivism pitched its roots in Sanskrit, later however it went on to use a version of the Apabhramsa which by the time of Lal Ded changed to the local Kashmiri. Thus this paper attempts to understand and examine the evolving context of Kashmir Shaivism through a survey of the life and verse of saint-poets like Abhinavgupta and Lal Ded in the 10 th and 14 th century Kashmir respectively. The paper also attempts to analyse motifs of non-dualism and tantra in select poems of the two; besides closely tracing shifts in thematic emphasis and acknowledging the continuities and departures that lie therein. The exceedingly subtle collection of Principles situated in the Heart, in the whole body, in essence-nature (svabhāva), is known [in this tantra] by the word grāma (the 'village' or 'community' or 'collectivity'). || 83 That which must be known is abiding in one's true home, which is the state of seeing free of all obscurations. One who has become 'stainless' (free of mala) by virtue of this pure insight

A person's own inner most awareness and the movements within their awareness field bring forth their direct personal experience of their cosmological archetypal field of awareness. This spontaneous event is given to us within the archetypal realm of awareness. The archetypal dimension manifests itself as us, and reveals itself to us through our experience of its self-manifestation.