“The truth is therefore this: the Supreme Lord manifests freely all the varied play of emissions and absorptions in the sky of his own nature.” – The Doctrine Of Vibration By Dr. Mark Dyczkowski
A Brief Sketch of Abhinavagupta
Abhinavagupta lived in Kashmir from about the middle of the tenth century into the eleventh. He was, without a doubt, the most brilliant of the Kashmiri Saiva teachers and one of the greatest spiritual and intellectual giants India has produced. He was and is still hailed as a polymath – a philosopher, aesthetician, art-critic, dramaturgist, tantric, practitioner, yogin, metaphysician, devotee, researcher, historian, commentator etc. He wrote more than sixty works, some very extensive, and all remarkable for the beauty of their Sanskrit and profundity of thought.
His literary activity falls into three periods. In chronological order these are:
1) Tantrika. This, the first period of Abhinavagupta’s literary life, extends p
robably up to his early fourties. In this period Abhinava sought in his writings to establish the superiority of Trika above all other schools of Agamic Saivism. His most important work during this period is the Light of the Tantras (Tantraloka). His aim was to bring together the major Saivagamic schools into that of Trika Saivism and in so doing he has provided us with a unique account of Agamic Saivism.
2) Poetics and Dramaturgy. In the second period of his life Abhinava wrote important works in these fields. Indeed, it is for this contribution that he is best known. His commentary on the Natyasastra, the foremost treatise in Sanskrit dramaturgy, testifies to its excellence and influence. Similarly, his commentary on Anandavardhana’s Mirror of Suggestion (Dhvanyaloka) is justly famous. In this work Anandavardbana and Abhinavagupta expound the theory that the soul of poetry is its power of suggestion through which sentiment is conveyed to the reader.
3) Philosophical. In the last period of his life Abhinava wrote extensive and profound commentaries on Utpaladeva’s Stanzas on the Recognition of God (Isvarapratyabhijnakarika). In these commentaries he elucidates the Doctrine of Recognition (pratyabhijna) which is the monistic philosophy proper of Kashmiri Saivism.
The Importance of Tantraloka
“Abhinavagupta presents his Tantraloka as an explanation of the teachings of the Malinivijayottara, the Trika Tantra he considers to be the most authoritative” – Dr. Mark Dyczkowski
Abhinava intends his Anuttara Trika to be understood not as something new, but as the final development of the Trika school of Shaivism, which is one of the oldest of the Bhairava current of Shaivite scriptural traditions—and the most explicit and detailed presen
tation of its essential teachings. Anuttara Trika comes at the end of the development of some centuries of Shaivism.
The Tantraloka comprises over 6,700 verses, every one resonant with boundless suggested sense. In the Tantraloka we witness one of the world’s greatest minds developing a Tantric system with a depth and breadth that has remained unparalleled for a thousand years. The traditions Abhinavagupta has knit together in his exposition of the teachings of the Anuttara Trika were always transmitted in two parallel ways, written and oral. The text is so long and complex that even the immediate meaning is not always clear, let alone its hidden implicit meaning. It is this implicit meaning that is the focus of the oral transmission—the meaning we can only understand by applying the teachings in practice.
O.M SAU.H PARAAYAI NAMA.H
Sources:
- The doctrine of vibration. An analysis of the doctrines and practices of Kashmir Shaivism, by Mark S.G. Dyczkowki
- Article on 2012 Berkeley Immersion, Mark S.G. Dyczkowski
- Abhinavagupta, G.T Deshpande, Sahitya Academy, 1992