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sutrajournal.com

A Thousand Years of
Abhinavagupta*
Dr. Jeffrey S. Lidke

28-35 minutes

Cover of a Shakta Manuscript with Uma-Maheshvara

LACMA AC1999

A thousand years ago to the year one of the world’s most

prolific and brilliant literary critics is said to have penned his
final work. If our historical estimations on the birth date, the
date of Abhinavagupta’s final literary work — his luminous
commentary, Reflections on the Recognition of the Lord
(Īśvarapratyabhijñā-vimarśinī) — and death are accurate,
then this brilliant Kashmiri polymath put down his pen
around the age of 66 at the time of the winter solstice in

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1015, some five years before dying, or as lore would have

it, transforming back into his divine, Bhairava self. Looking
back through the lens of time we can only imagine what
Abhinavagupta would have done after concluding his final
work. Certainly, his options would have been many. During
his life (ca. 950-1020) he had over 19 respected teachers
who aided him in the mastery of a variety of subjects,
ranging from grammar to logic to Buddhist philosophy to
tantric ritual and meditative practice to art, music and
aesthetics. One wonders, did he put down his pen and pick
up his brush? Did he sip wine with a beloved consort (dūtī)
or did he tune his veena and play an intoxicating raga? Or
did he sit in meditative stillness after first engaging in the
worship of the deities of his tantric tradition? Perhaps he
did all these things.

Certainly, the great master had many options at his

disposal for how he might live out his ‘retirement’ days. By
that point he had written at least 44 works (21 extant, 23
referenced from known works), ranging across four general
categories: philosophy, Tantra, aesthetics and hymns. His
education was unrivaled. He had esteemed teachers in
grammar, poetry, logic, philosophy, esoteric ritual practice,
yoga, art, music and aesthetics. By the end of his career
he had already earned widespread regard as one of the
greatest teachers, writers and spiritual masters of his day.
A millennium later, he is recognized by many as being not
just one of India’s greatest intellectuals but as one of the
most brilliant writers, philosophers and aestheticians the
world has ever known.

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Born of a Yoginī

It is safe to say that Abhinavagupta’s life both began and

ended with a proverbial ‘bang’. In the opening verse to his
Distillation of the Tantra (Tantrasāra) Abhinavagupta
poetically links his own birth with the birth of creation itself.
The preeminent Abhinavagupta scholar, Alexis Sanderson,
brilliantly renders Abhinavagupta’s invocatory double
meaning as follows:

Abhinavabhairava

May my heart shine forth, embodying the bliss of the

ultimate, [for it is] {one with the state of absolute potential
made manifest in the fusion of these two, the ‘Mother’
grounded in pure representation, radiant in ever new
genesis, and the ‘Father,’ all- enfolding [Bhairava], who
maintains the light [of consciousness] through his five
faces}/{formed from the emissions produced through the

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fusion of these two, my mother Vimalā whose greatest joy

was in my birth, and my father [Nara]siṁhagupta [when
both were] all-embracing [in their union]}.

(Sanderson 2005, 89)

With these words Abhinavagupta begins his brilliant

synopsis of the spiritual tradition that he himself would
bring to an apex, namely the Tantra, or specifically the
Tantra of the Embodied Triad (Trika Kaula), which itself
was a particular lineage within the broader spectrum of
pan-Indian Tantra (Dyczkowski 1992, 12; White 2005).
Abhinavagupta’s creative synthesis of the Embodied Triad
placed emphasis on the use of the body as a means to
attaining a non-dual state of recognition of the all-pervasive
nature of divine consciousness, termed Bhairava or
Parameśvara. True to the tenor of his Embodied Triad
tradition, Abhinavagupta begins his Distillation of the
Tantra by equating his own self with the Self of the cosmos
at large. In this interpretive spirit, he conflates the divine
couple, the goddess mother Śakti and supreme father
Bhairava, with his own mother and father, Vimala and
Narasiṁhagupta whose physical union, enacted according
to the injunctions of Tantric ritual, created Abhinavagupta,
just as the union of Śakti and Bhairava, is understood to
birth the cosmos, not just at the beginning of time, but at
the beginning of all the times that the universe has been
recreated (that number itself being infinite). In this way,
Abhinavagupta affirms the most profound and central tenet
of his Embodied Triad tradition: one’s own I-awareness is
itself that supreme awareness that is God.[1]

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Shiva and Parvati,The National Museum of Oriental Art

A Bearer of Many Lineages

Abhinavagupta’s cosmicized description of his own birth

matches the claims that he was in fact an incarnation of the

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god Bhairava, conceived through extraordinary

circumstances in which his mother and father engaged in
ritualized sexual union (Rastogi 1987, 20). His birth, in
other words, was not the beginning of his life-journey but
rather the appropriate means by which a god-being
entered into the world for the sake of revealing ancient
wisdom toward the end of providing a path of liberation for
worthy seekers. Similar to the narrative of the historical
Buddha, Abhinavagupta lost his mother Vimala at an early
age. Thereafter, he was raised by his father,
Narasiṁhagupta together with his brother Manoratha and
sister Ambā. His father was a pious Brahmin, devoted to
the worship of lord Śiva. He was Abhinavagupta’s first
teacher or guru, instructing him in grammar, logic and
Sanskrit literature (Gnoli 1999, 4). After his early training in
his father’s home, Abhinavagupta would then go on to
study with some twenty esteemed teachers, from a variety
of traditions and disciplines (Pandey 1963, 12). Although
his father was a Śaivite, or follower of the Hindu god Śiva,
Abhinavagupta would study from Vaiṣṇavas, Buddhists and
teachers from other, non-Śaivite, lineages.

Of his many teachers, five stand out (Müller-Ortega 1988,

45-47). The first of these is Lakṣmanagupta, disciple of
Utpaladeva in the lineage of the revered Somānanda,
author of the Vision of Śiva (Śivadṛṣṭi) and initiate of the
esteemed Tryambaka lineage (Nemec 2011). From
Lakṣmanagupta, Abhinavagupta learned several systems
of non-dual philosophy and practice that were central to his
own eventual systematization, including the Triad ( Trika)

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and Recognition (Pratyabhijñā) systems. From Bhūtirāja he

learned the Sequence (Krama) system. Under the tutelage
of Bhāskara he learned the Vibration (Spanda) system and
guided by Bhaṭṭa Tauta he immersed himself in aesthetics
and philosophy of language. The most important of his
many teachers is undoubtedly Śambhunātha who initiated
Abhinavagupta into the Kaula or Embodied tradition and
guided him into what Abhinavagupta believed to be the
highest stages of spiritual realization. So great was
Abhinavagupta’s adoration for Śambhunātha that he
compared him with the sun and described him as “the
moon appearing over the ocean of Trika knowledge”
(Dupuche 2008, 7). It is from Śambhunātha that
Abhinavagupta received the esoteric and sacred descent
of power (śaktipāta) that awakens the Coiled Power
(kuṇḍalinī-śakti) at the base of the spinal column leading to
the purification of the subtle body as a result of the
ascendance of this spiritual energy into the crown of the
head — an ascendance that is said to bring about full
recognition of one’s divine nature (Ferrario 2015; Wallis
2007; Lidke 2005; Silburn 1988). Just as Abhinavagupta
was conceived through an act of esoteric Tantric, sexual
ritual so was his initiation by Śambhunātha bestowed via a
secret sexual rite in which a Tantric messenger (dūtī)
served as the conduit for his mystical awakening. In his
Light on Tantra (Tantrāloka), the massive compendium on
Tantric practice that Abhinavagupta would later write at the
behest of Śambhunātha, Abhinavagupta would devote an
entire chapter to this rite, which he termed the rahaysa-

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vidhi or “secret injunction” (Lidke 2005; Dupuche 2008).

Kaal Bhairava, Hanuman Dhoka, Kathmandu, Nepal

A Renaissance Mystic

Abhinavagupta likely completed his extensive studies and

stages of mystical realization by his mid-thirties. At that
point he lived out the rest of his life as a teacher and
prolific author, turning his home in Kashmir into a place of
spiritual learning (āśrama) in which he wrote his many
works and attended to the training of the numerous
disciples who were drawn to him like bees to honey. The
vibrant setting of Abhinavagupta’s world at this time is
described palpably by his disciple Madhurāja in the
“Meditation Verses” (Dhyānaśloka) from his Reflections on
the Lord Teacher (Gurunātha Parāmarśa). In these oft-
quoted verses, Abhinavagupta is hailed as a divine
incarnation who sits amidst a garden of grapes within a

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pavilion adorned with crystal and beautiful works of art.

The room is fragrant with the smell of flowers, incense and
oil lamps. Beautiful women dance to the instruments and
songs of master musicians all in adoration of the master
teacher, Abhinavagupta, who is surrounded by students
and various spiritual adepts. The eyes of the long-haired
master are described as trembling in ecstasy as he sits in a
yogic posture, holding a prayer bead in one hand and a
musical instrument in another (see full translation by
Masson and Patwardhan 1969, 38-39).

In this wonderful portrait by Madhurāja, we get a clear

vision of Abhinavagupta as one who lived and embodied
the ecstatic states about which he wrote in such powerful
and inspiring ways. Like Leonardo Da Vinci and other
renaissance scholars he was at once a philosopher, artist
and visionary, embodying his knowledge through multiple
mediums. In other words, Abhinavagupta was far more
than just a great writer. Rather, his writings are testimony to
his holistic mastery of multiple fields of experience and
expression — philosophy, grammar, poetry, Tantra and art.
While Pandey believed that Abhinavagupta’s career can be
marked by three distinct stages in which he first wrote
solely on Tantra, then aesthetics and then philosophy
(Pandey 1963, 41) it is more likely the case, as Gnoli has
pointed out, that his interest in and writings on philosophy,
Tantra and aesthetics interpenetrated each other
throughout his literary career (Gnoli 1999, 56). Certainly,
each of Abhinavagupta’s writings, whether they be on the
topic of Tantric ritual, philosophy or aesthetics represent a

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mystically-charged artistic vision in which the divine reality

is understood as an ever-creative impulse arising within the
heart which is itself identified as the ultimate and most
sublime location of divinity.

For Abhinavagupta, in other words, art, the spirituality path

and the divine reality were clearly one and the same. In the
mind of Abhinavagupta, this cosmos is God’s artistic
creation, a creation within which every smallest unit of that
creation itself embodies and reflects the divine Artist which
is its origin. For this reason, artistic expression — be it
poetry, drama, music painting or any other artistic medium
— is just as capable of bringing about spiritual realization
as yogic practice. For Abhinavagupta, the artist is a yogin
and the yogin is an artist. The ultimate artistic expression is
life itself which presents the opportunity for the attainment
of spiritual realization, an event which empowers the
individual to recognize his or her own identity as non-
distinct from the identity of that ultimate Artist who is the
source and very body of creation itself.

At the heart of Abhinavagupta’s writings is the linking of a

trinitarian theological and ritual tradition together with a
philosophy of intuitive perception in which the ability to
cognize is itself recognized as proof of the presence of
divinity. The influence of the former arose from his initiation
into Triadic (Trika) Tantra. That training revealed to him a
Godhead whose being gave expression through a myriad
of triads, which he learned to worship and internalize
through the use of mystical diagrams known as yantras.
Foremost among these divine triads was the trinity of

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goddesses known as Supreme (Parā), Supreme-

Nonsupreme (Parāparā) and Nonsupreme (Aparā). These
three divinities were in turn associated with a host of other
theological and epistimelogical triads including the three
powers of will (icchāśakti), knowledge (jñānaśakti), and
activity (kriyāśakti), the triad of God (Śiva), Goddess (Śakti)
and man (nara), the triad of past, present and future, the
triad of scriptures as dual (dvaita), dual-cum-nondual
(dvaitādvaita) and nondual (advaita), levels of initiation as
mild, medium and intense, etc. Containing within itself and
pervading each of these triads, Abhinavagupta recognized
one singular, Supreme Lord, Parameśvara, as itself the
ultimate source of all the triads. This supreme
consciousness Abhinavagupta understood to be
nondistinct from one’s very own self-awareness. Drawing
from both literary and aesthetic theory, Abhinavagupta
identified the literary and artistic principles of intuitive
insight (pratibhā) and interpretive resonance (dhvani), as
indicators of divine awareness itself (Larson 1976;
Timalsina 2007; Lawrence 2013; Cuneo 2015). In other
words, the ability of an individual to recognize an object, to
have the “aha!” moment, to experience the flash of insight
was identified by Abhinavagupta as the presence of a
Godhead that reveals itself through each and every act of
self-awareness. It was this brilliant insight that formed the
foundation of Abhinavagupta’s philosophical writings as
distilled in his final work, Reflections on the Recognition of
the Lord (Īśvarapratyabhijñāvimarśinī). For Abhinavagupta
the intuitive flash of insight (pratibhā) is the very principle

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that makes possible the recognition of one’s own

conscious self as the God that one seeks. Toward the aim
of experiencing this intuitive flashing forth, Abhinavagupta
himself prescribed and engaged in a complex host of
artistically-grounded ritual practices through which the
sensations triggered by contact of the senses with ritually
prescribed sense objects would be fused and channeled
toward a unitive cognitive act in which the ritualist would
perceive him or herself as being pervaded within and by
the body of God (Sanderson 1986). In this way,
Abhinavagupta established a profound connection between
the “tasting of aesthetic experience” (rasāsvāda) with the
“tasting of spiritual experience” (brahmāsvāda), a link
made possible through the synthesizing of his Tantric
training with his immersion into the field of Indian art,
grammar and literature (Larson 1976).

Abhinavagupta’s brilliant systematization of multiple fields

of religious, philosophical artistic and literary knowledge
itself is nowhere better captured than in these words from
his final work, Reflections on the Recognition of the Lord:

One who realizes that [the powers of] knowledge (jñāna)

and activity (kriyā) are but manifestations of the svātantrya
[independent power of God] and that these manifestations
are nondistinct from oneself and from the very essence of
the ultimate, whose form is the Lord ( īśvararūpa)—a
person [in this way] “resonating” entirely with the
awareness that knowledge and activity are really one—
whatever this person desires he or she is certainly able to
accomplish. Such a person abides in a state of complete

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mystical absorption (samāveśa), even though still in a

body. Such a person, while still in the body, is not just
liberated while living (jīvanmukta) but has in fact attained
the ultimate realization of identity with the supreme lord
(parameśvara).

(Īśvarapratyabhijñāvimarśinī 4.1.15)

In this typically luminous passage Abhinavagupta identifies

the mystical absorption (samāveśa) of his Tantric practice
with the cognitive act of resonance (dhvani) that flashes
forth (pratibhā) as the awareness that one’s own embodied
consciousness is itself the very presence of supreme
consciousness that is the object and goal of one’s
meditative and ritual practice. In this way, Abhinavagupta
affirms that mystical realization is itself a creative, cognitive
act, one in which divinity itself recognizes its own presence
in and as the embodied cosmos (kula), on both cosmic and
personal levels.

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Svacchanda Bhairava, Rajasthan, India

Returning to the Cave of God

In a number of his writings Abhinavagupta dallies with the

etymological resonances of his name, offering, among
other interpretations, the rendering that his name itself
highlights that he is a teacher or revealer of “ever new”
(abhi-nava) “secrets” (gupta). Indeed, Abhinavagupta’s
entire life is one in which he himself was first awakened to
the secrets of creation by his own teachers and then from
that point on dedicated his remaining days to teaching,
writing, experiencing and revealing those great secrets of
the nature of existence.

We have observed the way in which Abhinavagupta

perceived his birth as appropriately cosmic. It should come
as no surprise that the day of his so-called “death” was
likewise transcendentally indicative of the depths of his

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personage. On that eventful date, somewhere around 1020

C.E. it is said that Abhinavagupta entered Bhairava Cave
near the city of Srinagar in his native land of Kashmir, India
together with 1200 disciples (Müller-Ortega 2000, 574).
Therein, Abhinavagupta is believed to have chanted a
hymn to Bhairava, the supreme deity of which he himself
was identified as an earthly incarnation. Abhinavagupta
was never again seen in human form. This was not a death
by any ordinary convention but an alchemical
transformation of a body that had long since been
recognized as perfected and awakened through the
practices that had been revealed to him by his own
masters. At the heart of these practices was the teaching
that the entire cosmos is itself the body of God, a body that
is luminous, ever-awakened, consciousness. A master like
Abhinavagupta does not and cannot die for he recognizes
that there is no “death” but only awakening into the
recognition that death itself is nothing more than the
illusion of separation from God.

Abhinavagupta captures this profound state in his

Quintessence of the Supreme Truth (Paramārthasāra):

If one comes to know one’s own Self as the very nature of

divinity, as immaculate intelligence comprised of a knowing
subject who transcends the universe, [who is] omnipresent
like an unsetting arisen sun, comprising a divine will devoid
of [the restrictions of the] space-time continuum,
immovable, imperishable—[perceiving oneself in this way
as] the completely perfect Lord who is the sole agent in the
formation of the dissolution and arising of the multitude of

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powers [that give rise to and sustain creation], being the

wise creator of the laws of creation, etc.—for such an
omniscient yogin how could there be [death and
subsequent] transmigration? Where would he roam, and
why?

(Paramārthasāra 64-66)

Let us close by imagining ourselves as among those 1200

disciplines who entered together with Abhinavagupta into
the Cave of Bhairava at the end of his life 1,000 years ago.
Sitting with the other disciples and chanting the Hymn of
Bhairava (Bhairavastotram) one imagines that
Abhinavagupta therein revealed his final secret: that he
himself had fully become that “unsetting arisen sun”, that
principle of life ever transcendent to death, being itself the
light of illuminating wisdom. Perhaps in the darkness of the
cave we actually perceive a tangible light emanating from
Abhinavagupta’s body and entering into our own,
penetrating to a place of insight that awakens in our own
heart, that interior cave of wisdom, the recognition of the
deepest truths of our being.

While our closing meditative journey back to

Abhinavagupta’s final act of revelation occurs solely in the
realms of imagination, the illuminating impact of
Abhinavagupta on the many disciples of his day and on the
thousands of subsequent students, teachers and scholars
who continue to find inspiration in his many extant works is
quite real. A thousand years after he entered the Bhairava
Cave never to be seen again we are still only just

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beginning to appreciate the treasure trove of secrets

illuminated by this great Kaśmirī master who left in his
wake a priceless legacy of timeless and universal,
revelatory wisdom.

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