Pratyabhijñā Inference as a Transcendental

Argument About a Nondual, Plenary God 18

David Peter Lawrence

Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 490
The Philosophical Reenactment of Nondual Śaiva Myth and Ritual . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 491
Philological Objections to Dialogical Engagements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 492
Anticolonial Resistance to All Western Theorization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 494
Applicability of Kantian Understandings of the Transcendental, Charles Hartshorne’s
Logical Corollary of Divine Contingency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 495
Meanings of the Category Transcendental Beyond Kant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497
Dialectics Between Nondual and Theistic Givenness (A Priori) and Śakti Interpreted
Philosophically as Epistemological and Onto-Grammatical Dependence (A Posteriori) . . . . . . 502
Translation of IPV 2.3.17 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 504
Śakti Overcoded with the Pratyabhijñā Vocabulary of Recognition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 507
Additional Subsumptions of Inference: Pleromatic Fragmentation and Inductive
Noncommitance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 509
Niyati Śakti as Generating Substantive Inferential Concomitance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 511
Scriptural Traditions as Grounds of Inference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 511
Identity of Cosmogony and Teleology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 512
Definitions of Key Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 513
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 514

Abstract
The two most well-known and important nondual Śaiva and tantric philosophers
are Utpaladeva (c. 900–950 CE) and Abhinavagupta (c. 950–1020 CE).
Utpaladeva furthered the initiatives of his teacher Somānanda (c. 900–950 CE)
in creating the originary verses and commentaries of the Pratyabhijñā system of
philosophical theology. Abhinavagupta is famous for brilliant and extensive

D. P. Lawrence (*)
Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks,
ND, USA
e-mail: david.lawrence@email.und.edu

© Springer Nature India Private Limited 2022 489

S. Sarukkai, M. K. Chakraborty (eds.), Handbook of Logical Thought in India,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-2577-5_29
490 D. P. Lawrence

commentaries on Utpaladeva’s writings as well as for the creation of a vast corpus

of philosophical hermeneutics, itself comprising both a poetics and an exegetics
of tantric symbolism and ritual.
This chapter clarifies and build upon the interpretations of the overarching
Pratyabhijñā inference as a transcendental argument in the article, “Tantric
Argument: The Transfiguration of Philosophical Discourse in The Pratyabhijñā
System of Utpaladeva and Abhinavagupta” (1996) and the book Rediscovering
God with Transcendental Argument (1999). It considers how the Pratyabhijñā
inference may be characterized as transcendental, answering various objections
to that characterization, provides translations of key passages for understanding
the Pratyabhijñā method (especially, IPV 2.3.17 and a paragraph from IPV 1.17.1
on the identification of cosmogony and teleology), and summarizes some of the
author’s later research that pertains to this subject.

Abbreviations
BIPV Bhāskarakaṇṭha’s commentary Bhāskarī on the IPV
IPK I¯śvarapratyabhijñākārikā by Utpaladeva, for convenience cited in edi-
tion with BIPV and IPV, rather than better edition of Torella
IPKV I¯śvarapratyabhijñākārikāvṛtti by Utpaladeva, commentary on IPK,
cited in edition of Torella
IPV I¯śvarapratyabhijñāvimarśinī by Abhinavagupta, commentary on
IPK, cited in edition with BIPV
IPVV I¯śvarapratyabhijñāvivṛtivimarśinī by Abhinavagupta, commentary on
Utpaladeva’s I¯śvarapratyabhijñāvivṛti
VAP Virūpākṣapañcāśikā by Virūpākṣa, cited in edition of Kaviraj
VAPV Virūpākṣapañcāśikāvṛtti by Vidyācakravartin, commentary on VAP,
cited in edition of Kaviraj

In fact, one may – this simple proposition, which is often forgotten, should be placed at the
beginning of every study which essays to deal with rationalism – rationalize life from
fundamentally different basic points of view and in very different directions. Rationalism
is an historical concept which covers a whole world of different things.
Max Weber
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

Introduction

The two most well-known and important nondual Śaiva and tantric philosophers are
Utpaladeva (c. 900–950 CE) and Abhinavagupta (c. 950–1020 CE). Utpaladeva
furthered the initiatives of his teacher Somānanda (c. 900–950 CE) in creating the
originary verses and commentaries of the Pratyabhijñā system of philosophical
theology. Abhinavagupta is famous for brilliant and extensive commentaries on
Utpaladeva’s writings (I will not endeavor to distinguish their views in this area)
18 Pratyabhijñā Inference as a Transcendental Argument. . . 491

as well as for the creation of a vast corpus of philosophical hermeneutics, itself

comprising both a poetics and an exegetics of tantric symbolism and ritual.
The author has learned that it is challenging to write on the topic of inference in
the Pratyabhijñā, about which one thought to have already said all that one could.
After much thought, he has decided here to clarify and build upon the interpretations
of the overarching Pratyabhijñā inference as a transcendental argument in his first
article, “Tantric Argument: The Transfiguration of Philosophical Discourse in The
Pratyabhijñā System of Utpaladeva and Abhinavagupta,” and his first book
Rediscovering God with Transcendental Argument. The author will take the oppor-
tunity to consider how the Pratyabhijñā inference may be characterized as transcen-
dental, answering various objections to that characterization, provide translations of
two of the key passages for understanding the Pratyabhijñā method (i.e., IPV 2.3.17
and a paragraph from IPV 1.17.1 on the identification of cosmogony and teleology),
and summarize some of his later research that pertains to this subject.

The Philosophical Reenactment of Nondual Śaiva Myth and Ritual

First, a brief overview of the Pratyabhijñā philosophy. In current scholarship, one of

the most definitive characteristics of what is called “tantra” is the pursuit of power,
the theological essence of which is the Goddess, Śakti, and the manifestations of
which vary from limited siddhis, through royal power, to the saint’s omnipotent
agency in assuming the divine cosmic acts. (The five Acts of Śiva, along with Viṣṇu,
Śakti, and most other deities conceived by Hindus to be Ultimate, are creation,
preservation, destruction, delusion, and graceful liberation.)
In “nondual Śaivism” Śakti is, as Alexis Sanderson would say, “overcoded”
within the metaphysical essence of the God Śiva. Śiva is the śaktimān, “possessor
of Śakti,” encompassing her within his androgynous nature as his integral power and
consort. According to the predominant myth, Śiva out of a kind of play divides
himself from Śakti and then in sexual union emanates, embodies himself within, and
controls the universe through her.
The basic pattern of practice, which reflects the mythic-cum-historical appropri-
ation of Śāktism by Śaivism, is the approach to Śiva through Śakti. One pursues
identification with Śiva as the śaktimān by assuming his narrative agency in ema-
nating and controlling the universe through Śakti. In the manner described by
Mircea Eliade, and Christian and non-Christian Platonism and Aristotelianism,
the ritual of return recapitulates the cosmogony. (See the discussion of this subject
below.) The same mythico-ritual process is articulated in a great number of recipro-
cally encompassing codes, and codes of codes (if A=B and B=C, then A=C, and so
on) – in terms of the overemphasized sexual ritual and other ritually transgressive
practices, theosophical and philosophical contemplations, mantras, maṇḍalas, and so
on (see the summary in Lawrence 2008a, 5–18).
The Pratyabhijñā system replicates this modus operandi in śāstraic philosophical
discourse as the programmatic disclosure that one has Śiva’s Śakti (śaktyāviṣkaraṇa)
(see IPK and IPV 1.1.2 in IPV 1:56–59; and IPK and IPV 2.3.17, ibid., 2:139–149).
492 D. P. Lawrence

Śakti is conceived as the reason in an inference-for-the-sake-of-others. I am Śiva

because I have Śakti (Lawrence 1999, 49–57).
The disclosure of emanatory and cosmocratic Śakti is also described as the
awakening of pure wisdom (śuddhavidyā), in which all objective things or “thisness”
(idam) are absorbed into the omnipotent I (aham) as “I am this” (aham idam) (IPK
and IPV 3.1.3–7 in IPV 2:221–32; see Lawrence 1999, 61–65).
To address a variety of problematics, the Pratyabhijñā thinkers interpret Śakti
epistemologically as an idealistically constitutive self-recognition or recognitive
synthesis (ahampratyavamarśa, pratyabhijñā, anusaṃdhāna), also identified with
a principle of supreme speech (parāvāk) derived from the linguistic philosopher
Bhartṛhari. The philosophers interpret Śakti ontologically as universal first-person
agency (uttamapuruṣa, kartṛtva, svātantrya), of the action (kriyā) that constitutes
existence (sattā, see Lawrence 1999, 2008b, 2014; Dupuche 2001; Baumer 2011).
(Elaborating on similar assertions by Utpaladeva, Abhinavagupta explains, “Being
[sattā] is the agency of the act of becoming [bhavanakartṛtā], that is, agential
autonomy [svātantrya] regarding all actions.” sattā ca bhavanakartṛtā sarvakriyāsu
svātantryam. IPV 1.5.14, [Abhinavagupta 1986, 1: 258–259].) Abhinava features
the first-person index of agency especially in his tantric exegetics and aesthetics,
although he mentions it in his Pratyabhijñā commentaries. The student learns to
participate in Śiva’s enjoyment of Śakti as self-recognition/speech/agency/discursive
agency, by contemplating her as the reality underlying all immanent experiences,
interlocutors and objects of experience and discourse.

Philological Objections to Dialogical Engagements

There have been mostly favorable responses to the interpretation of the Pratyabhijñā
argumentation as “transcendental.” Some have also objected to this description. In
this and the following three sections, I will address these objections in various ways
to better clarify the idea.
Firstly, some operating entirely within the philological and historical style of
scholarship predominant in Indology and Sanskrit studies, particularly in Europe but
also some in the USA, indicate opposition to more constructive, intercultural
philosophical interpretations for the very agenda to interpret texts beyond the strictly
empirical data.
It seems undeniable that an understanding of the empirical contents of texts, the
immediate circumstances of their production, and the relationships between them is
essential to any more theoretical – philosophical or nonphilosophical – interpretation
of them. John Nemec has observed that many early Indological translations of
Sanskrit texts retain their value, even though the scholars who produced them had
pejorative views about Indian culture. Nevertheless, Nemec explains, a great deal
more translation work is needed to help emancipate scholarship from those scholars’
narrow understanding of the South Asian canons (Nemec 2009, 757–780).
Of course, it is legitimate that scholars have their own individual interests and
priorities, and it is admirable that anyone devotes himself or herself to serious
18 Pratyabhijñā Inference as a Transcendental Argument. . . 493

philological work. Nonetheless, it is highly prejudicial to conceive South Asian

philosophy reductionistically as nothing but the empirical stuff that comprises texts
and their contexts and relationships. The most well-established leader of nondual
Śaiva and tantra studies, Alexis Sanderson, in chiefly following this method, evi-
dently does not assume it is the only proper one.
While philology and descriptive history are invaluable, they should not be viewed
as the final goal of scholarship on Hindu philosophies. Especially young career-
oriented scholars following only this methodology use rhetorical strategies of
ignoring more dialogical and constructive interpretations while reiterating some of
the same points, dismissing them by citing the disparateness of the comparisons,
making unsubstantiated criticisms of them, or refuting incidental comments or
conjectures. At the same time, the authors claim to keep abreast of every work in
the field. The author must certainly be included among those who have made
mistakes in interpretation and translation.
In the exclusivistic kind of philological research, as with more theoretically
reductionistic studies, there is no consideration of the truth claims of South Asian
intellectual traditions and the challenges they pose to the scholars’ own beliefs and
values. Comparisons are at most an accessory to empirical description or causal-
instrumental reduction in more theoretical studies. [One is reminded of the largely
historicist program for comparative philosophy advocated in the early twentieth
century by Paul Masson-Oursel (1926). On the overall historicist and reductive
causal-functional explanations also see Heidegger on the scientific-technological
understanding of the world as intellectually controllable and practically exploitable
“standing reserve” (1977). Max Weber and subsequent modernization theory focus
on the instrumental rationality of capitalist bureaucracies. However, Max Weber, as
indicated in the epigraph also used before (Lawrence 1999, 1), was actually aware of
the plurality of concepts of rationality. See Levine 1981 for a classification of types of
rationality discussed by Weber. The Pratyabhijñā, like many philosophies, would be
classified as a type of substantive rationality, although Weber does not specify or relate
inductive and deductive logic.] Peter J. Park has analyzed anthropologists and related
scholars, such as Christoph Meiners in the eighteenth century, excluding Asia and
Africa from the history of philosophy on the basis of racial considerations, and their
influence on Hume, Kant, Hegel, and other historians of philosophy (Park 2014).
An often implicit rule of what Nigerian musician Fela Kuti calls the “colonial
mentality,” followed by Colonialism, Neocolonialism, and their accepting subjects,
is that the “subaltern” cannot speak (Spivak 1988). (The scholars in question may be
experts at not listening, but they will analyze the subaltern’s sentences and trace their
genealogies.) Amartya Sen characterizes such scholarship as a variety of colonialist
Orientalism which is both “exoticist” and “curatorial” (Sen 2005). The assumption is
that the scientific-instrumental rationality of the post-Enlightenment West provides a
way of understanding other cultures better than they understand themselves. One
thinks of Sanskrit traditions as skeletons or mummies in the museum.
Robert Yelle has discussed how a Protestant instrumentalizing and disenchant-
ment about language undergirds this kind of scholarship (Yelle 2012). Vishwa
Adluri and Joydeep Bagchee similarly examine the Protestant and historical roots
494 D. P. Lawrence

of deconstructive philological scholarship (Adluri and Bagchee 2014). Contempo-

rary Western and South Asian scholars need to use imagination and critical thought
to consider the challenges of alternative ways of thinking rather than dismissing all
normative and dialogical interpretations. [Frazier (2009, 14) describes the historicist
bias against comparative engagement as “a postcolonial xenophobia endemic to the
idea of academic research as an accumulation of knowledge within set boundaries,
like capital stored safely in a vault.” Cf. the revision of Quentin Skinner’s historicism
in Ganeri (2008). The historical context of Indian philosophies may be identified in
ongoing discussions of intellectual issues rather than only immediate social circum-
stances. See the discussion of philology in Lawrence 2011.] Listening to the views of
the colonized cannot be postponed indefinitely, like delayed justice in allowing
human rights for oppressed groups.

Anticolonial Resistance to All Western Theorization

Some indigenous South Asian scholars and their followers have reacted negatively
to comparisons with Western and especially Christian philosophy as a disguised
form of imperialism. The author wishes sincerely to emphasize that that is not his
intention and he strongly believes, like Jeffrey Kripal has represented, that what is
often most distinctive about Abrahamic exclusivism is intolerance and colonialism
(2014). This is evinced in the exclusion which condemns the already more pluralistic
people, including Hindus, as “polytheists” and “idolators.” Likewise, it is the purport
of more hierarchical “inclusivism” which views them as at best imperfect efforts of
“anonymous Christians” to find the truth which Christians know more fully.
Speaking bluntly, the idea too frequently is: Our God is the only true one, and he
said that we can have your land. The archetypical narrative Exodus is often a story of
religious imperialism as much as liberation. Bibles and guns have respectively been
among the most persuasive expressions of Western religion and “Enlightenment”
(see the discussion of philology in Lawrence 2011).
Of course, there is also much authentic and laudable concern with equality and
justice in all three Abrahamic religions, and many anti-oppressive teachings, includ-
ing contemporary versions of liberal inclusivism and pluralism, in all three, and the
author does not wish to condemn them. (On formulations of varieties of Abrahamic
pluralism, see Levin 2016; Hick 1985, 1995; Diana Eck 2003; Farid Esack 1996.)
Gandhi himself was at first suspicious of Christianity as a justification of empire but
came to appreciate and be inspired by the ethics of Jesus (Gandhi 2013; Jordans
1987). Jesus’ evident deep mysticism and his beautiful and profound pacifism and
radical opposition to privilege and hypocrisy were a variation of Jewish mysticism
and ethics, also elaborated in expressions of Islamic mysticism and ethics. Jesus, Leo
Tolstoy, and John Ruskin were among the Western influences on Gandhi
complimenting the Indian influences, as Martin Luther King, Jr., understood. I do
contend that the ideal of equitable intercultural philosophy is more coherent (on the
role of coherence, see Lawrence 2012) than nativist cultural isolationism.
18 Pratyabhijñā Inference as a Transcendental Argument. . . 495

In spite of the tragic history of imperialism, the author still maintains that there are
Western thinkers such as Plato, Aristotle, and their followers, Augustine Thomas
Aquinas and his followers, Immanuel Kant, Charles S. Peirce, Ludwig Wittgenstein,
and Martin Heidegger; and more recently, Jesper Hoffmeyer, Terrence Deacon, and
so on, who are brilliant and exciting thinkers, eminently worthy of dialogical
engagement.

Applicability of Kantian Understandings of the Transcendental,

Charles Hartshorne’s Logical Corollary of Divine Contingency

The most poignant matter of disagreement is the contention that Indian philosophy,
including the Pratyabhijñā system, does not have transcendental argument as defined
by Immanuel Kant. The positive and negative examples (respectively, anvaya and
vyatireka) in the classic inference often rely on inductions of probability (for a
sophisticated examination of Navya-Nyāya on the probity of induction in Sanskrit
philosophy, see Chakrabarti 2010). The inference deductively applies the general-
izations of the usual inductions.
Therefore, it is said, there is only pragmatic generalization in Indian thought
rather than logical necessity. Kant conceived as transcendental argument only a
priori analytic or synthetic inference. Mohanty (2001) himself has concurred on
the paucity of the Kantian sort of pure logic in the overarching practical orientation
of Indian philosophy.
This notion of India as only practical rather than theoretical ignores Weber’s point
about multiple rationalities as well, indeed, as Aristotle’s own foundation of Western
traditions of pragmatism, and has itself sometimes been used as a colonialist
stereotype and justified allegations of the inferior rationality of Indian culture. Purely
a priori logic is perhaps not usually the basis of classic conceptions of inference
(anumāna) itself in South Asia.
It must also be acknowledged, however, that relationships of logical necessity are
sometimes established in Indian examples, for example, according to Dharmakīrti’s
logical classifications of pervasion and exclusion based on essential nature
(svabhāva) rather than causal origination (utpatti). However, the former is supposed
by the Śaivas actually to be contingent on idealistic creation in the latter
(yoginirmāṇatābhāve pramāṇāntaraciścite/kāryaṃ hetuḥsvabhāvo vāta
evotpattimūlajaḥ, IPK, 2.4.11, 2:175; cf. IPV 2.4.11, 2:173–181; IPVV 2.4.111,
2:197–214). So, this does not prove the point.
Indian conceptions of supportive reasoning (tarka) and other accessories to
inference also invoke necessity. Such reasoning underlies the reductions in
Nāgārjuna’s Mādhyamika dialectic. Necessity is also present in Indian theories of
meaning (see Ganeri 2011). Theories of self-luminosity (svaprakāśatva,
svasaṃvedana) may be taken as referring to a priori knowledge or cognition
(as discussed below) but are not inferential.
This chapter will first consider the classification on the assumption that only what
Kant described as pure a priori knowledge of identities and logical entailments
496 D. P. Lawrence

counts as transcendental argument. Later it will argue that the Kantian understanding
of the transcendental is overly restrictive in both historical and normative senses.
Ancient Neoplatonic metaphysics as well as the so-called ontological argument of
Anselm will be treated as conforming to Kant’s standard, whether the latter is a
sound argument or not. The scholastic Neoplatonism of someone such as Proclus
would conform at least, in ostensible method, to Kant’s definition. The method
employed in his Elements of Theology is almost entirely deductive, or what came
to be known as a priori analytic or synthetic (Proclus 2004). However, that is not
how the inference works in the Pratyabhijñā system.
The main argument for the existence of God in the narrow sense of the a priori
analytic or synthetic has been the widely discussed formulations of the so-called
ontological argument by Anselm of Canterbury (c. 1993–1109) and later
rearticulated by Rene Descartes (1596–1650). There have been several conflicting
interpretations of the significance of this argument and whether some or other
versions of it are cogent.
At the outset, mention may be made of an alternative approach to the interpreta-
tion of Anselm by philosopher of religion, Eric Voegelin. Although his interpretation
is complicated, Voegelin basically has contended that Anselm’s “ontological argu-
ment” is actually not an argument at all but is articulating facts that are known only
by a priori faith or intuition (see the discussion of Anselms’ “ontological argument”
in Voegelin, “The Beginning and the Beyond,” in 1990, 191–209). Whether this
truth is communicated by dogmatic assertion or some kind of inference is a second-
ary consideration on which he does not focus.
Leaving aside that alternative, most scholars unquestioningly accept the ostensi-
ble refutation of the “ontological argument” made by Kant, which is that existence is
not a predicate. We allegedly cannot argue from logical entailments of a concept to
whether or not its referent exists. Among the most famous contemporary defenses of
an ontological argument in Anselm is Charles Hartshorne’s advocacy of it as a
species of “modal argument.” Somewhat similar is the defense of the argument by
Norman Malcom (Malcolm 1960).
Hartshorne endeavors to refute Kant’s very claim that existence cannot be a predicate
(see Hartshorne 1991a, 57–58 and the longer discussion of Kant in Hartshorne 1991b,
208–234). Focusing on Anselm’s second formulation of the argument, he interprets the
argument as proving that an ostensible God is necessarily a sufficient reason. One
decides on other grounds whether such a sufficient reason should be affirmed. So, the
idea is that God must be understood as somehow perfect, entailing that he is either
logically necessary or logically impossible (Hartshorne 1991b).
Hartshorne also refutes “classical theism” on the nature of the perfection of God
that he contends to be logically necessary or impossible. He claims that perfection
could not be a static, unchanging condition. Rather it must include the process
polarity of some contingent element (Hartshorne 1991a). The broader position is
that God is both transcendent and immanent, necessary and contingent.
“Panentheism,” a term originally invented by Karl Christian Friedrich Krause,
certainly characterizes the nondual Śaiva version of God and his five cosmic Acts
(see summary of the Acts above).
18 Pratyabhijñā Inference as a Transcendental Argument. . . 497

In the Śaiva system the provision for contingency is established by the very
conception of Śiva, which has also often been described as a form of panentheim
(see Hartshorne 1991a, b, 2000 for the classic classification of panentheism versus
classic theism and other doctrines; Hartshorne and Reese 2000; for a recent survey of
panentheism which includes nondual Śaivism, see Biernacki 2013; on the classifi-
cation as panentheism, see Lawrence 1999, 167–167; on the emphasis on simulta-
neous transcendence and immanence and a “vaguely panentheistic ultimate” in the
nonaffiliated spirituality movement, see Forman 2004.)
As Heinrich Zimmer interpreted the Natarāja symbol, Śiva is both smiling peacefully
as quiet inside, eternal or transcendent, and dancing actively in controlling the cosmos
(Zimmer, “The Cosmic Delight of Shiva,” in 1974, 123–188). Śiva’s activity is ascribed
in the narratives and theologies precisely to his Śakti. We need to keep the notion of
God’s polarity of immanence and contingency in mind, because in the interpretations of
other kinds of metaphysical, transcendental argument, it is the very contingency of God
which requires that argument about him includes an a posteriori element.

Meanings of the Category Transcendental Beyond Kant

Moving beyond the narrow Kantian restrictions, in Rediscovering God it was

actually stated that:

My understanding of transcendental/metaphysical argument is indebted to that of David

Tracy, and, somewhat less directly, to two of his sources, Emerich Coreth and Bernard
Lonergan. This understanding unites the Kantian conception of the transcendental as the
necessary with older Greek and Christian understandings of metaphysics as inquiry into
ultimate reality. (Lawrence 1999, 171n.)

This should have already obviated objections, but the issue reaches deep into
history. Actually, with ancient roots in Plato and Aristotle, and as developed
especially in the Middle ages in thinkers such as Philip the Chancellor, Dun Scotus,
and Thomas Aquinas, transcendental referred to metaphysically necessary affirma-
tions of facts or qualities reality or Being (see Doyle 2012; Gracia 1992; Honnefelder
2003).
However brilliant and epochally influential Kant may have been, he did not
invent but rather limited the meaning of transcendental argument to something
based on a priori (perhaps analytic or synthetic) judgments, just as he limited
epistemology and metaphysics to a timid or perhaps incoherent representationalism
(for a Thomist critique of Kant on metaphysics, see Clarke 2001, 11–14). His
analysis of pre-linguistic categories paved the way for many sociohistorical and
cultural-linguistic conceptions of the mediation of reality with which we are quite
familiar in religious studies (see Forman 1999, “Non-linguistic Mediation,” 55–80).
In any event, the contemporary Thomist W. Norris Clarke conforms to the
medieval understandings that were backgrounds to the philosophy of Thomas in
defining transcendental inquiry as follows:
498 D. P. Lawrence

As applied to the idea of being, this means that the latter concept must be all-inclusive, both
in its comprehension (i.e. the content included in its meaning) and its extension (the range of
subjects to which it can be applied). Thus being signifies all that is, in everything that is, i.e.,
everything that is real in any way. Outside of this lies only “nothing” or nothingness,
non-being. For this reason, the concept of being is called “transcendental” (from Latin
transcendere = to climb over), that is, transcending or leaping over all divisions, categories,
and distinctions between and within beings, pervading them all. It excludes only non-being.
This is its purpose as a concept, to be the ultimate all-inclusive term, to express the ultimate
horizon of reality itself and everything within it. It is through such an idea that we are able to
embrace intellectually and express to ourselves the whole of reality. (Clarke 2001, 43)

The most influential contemporary Thomist, Bernard Lonergan himself, though

prescribing various research operations that are clearly a posteriori, actually con-
forms to Kant in asserting that the transcendentals are a priori (Lonergan 1971,
11, 14n). Still, Emerich Coreth, another prominent Thomist writing at the same time,
unites Thomist notions of metaphysics as transcendental with Kantian notions:

The philosophical method which investigates the conditions of the possibility of our knowl-
edge has been known, ever since Kant’s pioneering efforts, as the transcendental method. That
is why the Thomism which we advocate might be called transcendental Thomism. The name
may sound strange, since it combines the very new with the very old. (Coreth 1968, 10)

In Coreth’s understanding, the full dialectic comprises both the a priori and the a
posteriori, which he describes as “reduction”:

The transcendental method uses a double movement, consisting of what we may call
reduction and deduction. Transcendental reduction uncovers thematically in the immediate
data of consciousness the conditions and presuppositions implied in them. It is a return from
that which is thematically known to what which is unthematically co-known in the act of
consciousness, to that which is pre-known as a condition of the act. Transcendental deduc-
tion, on the other hand, is the movement of the mind which, from this previous datum,
uncovered reductively, deduces a priori the empirical act of consciousness, its nature, its
possibility, and its necessity. Whereas reduction proceeds from a particular experience to the
conditions of the possibility, deduction goes from these conditions to the essential structures
of the same experience. The two movements are in constant interaction, they influence each
other; yet it is possible to emphasize one over the other (Coreth 1968, 37; cf. 42; see Coreth
1968, 10 for a quotation, possibly from Lonergan, that compares transcendental inquiry with
Socrates’ “intellectual midwifery” that reveals what it “‘always already’ possesses.”).

[Another follower of Lonergan, David Tracy again recovers the medieval in his
careful formulations:

[One clear way of articulating the nature of the reflective discipline capable of such inquiry is
to describe it as “transcendental” in its modern formulation or “metaphysical” in its more
traditional expression. As transcendental, such reflection attempts the explicit mediation of the
basic presuppositions (or “beliefs”) that are the conditions of the possibility of our existing or
understanding at all. Metaphysical reflection means essentially the same thing: the philosoph-
ical validation of the concepts “religion” and “God” as necessarily affirmed or denied by all
our basic beliefs and understanding. We seem to be unavoidably led to the conclusion that the
task of fundamental theology can only be successfully resolved when the theologian fully and
18 Pratyabhijñā Inference as a Transcendental Argument. . . 499

frankly develops an explicitly metaphysical study of the cognitive claim of religion and theism
as an integral moment in his larger task. (Tracy 1975, 56; cf. 67–68, 159)

[Tracy’s preferred term for philosophical theology is “fundamental theology”

(Tracy 1998, 89n)
[Tracy explains that what Thomists know as transcendental, metaphysical reflec-
tion is both a specialist form of “fundamental theology” and critically structures
symbolic exegesis, which he labels “systematic” theology and ritually and ethically
oriented “practical” theology:

[The major argument of this book will be to show that the hermeneutical character of systematic
theologies, although not obviously “public” in the first sense, is nevertheless public in a distinct
but related sense. In more traditional Aristotelian language, fundamental theology deals
principally with “dialectics” and “metaphysics,” systematic theology with “rhetoric” and
“poetics,” and practical theology with “ethics” and “politics.” Each of the three enterprises
can achieve a public status distinct from but related to (in a word, analogous to) the other two.
Each is concerned with both meaning and truth. In the alternative language of transcendental
reflection: fundamental theology is concerned principally with the “true” in the sense of
metaphysics, systematic theology with the beautiful (and, as we shall see, the beautiful as
true) in the sense of poetics and rhetorics, practical theology with the good (and the good as
transformatively true) in the sense of ethics and politics. The major role of fundamental
theology is to explicate the transcendental in relation to the religious, the holy or the sacred.
Hence Part I of this book is, in fact, an exercise in fundamental theology designed to show the
truth status of the claims of systematic theologies. The major focus, therefore, will be on the
art-religion relationship in the analyses of the classic and distinctively religious classics
(chapters 4, 5, 6). Every discipline in theology must be concerned with the truth of its claims
on the inner-theological grounds outlined in the chapter. But that concern, I propose, will
operate “obviously” in fundamental theology (i.e., as dialectics or argument) and less obviously
but no less really in systematic theology (i.e., like ethics and politic). The obviously ontological
(as metaphysical or transcendental) character of these claims distinguishes this enterprise from
Anders Nygren’s claim that transcendental reflection [following Kant] provides only purely
logical sets of operations (Meaning and Method 209–27). (Tracy 1998, 85n; cf. 183)

[If this statement were interpreted in his terms, it seems that Abhinavagupta
would fully endorse Tracy’s formulation.
[In his comments, Lonergan suggests but does not elaborate some inadequacy of
Coreth’s synthesis of analytic-deductive and synthetic-inductive (a.k.a. a posteriori)
procedures in his remarks on Coreth (1968, 200–201, 218–219).]
Coreth explains the ontological counterpart to his methodological synthesis of the
a priori and a posteriori:

Every being is both necessary and not necessary. It is not necessary, insofar as it is a finite
being, which is not by itself, through its own essence, determined to the necessity of being.
But if it is, it is as necessary as being; then, insofar as it is, it can no longer not be. Insofar as it
is, it necessarily is. This is possible only if every being, over and above its own contingent
essence, possesses something which determines it to the necessity of being. Else it would by
itself be both necessary and not necessary, which is contradictory. Therefore, every contin-
gent being which is posited in the necessity of being require a positive element, by which it is
determined to the necessity of being: it requires a ground, a sufficient reason of its being.
(Coreth 1968, 96–97)
500 D. P. Lawrence

With regard to God, Coreth also supports Hartshorne’ claim that the God expli-
cated by the ontological argument must include a moment of contingency. This
seems, perhaps inadvertently, to qualify his orthodox theological doctrine of the
static perfection of God:

The principle of causality cannot be established through analytic deduction but only through
synthetic reduction. It is not formally contained in the principle of identity and it cannot be
deduced from it. The principle is one more example of mediated immediacy: it is immedi-
ately evident, but it can be critically established only through the mediation of the dynamism
of our intellect, by which we are irresistibly urged to look beyond every being to the ground
or cause of its being. (Coreth 1968, 97)

He again clarifies the admission of broadly a posteriori criteria on the basis of

religious symbolism and freedom (Coreth 1968, 147; cf. 189–196). [Coreth, though a
follower of the supposed empiricists Aristotle and Thomas, acknowledges the
idealistic trajectory pointed out in the Pratyabhijñā prakāśa arguments and analo-
gous moments of the divine mind in both Platonic and Aristotelian logos theologies
(Lawrence 1999, 162–163):

All in all, we stand nearer to idealism than to rationalism, to Hegel than to Wolff. We agree
with the idealistic contention that we must start with the self-positing and self-mediating
spirit, and that the spirit, even the finite spirit, manifests a real infinity in its self-actualization.
(Coreth 1968, 43)

Coreth also asserts that what we would describe as the self-recognition of God is
the ground of our knowledge in content and act (Coreth 1968, 70).
In regard to the dialogical setting of transcendental inquiry, we see a little bit of
the Śaiva attitude to the doubt of the pūrvapakṣin in the classic Thomist method of
questioning the act of questioning. We recall that Abhinavagupta said:

The nature of Ultimate Reality here [in this system] is explained through the consideration of
the views of opponents as doubts and the refutation of them; it is thus very clearly
manifested. (IPV 1.2 introduction, 1:82. Cf. IPV 4.1.16, 2:309–310)

Likewise, Coreth explains:

Questioning the question would not make sense if there were not in the question more than
what there seems to be at first. A question is an action and has a content (Coreth 1968, 39).
The ultimate aim of our groping is neither totally determined, nor totally undetermined.
Where shall we discover this positive aspect? In the pure pre-knowledge of the question as
such, of the act of questioning in general. (Coreth 1968, 60–61).]

We may finally briefly consider the classic discussion between Gārgī Vācaknavī
and Yajñavalkya in the Bṛhardāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 3.6 as pertaining to transcenden-
tal argument in the larger sense, and an ancient background to that of the
Pratyabhijñā (Upaniṣatsaṇgraha 3.6, 104). In the translation of Robert Hume, this
discussion begins:
18 Pratyabhijñā Inference as a Transcendental Argument. . . 501

Gārgī Vācaknavī questioned him. “Yājñavalkya, said she, ‘since all this world is woven,
warp and woof, on water, on what, pray, is the water woven, warp and woof.’”

Yājñavalkya then suggests a series of hypothetical substrata, and each time Gārgī
asks “On what, pray, [is that or are they] woven, warp and woof?” He finally comes
to suggest the worlds of Brahma, a.ka. Hiraṇyagarbha. She asks: “On what, pray are
the worlds of Brahma woven, warp and woof.” Yājñavalkya answers:

“Gārgī, do not question too much lest your head fall off. In truth you are questioning too
much about a divinity about which further questions cannot be asked. Gārgī, do not over-
question.”
Thereupon Gārgī Vācaknavī held her peace. (3.6, 113–114)

(As was discovered later, this is also discussed by Voegelin, “The Beginning and the
Beyond,” in 1990, 173–232.)
There is a deeper meaning in Yājñavalkya’s final answer, beyond the humor in his
attempt to stop someone who is asking an irritating number of questions. It pertains to
the transition of the dialectic from the a posteriori to the a priori. The two ancient
thinkers have discussed a number of increasingly grand contingent a posteriori
hypotheses. Then they have arrived at the sufficient reason. By a priori reasoning
that reason is something “about which further questions cannot be asked” in the
Kantian sense, without what Karl Otto Apel calls “performative contradiction” or
Bernard Lonergan describes as a self-contradictory “counter-position.” On the con-
trast, Buddhist analyses of infinite regress and vicious circularity in dependent orig-
ination are trying to make “your head fall off.” They view the quest for a sufficient
reason (svabhāva) as a form of attachment.
Śāṅkarācārya largely concurs with this interpretation. Advaita Vedāntins often
object to contemporary nondual Śaiva “straw-man” representations of them as
denying all immanence. They do accept immanent, mundane cognition, but say
that its real object is brahman. It seems that the transcendence from the world is
always combined with immanence in representations of an ultimate, because other-
wise it would not be both the Ultimate and in some way accessible. What differs is
both the qualitative understanding of transcendence and immanence and the relation
of one to the other (Lawrence 2001). The theological phenomenology of John Mbiti
in Concepts of God in Africa makes the same point. Mbiti’s comments that summa-
rize the views of many African ethnic groups and would also apply to other religions:

The transcendence of God is a difficult attribute to grasp, and one which must be balanced
with God’s immanence. The two attributes are paradoxically complementary: God is “far”
(transcendent), and men cannot reach him; but God is also “near” immanent, and he comes
close to men. (Mbiti 1979, 12)

Śāṅkarācārya accepts the (a posteriori) inferences of successive causes as in effect

pertaining respectively to the realm of provisional truth, as leading to the (a priori)
self-luminosity of the brahman/ātman (Śaṅkarācārya 1983, 422–425). To quote the
translation of Swami Madhavananda:
502 D. P. Lawrence

These worlds, arranged in an ascending order of subtlety, are each composed of the same five
elements transformed so as to fit abodes for the enjoyment of beings. By what is the world of
Hiraṇyagarbha [Brahma] pervaded? Yājñavalkya said, ‘Do not O Gārgī , push your inquiry
too far – disregarding the proper method of inquiry into the nature of the deity: that is, do not
try to know through inference about a deity that must be approached only through personal
instruction (Āgama), lest by so doing your head should fall off.’ The nature of the deity is to
be known from the scriptures alone, and Gārgī’s question, being inferential, disregarded this
particular means of approach. (Śaṅkarācārya 2008, 344)

[The understanding of the religious Ultimate or high God as sufficient reason in its
transcendent aspect is common in the religions of the world. It seems that this under-
standing is part of the reason why the famous Ṛg Veda 10.129 (Tad Ekam) says that
originally That One “breathed, breathless” (Ṛg Veda 1986, 10.129.2, 633). See Mbiti
1979, 19–25, on how numerous African ethnic groups conceive the “Self-Existence of
God.” For the Zulu, for example, “God is uncreated, without parents, without family,
without any of the things that compose or sustain human life” (Mbiti 1979, 20).]

Dialectics Between Nondual and Theistic Givenness (A Priori)

and Śakti Interpreted Philosophically as Epistemological
and Onto-Grammatical Dependence (A Posteriori)

As the author has shown elsewhere, the Pratyabhijñā project of demonstrating

identity with God is at the outset situated in a context of “givenness” based on the
metaphysical reality of that God as nondual and therefore self-luminous as well as a
theistic “super-person” (Lawrence 1996, 168–169; Lawrence 199; 44–49, 2016).
This may be interpreted as a form of a priori knowledge or cognition but is not
inferential per se.
Utpaladeva’s second IPK 1.1.1 (kartari jñātari svātmanyādisiddhe maheśvare/
ajaḍātmā niṣedhaṃ va siddhiṃ vā vidadhī ta kaḥ; 1:48) and IPK 2.3.15–16 (viś
vavaicitryacitrasya samabhittilopame/viruddhābhāvasaṃsparśe paramārthasatī ś
vare// pramātari purāṇe tu sarvadā bhātavigrahe./kiṃ pramāṇaṃ navābhāsaḥ
sarvapramitibhāgini.//; 2:134–135), as well as Abhinavagupta’s commentary
(respectively, 1:47–56, 2:134–139), negate ritual and argument concisely for the
reasons given. The same understanding of the (a priori) nondual epistemic and
theistic givenness underlies Abhinavagupta’s explanation of his description in his
Tantrāloka and Tantrasāra of the “nonmeans” (anupāya) as the highest means-type
(upāya) of spiritual practice.
His accounts of this means also seem to owe much to Buddhist skepticism such as
the catuṣkoti, and also appear to indicate Abhinavagupta’s employment of material
that became the basis for Tibetan Dzogchen and Chinese sudden Ch’an (Lawrence
2016). It is such statements that underlie the frequent view, it seems mistaken, that the
Pratyabhijñā should be classified within Abhinavagupta’s anupāya. [Bettina Baumer
suggests that the Pratyabhijñā “is at the border between the śāmbhava and anupāya”
(Baumer 2011). A probable śākta upāya rather than anupāya classification has been
supported by Alexis Sanderson, Hemendra Nath Chakravarty, and Navjivan Rastogi in
18 Pratyabhijñā Inference as a Transcendental Argument. . . 503

personal conversations. See the discussion in Lawrence (1999, 57–65). Baumer also
criticizes there the use of the word monism because of its ostensible denial of the
reality of the world and uses the word nondualism, which has become popular more
recently among those who wish to affirm its reality. While because of nondualism’s
popularity to express that, this author also switched to that term, he does not think we
can redefine older terms to mean what the authors did not intend. Monism, as he
understands it, just means belief in unity, whether or not the world is part of that. Some
people who have also maintained the reality of the world, including the author, have
used the word popular earlier. The Monist is the name of reputable journal of
philosophy and is not committed to any such belief. Indeed, materialist monism also
accepts the reality of the world. Monism, nondualism, or panentheism all also have
aspects of illusionism to explain the nonascertainment of whatever is nondual. That
also varies in kinds and degrees. See the remarks on panentheism below.]
Utpaladeva and Abhinavagupta, however, also elaborate positive accounts of
inferential-ritual methodology within the Pratyabhijñā and Pratyabhijñā-derived
exegetics, which are “dialectically” qualified by the negations based on givenness.
See the parallel assertions of givenness already mentioned at IPK, IPKV, IPV, and
IPVV 1.1.1 and 2.3.15–16; and positive formulations of the method at
(kiṃtu mohavaśādasmindṛṣṭe ‘pyanupalakṣite/śaktyāviṣkaraṇeneyam pratyabj-
ñopadarśyate, IPK 1.1.2, 1:57), IPV 1.1.2 (1:56–59) and IPVV 1.1.2 and IPK
2.3.17 (apravartitapūrvo’tra kevalam mūḍhatāvaśāt/śaktiprakāśeneśādivyavaharaḥ
pravartyate; 2:141); IPV 2.3.17 (2:139–149); and IPVV 2.3.17 (2:165–183).
This methodology reconceives the ritual process as an overarching inference-for-
the-sake-of-others (parārthānumāna) with Śakti as the reason (hetu). The interpreta-
tion of Śakti may be described, still at a more programmatic rather than technical
philosophical level, as an epistemological-idealistic reduction of investigated objective
experience, along with an ontological reduction of the same to agency. Abhinavagupta
explains in his hermeneutics and aesthetics that that this features the first person
indexical (Lawrence 2008b; for the philosophical psychology of this approach to the
first-person narrative, see Lawrence 2008a). There are programmatic explanations of
the approach at IPK and IPV 1.2-4. (The Bhāskarī edition actually numbers both the
benediction as 1.1.1 and the subsequent verse as 1.1.1. These are Utpaladeva’s last two
verses of the chapter: tathā hi jaḍabhūtānām pratiṣṭhā jī vadāśrayā/ jñānaṃ kriyā ca
bhūtānāṃ jī vatāṃ jī vanam matam// IPK 1.1.3, 1:61. tatra jñānṃ svataḥ siddhaṃ
kriyā kāyāśritā satī / parairaṇyupalakṣyeta tayāyajñānamūhyate// IPK 1.1.4, 1:70.)
The epistemology and ontology are respectively spelled out in the Jñānādhikāra and
Kriyādhikāra (IPV 1.4–1.8, 1:147–425; IPV 2.1–4, 2:1–208; IPVV 1:1–2:439).
The Pratyabhijñā system may be classified with much Yogācāra, whether or not we
include particular Buddhist thinkers, as a species of metaphysical “absolute idealism”
inasmuch there are both the generation of the world from consciousness and an
interindividual coherence. This characterization is supported by recent works of
Sebastian Rodl. Rodl interprets absolute idealism as the experience of coherent and
relatively independent or nonindividual objects by a subject, which objects are consti-
tuted as integral epistemological and ontological features of that subject’s self-
consciousness (Rodl 2018).
504 D. P. Lawrence

Translation of IPV 2.3.17

The passage translated in a still provisional way below is from IPV 2.3.17
(2:139–149) on IPK 2.3.17 (2:141), that as mentioned closely parallels and further
interprets IPK 1.2, synthesizing the demonstration of Śakti as emanatory dependence
with a previously asserted nondualistic and theistic givenness. As such, Śakti is
clearly conceived in several examples as the “reason” (hetu) of the inference:

VERSE 2.3.17
There may be this doubt: If a means of knowledge [pramāṇa] is neither useful nor
possible regarding the Blessed One, what is the purpose of the academic discourse [śā
stra] concerning Him? For that [academic discourse] is nothing but a means of
knowledge [pramāṇa, other than that of sense perception]. Indeed, academic discourse
[śāstra] has the nature of an inference for the sake of others [parārthānumana]. That
[academic discourse] ultimately consists entirely in [utilizing] the sixteen categories
[substantive concerns and methodological principles of public philosophical dis-
course, as formulated by the Nyāya school of philosophy], such as the means of
knowledge [pramāṇa, and so on].
However, the Buddhists have disputed that [the inference] has five parts, and so
on. That [disputation] is nothing but intransigence. For when the sixteen categories
[pardāṛṭha, of philosophical discourse] are articulated, the other is made to ascertain
[pratipādyate] fully that which is to be made to be ascertained [pratipādyam]. This
accords with the book where there are [statements] such as “the obtainment of that
which is good and the relinquishment of that which is bad.” What is the purpose with
regard to the other?
Indeed, that [an academic discourse] is for ascertainment by the other. And there is
that [ascertainment] from the inference for the sake-of-others [parārthānumana]. And
in that [the inference for the sake of others] there is the use of the thesis, and so on
[parts of the inference, five according to Nyāya]. The creator of the Nyāya corpus,
Akṣapāda, has explained that every academic discourse except a scriptural tradition
[āgama] is really an inference for the sake of others [parārthānumana] that brings
about the complete ascertainment by the other. Thus, he explains here, in order to
remind of what was stated previously [in the verse containing] “however, due to the
force of delusion” [IPK 1.1.2, 1:57; “However, this recognition of him, who though
experienced is not noticed due to the force of delusion, is made to be experienced
through the revealing of (his) Śakti (śaktyāviṣkaraṇa)”]:

2.3.17. Here, by means of the illumination [prakāśa] of Śakti, there is merely [kevalam]
caused to be employed [pravartyate] the cognitive practice [vyavahāram, of the understand-
ings with regard to oneself] of Lord [ī śa], and so on, that were not employed previously
[apravartitapūrva] due to the force of delusion [mūḍhatā]. [Just as IPK 2.3.15–16 paralleled
the second IPK 1.1.1, so this verse parallels IPK 1.1.2 on the operation of the śāstra as the
disclosure of Śakti. The commentary spells out the inference in more detail.]

Here, the supreme agential autonomy [svātantrya] of the Supreme Lord [parameśvara]
is indeed the accomplisher of the thing which has heretofore seemed to us [asmāaddṛk]
18 Pratyabhijñā Inference as a Transcendental Argument. . . 505

impossible or extremely difficult to accomplish in that particular state of a bound

creature [paśu]. What could be more difficult than this, that there shines [prakāśamanaḥ]
the manifestation of the negation of shining [prakāśananisedhavabhāsa] in him
who has the nature of awareness [prakāśa], and shines in unbroken identity
[akhaṇḍitatādrūpye]?
Therefore, the supreme agential autonomy [svātantrya] of the Supreme Lord [para-
meśvara] is such a nonmanifestation [tathānavabhāsnanam] called the manifestation of
the condition of the bound creature and is the accomplisher of the aspect of the cognizer
[grāhaka, that is as limited]. [As indicated in the edition’s note, the earlier Kashmir
Series has tathāvabhāsanam. One could get approximately the same meaning by
glossing that word as a manifestation or appearance of not shining.] And by means
of that [limited cognizer] there is also the manifestation of the cognized [grāhya]. This
is that [saiṣā] which is said to be the Māyā Śakti of the Blessed One. [Cf. tadidam iti
(IPV 1.2.1–2, 1:88); eṣa saḥ (IPK 1.4.3, 1:160); ‘eṣa sa’ iti ācchāditasyeva
pramātṛtattvasya sphuṭāvabhāsanaṃ kṛtam, idam iti vismayagarbhayānayā uktyā
pratyabhijñā eva sūcitā (IPV 1.4.3, 1:165); tau nāmarūpalakṣaṇau śabdārthau
ekarūpatayā ‘so’yam’ ityevaṃrupatvena parāmṛśantī adhyavasā yā sā parmeśvaraś
aktiḥ vimarśrūpā ātmavadeva ahamityanavacchinnatvena bhāti. na tu kadācit
idantayā vicchinnatvena bhāti (IPV 1.5.20, 1:295); vakti arthaṃ svādhyāsena
so’yamityabhisaṃdhānena (IPV 1.6.1, 1:303).]. As it has been said:

That very Māyā is called Delusive [vimohī nī ] [Vijñānabhairava 1979, 95, 87].

Due to agential autonomy [svātantrya] having such a form of the Māyā Śakti,
there is delusion, which is the condition of destroyed perfect consciousness
[vinaṣṭapūrṇacetanatā]. [That is] the egoistic conceptualization [abhimanana] as
not shining [aprakāśamānatayā] of what is shining [prakāśamānasya] – that plen-
itude [pūrṇatva], which has the nature of bearing internally all things which have
been clearly manifested through the arising of intention [icchā] and creative vibra-
tion [spanda].
[That plenitude also] has the nature of the agential autonomy [svātantrya]
consisting of the Śaktis of memory, and so on, and comprises the qualities of
omnipresence [vaibhāva] and eternity that are established without effort due to the
lack of the contractions [samkoca] of place and time. From the force, that is the
capacity [for that delusion] there is originally not employed what was explained in
the antecedent two verses, about the cognitive usage of the Lordship, perfection
[pūrṇatā], and so on regarding the Blessed One who is the knower.
Let those people be caused to employ that cognitive practice [vyavahāram, of the
understandings with regard to oneself] having the form “That is I who manifest as
perfect [pūrṇa], omnipresent [vibhu], agentially autonomous [svatantro] and eternal,”
and so on. By means of this academic system [śāstra] which illumines [prakāśaka] the
Intention [icchā], Cognition [jñāna] and Action Śaktis, which has the form of
recognition [pratyabhijñā], and which has the nature of an inference-for-the-sake-
of-others [parārthanumāna] for the establishment [sādhana] of that cognitive prac-
tice [vyavahāram, of the understandings with regard to oneself], there is effected
506 D. P. Lawrence

[kriyate] the employment [pravartayatām], which is the utilization of the capacity

for that [tatsamarthācaraṇam]. There are two causatives in “caused to be employed”
[pravartyate].
“Only” [kevalam] means: Nothing which there was not previously is made. Nor is
what is really not shining [aprakāśamanam] illuminated [prakāśyate]. [Rather] the
conceptualization pertaining [falsely] to the Self [abhimanana] regarding that that
which is shining [prakāśamāna] is not shining [na prakāśate ity] is removed.
For liberation [mukti], which is the obtainment of the state of the Supreme Lord
[parameśvaratā] is nothing but the removal of that [selfish conceptualization just
described]. Saṃsara is nothing but the nonremoval of that. For both of
these are essentially nothing but conceptualization pertaining to the Self
[abhimananamātra]. And both are entirely yawned forth [vijṛmbhitam; notions of
having “yawned forth” (vijṛmbhita) are a common metaphor for the Lord’s creative
and other activities.] by the Blessed One.
This is what has been said: It is as the delusion [moha] of one who is possessed by
a demon [bhauta] and, although his Self is indeed manifesting [bhasamāne
evātmani], believes due to that delusion [mohān] “I have been taken away” – is
removed [by questioning]: “Who indeed are you?” If [he answers] “One of whom
the clothing is such and face is such,” then [one replies]: “See, that [such clothing
and face] is yours.” Nothing new is accomplished for him by the one who states this
again and again. Similarly, the delusion [moha] is removed of bound humanity
[paśuloka], who, though the Self [ātman] is manifesting [bhāsamāne], believes
about the Self [abhimanvato] due to delusion [moha], “I am not Lord [ī śvara].”
[This follows the enumeration of the arguments in Pandey’s translation, in IPV
3:164:]
[#1:] For just as it is well known in Siddhānta [Dualistic Śaiva theology and
philosophy], the Purāṇas [popular texts containing narratives and theology of vari-
ous gods], and so on, that the Lord [ī śvara] is endowed with agential autonomy
[svātantrya, or “absolute freedom”] of cognition [jñāna] and action [kriyā], so also
are you.
[#2:] If one is depended upon over something [that person] is the Lord [ī śvara] of
that, like a King [is depended on] over his domain [maṇḍala]. So does the universe
[depend upon] you. Thus the usage [vvyavahāra] of Lordship [īśvaratā] does not
have another cause [nimitta]. Thus is the inductive concomitance [vyāpti].
[#3:] That integral to which something manifests [bhāti] is said to be full [pūrṇa]
of that, like a treasure with jewels. The universe [appears] to you.
[#4:] That in which something manifests [bhāti] is the pervader [vyāpaka] of so
much, like a chest regarding jewels. The universe, beginning with the earth and
ending with Sadāśiva [a lower emanation of the Supreme Śiva or Supreme Lord], has
been explained by the method of the text [śāstra] [to manifest] in you who have the
nature of consciousness [saṃvid].
[#5:] Something that, when it already exists [sthite] something [else] arises and
disappears, is the pervader of the prior and later parts of that, like when there is
[already] the earth the sprout [arises and disappears]. So, when there is [already] you
who have the nature of awareness [prakāśa], the universe [arises and disappears].
18 Pratyabhijñā Inference as a Transcendental Argument. . . 507

Similarly, thousands of other qualities [dharma] established in the scriptural

traditions [āgama], and so on, are to be attributed. Thus, even when delusion
[vyāmoha] has been removed, while there is the body, and so on, due to nothing but
mnemonic impressions [saṃskāra] of that [ignorance], there remains the delusion of
understanding as the self [abhimāna] what is not the Self. When there is the belief as
the self of the Self [ātmatā], the pot, and so on, still shine [prakāśamana]. Just as one
seeing a magical illusion [indrajāla], who has known the truth of the magical illusion
[indrajāla], does not really have a delusion [vyāmoha], so it is for one who has
recognized the Self [pratyabhijñātma].
Therefore, when the body has been extinguished in the end obtained by death,
there is Supreme Lordship [parameśvaratā]. However, when through practice
[abhyāsa] and contemplation [bhāvanā] taught in the Śaiva academic works
[śāsanā], and devotion to submersion [samāveśa] of [objective identifications such
as] the body, [objects of experience such as] the pot, and so on in Supreme Lordship
[parameśvaratā], there is the origination [for the practitioner] of the qualities of the
Supreme Lordship even while seeing here in the body. However, there is not really
perfection [pūrṇatā]. For when there is the loss of embodiment enlivened by
contraction [saṃkoca], there is the attainment of having the nature of the universe
which is as has been established.
However, he for whom, even though he has had the explanation of reasons
[hetukalāpa] for the establishment [sādhana] of everyday life [vyavahāra], there is
the self-conception [abhimāna] of nonrealization [asiddhatā] – his ignorance
[vyāmoha] is to be removed only by [additional] justifications [sādhana] of everyday
life [vyavahāra]. However, he whose [delusion] is not removed in any way has
nothing but delusion [mūḍhatā], due to the force of the Śakti of the Lord [īśvara].
Because of going to the path of the ears [of this teaching], with the ripening of the
mnemonic impressions [saṃskāra], even that one will necessarily at some time attain
his essential nature [svarūpa]. Thus, what has been stated with the two verses
beginning “who is the agent [kartari] [IPK 1.1.2]” has been explained again with
three verses beginning “diversity of the universe [viśvavaicitryasya] [IPK 2.3.15–17].”
Thus, how can what amounts to a means of knowledge [pramāṇa] be possible
regarding such a Blessed One who is such? [Bhāskara here, BIPV 2.3.17, 2:149,
includes nitye in his gloss of evaṃbhūte.] Therefore, what has been said is now stated
in the text [śāstra] in another way. Thus Śiva.

Śakti Overcoded with the Pratyabhijñā Vocabulary of Recognition

To address a variety of problematics, the Pratyabhijñā thinkers interpret Śakti in the

technical arena of epistemology, as an idealistically constitutive self-recognition or
recognitive synthesis (ahampratyavamarśa, pratyabhijñā, anusaṃdhāna), also
identified with a principle of Supreme Speech (parāvāk) derived from the linguistic
philosopher Bhartṛhari. This is articulated in the well-known Pratyabhijñā episte-
mology of recognitive apprehension (vimarśa) as the essential nature of awareness
(prakāśa) (Lawrence 1999, 107–122).
508 D. P. Lawrence

The article reiterates what was stated originally in Rediscovering God. The
Pratyabhijñā theory of recognition is not only articulated in derivatives form abhi-
jñā or prati-abhi-jñā, which literally mean recognition, but in two other sets of terms
(Lawrence 1999, 86–87, 208–209n).
Derivatives from anu, prati, or abhi plus saṃ-dhā are usually translated as
“recognitive synthesis.” Supporting this interpretation, Abhinavagupta defines
pratyabhijñā in terms of anusaṃdhāna and pratisaṃdhāna at IPV 1.1 on IPK
benedictory verse (1:36–38). Abhinava similarly defines pratyabhijñā in
terms of anusaṃdhāna at IPV 1.4.8 (1:188–189). The later Pratyabhijñā text,
Virūpākṣapañcāśikā, simply classifies the “This is that” experience as anusaṃhiti
(VAP 3.38, 16). The commentator Vidyācakravartin again makes the equation:
“Anusaṃhiti is pratyabhijñā” (VAPV 3.38, 16; also see VAPV 3.39, 17). The free
alternation between the terms pratyabhijñā and anusaṃdhāna is seen in the discussions
of action, for example, at IPV 2.1.5 (yadā tu gāḍhpratyabhijñāprakāśabalāt tadeva
idaṃ hastasvarūpam iti pratipattau mūrterna bhedaḥ, atha ca anyānyarūpatvam
bhāti tadaikasmin svarūpe yadanyat anyat rūpam tadvirodhavaśāt asahabhavatkriyā
ucyate, tasyā yat vaicitryam parimitāparimitātmakaṃ tadekānusaṃdhānena
phalasiddhyādinibandhanavaśāt yathāruci carcitena nirbhāsayan kālarūpaṃ
kramamevāvabhāsayati/2:17).
It is also articulated in derivatives, with various prefixes, from mṛś, which the
author has translated as both “recognitive apprehension” and “recognitive judg-
ment,” now usually the former because it has less dualistic connotations. (Alexis
Sanderson stated in personal conversation that there are sometimes small differences
in meaning between the terms. On the “mṛś terms,” see also the classic study of
Alper 1987. For an effort to recover the historical associations of “touching” in the
meaning of the terms, see Skora 2009.) Bhāskarakaṇṭha equates the terms parāmarś
a and pratyabhijñā in commenting on IPV 2.2.2, 2:39. (He glosses the expression
parāmarśabalādeva with pratyabhijñābalādeva. BIPV 2.2.2, 2:39.) Bhāskarakaṇṭha on
1.5.20 (1:294) uses the word pratyabhijñā to describe the means (by using the instru-
mental case) by which parāmarśa unifies word and object. (For example, he explains
paramṛśantī – śabdārthaikī karaṇarūpayā pratyabhijñayā parāmarśaviṣayatāṃ
nayantī , ata eva tābhyāmatirekeṇa yukteti bhāvaḥ. BIPV 1.5.20, 1:294.). At
2.3.10–11 Utpaladeva and Abhinavagupta use the words vimarśa and pratyavamarśa
identically to pratyabhijñā as invoked by the Naiyāyikas against the Vijñānavādins.
They explain through it the knowledge “This is that thing” regarding objects which
appear successively as far and near, inferred and directly perceived, external and
internally imagined, and as seen in incorrect and correct cognitions. IPK 2.3.10–11
(2:117); IPV 2.3.10-11 (2:117–119); and BIPV 2.3.10–11 (2:117–119). (These are
Utpaladeva’s verses: dūrāntikatayārthānām parokṣādhyakṣatātmanā/bāhyāntaratayā
doṣairvyañjakasyānyathāpi vā. IPK 2.3.10, 2:117. bhinnāvabhāsacchāyānāmapi
mukhyāvabhāsataḥ/ ekapratyavamarśākhyādekatvamanivāritam. IPK 2.3.11, 2:117.)
Abhinava similarly uses the expression pratyavamṛśyate to describe the recognition of
the continuity of material cause and effect at IPV 2.4.18 (nanvevamapi
bī jamaṅkurādivicitramavabhātaṃ dī rghadī rghaparāmarśaśālibhiḥ srotovadavicchin-
nasvarūpameva nirbādham pratyavamṛśyate/. . ..2:194). Parāmarśa and other mṛś
18 Pratyabhijñā Inference as a Transcendental Argument. . . 509

terms are used to describe the soteriological recognition at IPV 4.1.16 (yata evaṃ śā
stragurusvapratyayasiddho ‘yamarthaḥ, taditi tasmādatra prameyapade parāmarśaṃ
viśramayan viśvakartṛtvalakṣaṇamaiśvaryamātmano vibhāvya dārḍhyena yadā
parāmṛśati tarhi tatparāmarśamātrādeva tāvajjī vanmkto bhagavāñchiva eva,
2:310–311) and IPV 4.1.17 (2:314–315).
Bhāskarakaṇṭha identifies anusaṃdhāna with pratyavamarśa in his commentary at
BIPV 1.6.10 (yojanā cānusaṃdhānam, sa eva pratyavamarśaḥ; 1:340; also see below).
Anusaṃdhāna, anusaṃdhi, etc., are employed in synonymous or intrinsic functional
relationships with vimarśa, parāmarśa, etc., at IPK 1.5.19 (sākṣātkārakṣaṇa’pyasti
vimarśaḥ kathamanyathā/dhāvanādyupapadyeta pratisaṃdhānavarjitam//; 1:284);
IPV 1.5.19, 1:291–292). In commenting at BIPV 1.6.1, Bhāskarakaṇṭha identifies
anusaṃdhāna as the effect (kārya) of pratyavamarśa (e.g., anusandhānasyāpi –
pratyavamarśakāryasya yojanasyāpi; 1:301).
The terms are used disjunctively in analyses of states with different degrees of
contingent empirical, rather than transcendental, recognitive synthesis. In elaborating a
typology of cognitive states, Abhinava thus describes a form of direct experience
(anubhava) which lacks synthesis (abhisaṃdhi), despite his usual stress on the
invariable concomitance of synthesis with consciousness. He is endeavoring to
describe what seems to be the most discrete, uninterpreted sort of experience. How-
ever, Abhinavagupta emphasizes that even here there is (recognitive) apprehension
(parāmarśa), which is necessary for awareness (IPV 1.4.8, 1:187–188). On the basis
of differentiation of such an underlying transcendental apprehension (parāmarśa), he
analyzes in this section a great variety of sorts of direct experience, memory, and
recognition (pratyabhijñā; IPV 1.4.8, 1:187–189 and IPVV 1.4.8, 2:58).

Additional Subsumptions of Inference: Pleromatic Fragmentation

and Inductive Noncommitance

Now, in Sanskrit philosophies, the conceptually constructed cognitions (savikalpaka

jñāna) that make up all quotidian epistemic experience – in distinction from uncon-
structed states (nirvikalpaka jñāna), comprise a variety of distinctions, between all the
factors of cognitive processes. Likewise, the classic fivefold inference articulated in
the Nyāya system has five steps with various constituent terms, invoking the probable
or necessary regularities of things. To explain how there emerge various epistemic
distinctions, constituting cognitions and invoked in inference, the article adverts to
previous and unpublished analyses of the Pratyabhijñā accounts of the fragmentation
of Śiva’s pūrṇatā, “perfection,” “pleroma,” “fullness,” or “completion.” [Pūrṇatā is
another one of the basic conceptualizations of the Lord’s nature, which Abhinavagupta
equates with the Lord’s creative Śakti Herself (TS, 4, 27–28; cf. Kṣemarāja in
Vasugupta and Kṣemarāja, 1925, 3.13, 66; and Maheśvarānanda 1972, 122). Śiva is
frequently described as comprising perfect or complete consciousness (pūrṇasaṃvid)
(Lawrence 2013) that emanates into more-or-less erroneous and contingent, incom-
plete knowledge (apūrṇakhyāti); and as having perfect I-hood (pūrṇāhaṃtā), under-
lying the psychology of limited egoity (ahambhāva, abhimāna) (Dyczkowski 1992,
510 D. P. Lawrence

Hulin 1978, Lawrence 2008a). This perfect I-hood is also explained as the highest
level of mantra, encompassing within itself all of the Sanskrit letters.]
Epistemologically, pūrṇatā defines Śiva’s idealistic comprehension of everything
within, as identical with Himself. All things appear as one’s own perfect (pūrṇa) I in the
Self (IPV 2.1.6–7, 2:22–23). Again the Lord also comprehends all limited subjects
within his perfect omniscient and omnipotent nature (IPV 4.1.1, 2:281–282; also see
IPV 1.1.4, 1:75–77; and Ajaḍapramātṛsiddhi, in Utpaladeva, 1921, 13, 5). [Abhinava is
fond of the maxim “Everything has the nature of everything” (sarvaṃ sarvātmakam).]
The Pratyabhijñā further overcodes this fragmentation by appropriating and sub-
verting the theory of apoha, semantico-inferential exclusion (apoha) of the Yogācāra
Buddhist logical-epistemological school of Dignāga (c. 480–540 CE), Dharmakīrti
(c. 600–600 CE), and their followers. In his explanation, Abhinavagupta hearkens
back to old conceptions of apoha as a kind of vyatireka limiting optionality:

When a pot is seen, it is also possible that there could be, in the place of the pot, a non-pot,
such as a cloth, etc. [Such a non-pot would like the pot also] naturally have a location
believed to be suitable; it would produce cognition [of itself as object], and would be brought
to its location by its own causes. [Abhinava is trying to show that the non-pot is a viable
alternative.] Since the manifestations of both the pot and the non-pot are possible, there is an
opportunity for a superimposition [in which one wrongly takes a pot to be a non-pot]. Since
there is the [possibility of the] superimposition of a non-pot, there is the operation of
exclusion, which is characterized by negation. Thus the ascertainment [niścaya] “pot” has
the nature of conceptual construction that is animated by that [exclusion].
[ghaṭe hi dṛṣte ghaṭasthāna evāghaṭo’pi yogyadeśābhimatasthānākramaṇaśī lo
vijñānajnakaḥ svakāraṇopnī taḥ sabhāvyate paṭādisvabhāvaḥ, ato ghaṭāghaṭayordvayora-
vabhāsasya sambhāvanāt samāropaḥ sāvakāśo bhavati, aghaṭasya satyārope niṣedhana-
lakṣaṇopohanvyāpāraḥ iti tadanuprāṇitā vikalparūpatā ghaṭa ityetasya niścayasya (IPV
1.6.2, 1:306)].

As cybernetic theorist Gregory Bateson states: “A ‘bit’ of information is definable

as a difference which makes a difference” (Bateson 1972, 315). The basic, binary
digits of information, by some sort of statistical derivation, define the differences of
intelligible cognitions in practical life, including inferences with their diverse terms
(see Lawrence 2018, for an interpretation of the Śaiva theory of apoha in relation to
information theory, Saussurean structuralism, and Peircean pragmatics).
The capacity for producing fragmentation-cum-exclusion that forms the basis of
ordinary life is again further explained, from a nondualistic perspective, with
theodicial notions of the Māyā Śakti, Power of Magic Illusion, that is one of
Śiva’s five Acts (see above n. 1):

In the condition without conceptual construction [avikalpa], the pot has the essential nature of
consciousness [cit], and just like consciousness [cit], has the nature of everything [viśvaśarī ra]
and is perfect [pūrna]. However, there is no worldly activity with that [pot that has the nature
of everything and is perfect]. Therefore, [the knower], manifesting the operation of Māyā,
causes the thing, even though perfect [pūrna], to be fragmented. By means of that, is created
semantic exclusion [apohana], having the form of negation of the non-pot, such as the self,
cloth and so on. On the basis of that very exclusion [vyapohana], there is said to be the
ascertainment [niścaya] of the pot. The meaning of “only” [eva] in [the ascertainment] “only
18 Pratyabhijñā Inference as a Transcendental Argument. . . 511

the pot” is the negation of other things that are supposed to be possible. Therefore, there is this
complete distinction, by distinction all around, like cutting.
[tadavikalpadaśāyāṃ citsvabhāvo’sau ghaṭaḥ cidvadeva viśvaśarī raḥ pūrṇaḥ,
na ca tena kaścidvyavahāraḥ, tat māyāvyāpāramullāsayan pūrṇamapi khaṇḍayati
bhāvaṃ, tenāghaṭasyātmanaḥ paṭādeścāpohanaṃ kriyate niṣedhanarūpam, tadeva
vyapohanamāśritya tasya ghaṭasya niścayanamucyate ‘ghaṭa eva’ iti, evārthasya
sambhāvyamānāparavastuniṣedharūpatvāt, eṣa eva paritaśchedāntakṣaṇakalpāt
paricchedaḥ (IPV 1.6.3, 1:309–310).]

[For another description of the creation of the limited subject distinguished from
objects, which invokes both the terms Māyā and Exclusion see IPK and IPV 1.6.4–5,
1:312–323.
[The idea of fragmentations is also well articulated in the following passage:

[That (object) which is manifested is differentiated from consciousness. Consciousness

(is differentiated) from that. One consciousness (is differentiated) from another conscious-
ness. One object of consciousness [is differentiated] from another object of consciousness.
This differentiation is not really possible. Thus it is explained to be the mere manifestation of
the differentiation. As such, that (differentiation) is not ultimately real. For this [manifesta-
tion] is the ultimate reality of everything which is created. Due to the differentiating all
around (paritaśchedanāt), there is said to be all-around differentiation (pariccheda). The
capacity for the manifestation of that [differentiation] is the Semantic Exclusion Śakti.
[Tat ābhāsyate tat saṃvido vicchedyate, saṃvicca tataḥ, saṃvicca saṃvidantarāt,
saṃvedyaṃ ca saṃvedyāntarāt, na ca vicchenaṃ vastutaḥ saṃbhavati iti vicchedanasya
avabhāsmātram ucyate/ na ca tat iyatā pārmārthikaṃ nirmayamāṇakya sarvasya
ayameva paramārthaḥ/ yataḥ eṣa eva paritaśchedanāt pariccheda ucyate,
tadavabhāsanasāmarthyam apohanaśakti (IPV 1.3.7, 1:142–143).]

Niyati Śakti as Generating Substantive Inferential Concomitance

According to the Pratyabhijñā thinkers, Śiva sets the limits in the construction of the
plurality of cognitions by divine decree, as it were, through his Niyati, “Fixed Regu-
larity,” Śakti. The Niyati Śakti thus determines that particular manifestations may not be
combined in perception, as they are contradictory to each other. Some occur in regular
relationships because of essential nature (svabhāva) or origin (utpatti). (On the combi-
nation of abhāsas, and contextual and personal factors causing their contingency, along
with their epistemic and spiritual rectification, see Lawrence 2013). These form the
basis of mundane cognitive regularities including those invoked in inference.

Scriptural Traditions as Grounds of Inference

Abhinavagupta adduces a variety of considerations in order to demonstrate that

scriptural traditions (āgama) are the final justificatory grounds of all cognition.
Scriptural traditions for Abhinavagupta are expressions of Śiva’s Supreme Speech/
self-recognition. They are directly accessible as “innate” or “a priori” features of
cognition. At the same time, they are manifest in their familiar cultural aspects such
512 D. P. Lawrence

as oral and written canon, or public knowledge (prasiddhi), and the testimonies of
authoritative people (āptavākya). These considerations may be understood as an
extension of the Pratyabhijñā arguments about vimarśa, which disclose Śiva’s self-
recognition/Supreme Speech as the reality underlying all human experience.
Abhinavagupta further supports the subsumption of inference by the Śaiva world-
view by developing arguments of Bhartṛhari that make it depend on scriptural
tradition (āgama). In this case, the scriptural traditions on which it depends are
primarily the nondual Śaiva āgamas (see Lawrence 2000).

Identity of Cosmogony and Teleology

“Tantric Argument” and Rediscovering God spoke of an “identification of cosmog-

ony and teleology” in the nondual metaphysics of the Pratyabhijñā. The author has
then and sometimes later remarked how this identification reminded one of Mircea
Eliade on the relationship of myth and ritual. It also reflects a broadly Durkheimian
understanding of the relation of world view and practice, as is evinced in Clifford
Geertz on the relation of culture or religion and ethos. However, the author has come
to understand that this identification in the West reflects the legacy of complexly
intertwined, Christian and non-Christian, Platonism and Aristotelianism. Both Pla-
tonic and Aristotelian traditions view human actions as getting their genuine impetus
and intentionality by somehow enacting or embodying respectively the One/Good/
Ideas or Being/Act of divine Intellect.
Eric Voegelin has written an illuminating discussion of the issue (Voegelin, “The
Beginning and the Beyond,” in 1990, 173–232) from his own mystical perspective.
For example, he states:

In fact, when the response becomes a questing movement, the directions are prescribed by
the structure of the reality in which man finds himself situated as its part. In his search of the
divine ground, man can do no more than move either in the time dimension of the cosmos or
through the hierarchy of being from inorganic matter to his own questioning existence, in
order to find it either in an event preceding the present state of things or in a place higher than
the known hierarchy of things. Hence, when the response becomes reflectively conscious as
a quest, the experience reveals a truth not only about divine reality but also about the
structure of the cosmos in which it occurs. Beside the structure of appeal-response, the
structures of cosmic lasting in time and of the hierarchy of being are a further area of reality
that becomes visible through the movements toward the Beginning and the Beyond.
(Voegelin “The Beginning and the Beyond,” in 1990, 17)

He also has the idea that the highest discovery is in some way self-luminous (and
a priori). The Metaxy describes the middle ground of a linkage between worldly
experience and the Ultimate, as realized in religious experience. He explains:

The experience of the divine reality, it is true, occurs in the psyche of a man who is
solidly rooted in his body in the external world, but the psyche itself exists in the Metaxy,
18 Pratyabhijñā Inference as a Transcendental Argument. . . 513

in the tension toward the divine ground of being. It is the sensorium for divine reality and
the site of its luminous presence. Even more, it is the site in which the comprehensive
reality becomes luminous to itself and engenders the language in which we speak of a
reality that comprehends both an external world and the mystery of its Beginning and
Beyond, as well as the metaleptic psyche in which the experience occurs and engenders
its language. In the experience, not only the truth of divine reality becomes luminous but,
at the same time, the truth of the world in which the experience occurs. There is no
“external” or “immanent” world as such by its relation to something that is “internal” or
“transcendent.” Such terms as immanent and transcendent, external and internal, this
world and the other world, and so forth, do not denote objects or their properties but are
the language indices arising from the Metaxy in the event of its being luminous for the
comprehensive reality, its structure and dynamics. (Voegelin, “The Beginning and the
Beyond,” in 1990, 184–185)
Here may be repeated the passage from IPV 1.5.17 quoted previously:
That which is called recognitive apprehension [parāmarśa] is the absolutely final and true
place of rest [viśrāntisthānam]; and it only has the form “I.” In traveling to a village, the
intermediate point of rest [madhyaviśrāntipadam] at the root of a tree, is explained to be
created as expectant of that [final point of rest]. Therefore, what is the contradiction [between
the divine self and various cognized objective representations of it and other things]? Thus
also blue, etc., in the intermediate recognitive apprehension [parāmarśa] as “This is blue,”
are established to consist of the Self. For they rest [viśranteḥ] upon the root recognitive
judgement [parāmarśa] “I.”
[parāmarśo nāma viśrāntisthānam, tacca pāryantikameva pāramārthikaṃ, tacca ahamitye-
vaṃrūpameva/ madhyaviśrāntipadaṃ tu yat vṛkṣamūlasthānīyaṃ grāmagamane tasya
tadapekṣayā sṛṣṭatvam ucyate iti ko virodhaḥ/ anena nī lādeḥ api idaṃ nī lam iti
madhyaparāmarśo’pi mūlaparāmarśo ahamityeva viśrānteḥ ātmamayatvam
upapāditameva. . . (IPV 1.5.17, 1:278–279).]

The identification in terms of absorption in a One, of cosmogony and teleology, is

of a piece with the identifications of transcendent and immanent, Being and contin-
gency, peaceful smiling and dance, means (upāya) and goal (upeya), reason (hetu)
and conclusion (nigamana) (see Lawrence 1996, 186–187 and 1999, 100), and even
a posteriori and a priori. As was said, the Śaiva form of transcendental argument is
seen as a mode of return in a circular journey which does not go anywhere. Since that
circle is also hermeneutic, in what we describe as a transcendental inference,
something is still learned.

Definitions of Key Terms

anusamdhāna Recognitive synthesis

pratyabhijñā Recognition
vimarśa Recognitive apprehension
kriyā Action
kāraka Semantic-syntactic factor of action, according to Pāṇini
kartṛ Agent
svātantrya Agential autonomy
514 D. P. Lawrence

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