A distinguished philosopher, aesthete and saint was one of
the most outstanding Acharyas of the Monistic Shaivism. His exact date
of birth is not known but we learn from references about him in his
works Tantraloka and Paratrimshika Vivarana that he lived in Kashmir
about the end of the nineth and beginning of the tenth century A.D. The
earliest known ancestor of Abhinavagupta
was a famous Brahmin Attrigupta a great Shaiva teacher and scholar of
Kanauj, who had been invited to settle in Kashmir by King Lalitaditya.
Abhinava Gupta was thus born in a family which had a long tradition of
scholarship and devoutness for Lord Siva. His father Narasimhagupta
(Cukhulaka) and mother Vimalakala were great influence in his life and
it is believed that they both underwent austerities to be bestowed with
an extra ordinary son with spiritual powers.
Traditionally
believed to have been a Yoginibhu (born of a Yogini), he mastered
subjects like metaphysics, poetry and aesthetics at a very young age He
possessed all the eight Yogic powers explained in Shastras. His
biographers observed six great spiritual signs as explained in
‘Malinivijayotara Shastra’, in him. Kashmir Shaivism is classified by
Abhinavagupta in four systems viz. Krama system, Spanda system, Kula
system and Pratyabijnya system. ‘Krama’ deals with space and time,
‘Spanda’, with the movement, ‘Kula’ with the Science of Totality and
‘Pratyabijnya’ with the school of Recognition.
His two major
works on Poetics, Dhavnyalokalocana and Abhinava Bharati point towards
his quest into the nature of aesthetic experience. In both these works
Abhinava Gupta suggests that Aesthetic experience is something beyond
worldly experience and he has used the word ‘Alaukika’ to distinguish
the former feeling from the mundane latter ones. He subscribed to the
theory of Rasa Dhvani and thus entered the ongoing aesthetic debate on
nature of Aesthetic pleasure.
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