Around Abhinavagupta

Around Abhinavagupta
Author: Eli Franco
Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster
Total Pages: 684
Release: 2016
Genre: History
ISBN: 3643906978

Abhinavagupta is undoubtedly the most famous Kashmirian medieval intellectual: his decisive contributions to Indian aesthetics, Saiva theology, and metaphysics, and to the philosophy of the subtle and original Pratyabhijna system, are well known. Yet so far his works have often been studied without fully taking into account the specific historical, social, artistic, religious, and philosophical context in which they are embedded. The purpose of this book is to show that this intellectual background is no less exceptional than Abhinavagupta himself. (Series: Leipzig Studies on the Culture and History of South and Central Asia / Leipziger Studien zu Kultur und Geschichte Sud- und Zentralasiens, Vol. 6) [Subject: History, Abhinavagupta, India Studies, Religious Studies]

The Truth Within

The Truth Within
Author: Gavin Flood
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 329
Release: 2013-10
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0199684561

Explores the metaphor of inwardness and the idea of truth within, along with the methods developed in three religions to attain it, such as prayer and meditation.

Language, Meaning, and Use in Indian Philosophy

Language, Meaning, and Use in Indian Philosophy
Author: Malcolm Keating
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2019-05-16
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1350060739

This introduction brings to life the main themes in Indian philosophy of language by using an accessible translation of an Indian classical text to provide an entry into the world of Indian linguistic theories. Malcolm Keating draws on Mukula's Fundamentals of the Communicative Function to show the ability of language to convey a wide range of meanings and introduce ideas about testimony, pragmatics, and religious implications. Along with a complete translation of this foundational text, Keating also provides: - Clear explanations of themes such as reference, figuration and sentence meaning - Commentary illuminating connections between Mukula and contemporary philosophy - Romanized text of the Sanskrit - A glossary of terms and annotated bibliography - A chronology of important figures and dates By complementing a historically-informed introduction with a focused study of an influential primary text, Keating responds to the need for a reliable guide to better understand theories of language and related issues in Indian philosophy.

Śaivāgamas

Śaivāgamas
Author: V. N. Drabu
Publisher: Indus Publishing
Total Pages: 332
Release: 1990
Genre: Agamas
ISBN: 9788185182384

The Matter of Wonder

The Matter of Wonder
Author: Loriliai Biernacki
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2023
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0197643078

"The current discourse of New Materialism seeks to chart a way of addressing our contemporary predicament around environmental destruction through reassessing our relationship and attitudes to matter. This book argues that the panentheism of the 11th century Indian Hindu thinker Abhinavagupta offers a cogent philosophical model that gives us new ways of thinking about matter, which can help a contemporary New Materialist thought. What makes panentheism an attractive model for Abhinavagupta's philosophy is its Tantric impetus towards both the materiality of the world and the transcendence of divinity, proposing a philosophy that finds consciousness-a subjectivity as, and at the very core of matter. With this, Abhinavagupta's articulation of a foundational and encompassing subjectivity proposes a panentheist solution to a familiar conundrum, one we still grapple with today-that is: how does consciousness, which is so unlike matter, how does it actually connect to the materiality of our world? In familar 21st century terms, how does mind connect to body? This book brings this question to bear in comparative fashion on contemporary issues: our current concerns around what is sentient-animals? viruses? artificial intelligence?-set in relation to Abhinavagupta's articulation of what gives rise to sentience via his use of the term vimarśa; our current conceptions of information as data-articulated in juxtaposition to Abhinavagupta's theology of mantra, mystic sound; examining Abhinavagupta's use of wonder (camatkāra) as as a philosophical concept, and how his cosmological system (tattva) underwrites his understanding of a foundational subjectivity"--

The Oxford Handbook of Indian Philosophy

The Oxford Handbook of Indian Philosophy
Author: Jonardon Ganeri
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 841
Release: 2017-10-12
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0190668393

The Oxford Handbook of Indian Philosophy tells the story of philosophy in India through a series of exceptional individual acts of philosophical virtuosity. It brings together forty leading international scholars to record the diverse figures, movements, and approaches that constitute philosophy in the geographical region of the Indian subcontinent, a region sometimes nowadays designated South Asia. The volume aims to be ecumenical, drawing from different locales, languages, and literary cultures, inclusive of dissenters, heretics and sceptics, of philosophical ideas in thinkers not themselves primarily philosophers, and reflecting India's north-western borders with the Persianate and Arabic worlds, its north-eastern boundaries with Tibet, Nepal, Ladakh and China, as well as the southern and eastern shores that afford maritime links with the lands of Theravda Buddhism. Indian Philosophy has been written in many languages, including Pali, Prakrit, Sanskrit, Malayalam, Urdu, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Marathi, Persian, Kannada, Punjabi, Hindi, Tibetan, Arabic and Assamese. From the time of the British colonial occupation, it has also been written in English. It spans philosophy of law, logic, politics, environment and society, but is most strongly associated with wide-ranging discussions in the philosophy of mind and language, epistemology and metaphysics (how we know and what is there to be known), ethics, metaethics and aesthetics, and metaphilosophy. The reach of Indian ideas has been vast, both historically and geographically, and it has been and continues to be a major influence in world philosophy. In the breadth as well as the depth of its philosophical investigation, in the sheer bulk of surviving texts and in the diffusion of its ideas, the philosophical heritage of India easily stands comparison with that of China, Greece, the Latin west, or the Islamic world.

Abhinavagupta's Philosophy of Revelation

Abhinavagupta's Philosophy of Revelation
Author: Jürgen Hanneder
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 303
Release: 2023-03-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004454632

The first part of the ‘Versified Commentary on the Mālinītantra’ (Mālinīślokvārttika) by the tenth-century theologian Abhinavagupta, which is translated here for the first time, presents a philosophy of Śaiva revelation, conceived of as a descent of the highest non-dual form of knowledge, through the different levels of speech, into the knowledge embodied in the canon of Tantras or Agamas on which the Śaiva religion is based. The aim of the text is to demonstrate the logic behind the claim of the monistic Tantric schools on which Abhinavagupta bases his philosophy. The present volume deals in its introduction with the scriptural background of the Śaiva religion because that is a prerequisite for understanding many of the arguments in the text. The translation is accompanied by a re-edition of the Sanskrit text with the help of two manuscripts not consulted before, and a running commentary. A fragment of the Śrīkaṇṭī, which is probably the source for some of Abhinavaguptas theories of the Śaiva canon, is transcribed in an appendix.

Conjuring the Buddha

Conjuring the Buddha
Author: Jacob P. Dalton
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 227
Release: 2023-01-17
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0231556187

Ritual manuals are among the most common and most personal forms of Buddhist literature. Since at least the late fifth century, individual practitioners—including monks, nuns, teachers, disciples, and laypeople—have kept texts describing how to perform the daily rites. These manuals represent an intimate counterpart to the canonical sutras and the tantras, speaking to the lived experience of Buddhist practice. Conjuring the Buddha offers a history of early tantric Buddhist ritual through the lens of the Tibetan manuscripts discovered near Dunhuang on the ancient Silk Road. Jacob P. Dalton argues that the spread of ritual manuals offered Buddhists an extracanonical literary form through which to engage with their tradition in new and locally specific ways. He suggests that ritual manuals were the literary precursors to the tantras, crucial to the emergence of esoteric Buddhism. Examining a series of ninth- and tenth-century tantric manuals from Dunhuang, Dalton uncovers lost moments in the development of rituals such as consecration, possession, sexual yoga, the Great Perfection, and the subtle body practices of the winds and channels. He also traces the use of poetic language in ritual manuals, showing how at pivotal moments, metaphor, simile, rhythm, and rhyme were deployed to evoke carefully sculpted affective experiences. Offering an unprecedented glimpse into the personal practice of early tantric Buddhists, Conjuring the Buddha provides new insight into the origins and development of the tantric tradition.

To Savor the Meaning

To Savor the Meaning
Author: James D. Reich
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2021
Genre: History
ISBN: 0197544835

Anandavardhana and the metaphysics of literature -- Abhinavagupta and the theology of literature -- Abhinavagupta's literary theory -- Mahimabhaṭṭa on literary knowing -- The will of objects -- Mahimabhaṭṭa on literary being : the pragmatic use of illusion.

The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Indian Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art

The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Indian Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art
Author: Arindam Chakrabarti
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 445
Release: 2016-02-25
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1472524306

The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Indian Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art provides an extensive research resource to the burgeoning field of Asian aesthetics. Featuring leading international scholars and teachers whose work defines the field, this unique volume reflects the very best scholarship in creative, analytic, and comparative philosophy. Beginning with a philosophical reconstruction of the classical rasa aesthetics, chapters range from the nature of art-emotions, tones of thinking, and aesthetic education to issues in film-theory and problems of the past versus present. As well as discussing indigenous versus foreign in aesthetic practices, this volume covers North and South Indian performance practices and theories, alongside recent and new themes including the Gandhian aesthetics of surrender and self-control and the aesthetics of touch in the light of the politics of untouchability. With such unparalleled and authoritative coverage, The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Indian Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art represents a dynamic map of comparative cross-cultural aesthetics. Bringing together original philosophical research from renowned thinkers, it makes a major contribution to both Eastern and Western contemporary aesthetics.