ch3_cuneo_ecstatic_aesthetics

• tonating or Defusing Desire

• om Utpaladeva’s Ecstatic Aesthetics to Abhinavagupta’s Ecumenical Art
• eory*

• niele Cuneo

• e present paper tries to gauge the theoretical difference between
• paladeva’s and Abhinavagupta’s “aesthetic” speculations. However, I
• ll argue that only the postulation of a conceptual divide between
• sthetics proper, i.e. a discourse on sensory perception, and art
• eory, i.e. a discourse on art per se, can plausibly account for the
• tio of the textual material under scrutiny. Such a speculative
• fferentiation will allow for a contrast between Utpaladeva’s ecstatic
• sthetics, a discourse on sensory perception recognized as the
• eferential path to rapturous identification with the consciousness of
• va, and Abhinavagupta’s art theory, a discourse on art per se
• knowledged as a viable way to temporarily overcome the inherent
• infulness of everyday sensory perceptions. The premises that nourish
• hinavagupta’s art theory, that somewhat differ from his and
• paladeva’s śaiva Weltanschauung, will be tentatively interpreted in
• ght of the hypothesis of an implicit ecumenical agenda. The two
• fferent paths, here postulated and identified, might be idiomatically
• itomized by means of their respective attitude towards desire, namely,
• eir respective methods for its detonation and its defusal.

• tting Started

• other quite possible and less slogan-like title of the present essay
• ght have been “An Instance of the Progressive Differentiation of
• adition”. The initial input for this kind of research can be traced
• ck to Raffaele Torella’s list of priorities to be set in the field of
• udy dedicated, specifically, to Utpaladeva, and, more generally, to
• -called nondual Kashmir Śaivism. In such a list, “the progressive
• fferentiation of tradition” stood out as one of the main and most
• gent concerns. In general terms, the underlying idea consists of an
• sessment of the subtle, and less subtle, differences in the thought of
• e various authors of this celebrated tradition. Scholars have so far
• ncentrated their efforts almost solely on the similarities and the
• itary purport, rather than differences and conceptual revolutions,
• tween the philosophical speculations of a wide range of authors such
• — to name only a few of the most important thinkers — Somānanda,
• paladeva and Abhinavagupta, his disciple Kṣemarāja and his commentator
• yaratha, and even the late twentieth-century master Swami Lakshman
• o.

• particular, my present concern is focused on what has been loosely
• lled the aesthetic thought developed in the womb of so-called non-dual
• shmir Śaivism. As is well known, Abhinavagupta (c. ce 950–1020),
• paladeva’s (c. ce 925-75) celebrated disciple’s disciple, is rightly
• nsidered one of the greatest aesthetic theorists of the Sanskrit
• smos. His two justly-renowned works, the Locana on Ānandavardhana’s
• vanyāloka (DhvĀ) and the Abhinavabhāratī (ABh) on Bharata’s
• ṭyaśāstra (NŚ), have created and established the “mainstream of
• nskrit Literary Theory” in the broadest possible sense.

• recent years, quite a number of articles and studies have been
• blished with regard to the link between Abhinavagupta’s aesthetic
• eories — and I would say in particular, Abhinavagupta’s aesthetic
• ncepts, i.e. rasa, camatkāra, pratibhā, sphurattā and viśrānti — and
• e broader framework of the philosophy of Pratyabhijñā of which he is
• e great systematiser.1

• a relevant instance, we can quote Torella’s words on the concept of
• matkāra, a very common term denoting the aesthetic experience in
• hinavagupta’s works, to be analysed as a sort of aesthetic coté of the
• ncept of vimarśa, the reflexive self-awareness that intrinsically
• aracterizes and is ultimately non-different from the absolute
• nsciousness, i.e. Śiva himself. Commenting on a translation from
• hinavaguta’s Īśvarapratyabhijñāvivr̥tivimarśinī (vol. II, p. 177),
• rella (2002: 118, fn. 23) states:

• amatkr̥ti means the act of a person savouring (bhuñjānasya), that is,
• e bliss constituted by the full achievement of fruition”. Bhuñjāna,
• bhinavagupta] explains later, is he who, engaged in savouring a taste
• ch as sweetness, etc., unlike a voracious glutton, lets the experience
• st on the cognizing subject, that is, makes the ‘subject’ part
• edominate over the ‘object’ part. Camatkāra, in its highest form, is
• erefore both the act of savouring and fullness, absolute independence,
• nsciousness devoid of obstacles (avighnā saṁvit), a savouring which is
• the final analysis a savouring of one’s own self and of one’s own
• iss, which eludes every screen or intermediation of the world of
• jects [. . .]. The terms with which it is glossed or with which it is
• osely related may be grouped according to its principal components:
• gnition, bliss, wonder. The first group includes, for example, vimarśa
• ratyavamarśa, etc.), carvaṇā, āsvāda, rasanā, pratīti; the second
• cludes ānanda, nirvr̥ti, viśrānti, laya; the third vismaya, vikāsa.

• erefore, the idea of camatkāra conveys the sense of a
• asi-aesthetical and intrinsically pleasurable wonder that strikes and
• braces the individual subject as soon as he cognizes the limitless
• mension of his own pure and absolute consciousness.2

• ong very similar lines, it is possible to trace the philosophical and
• taphysical pedigree of the other aesthetic notions Abhinavagupta
• ploys in his works on poetics and dramaturgy, from rasa and dhvani3 up
• pratibhā4 and viśrānti5 without neglecting, obviously, the very term
• ṁvid.

• rthermore, some very important essays by Bettina Bäumer have recently6
• cused on the aesthetic ideas and concepts especially in so far as they
• e already clearly developed in Utpaladeva’s writings and in other
• rly texts of non-dual Kashmir Śaivism.

• the one hand, as already pointed out by Gnoli, Utpaladeva is to be
• knowledged as the first author, in the paramparā of Pratyabhijñā, who
• ed the term camatkāra or camatkr̥ti.7 On the other hand, as shown by
• umer (2008), Utpaladeva bases his Śivastotrāvalī (ŚSĀ)8 on an almost
• plicit “aesthetics of devotion” according to which the unity with Śiva
• well as the possible paths that lead to the recognition of such a
• ion are better characterized and fleshed out as an act of pleasurable
• vouring and appreciation, especially in so far as the divine himself
• appropriately identified with the concepts of “beauty” and
• elight”.9

• very telling example of such “aesthetics of devotion” is represented
• two beautiful verses of the Śivastotrāvalī (specifically, ŚSĀ
• .14-15). In the poetic translation of Bailly, they read:

• at which bestows on all objects of beauty (subhāgārthavastu)

• e property of giving wonder (camatkr̥ti) at the mere touch –

• that very principle do those endowed with

• wavering devotion (bhakti)

• rship your form.

• ing self-luminous

• u cause everything to shine;

• lighting in your form

• u fill the universe with delight;

• cking with your own bliss (rasa)

• u make the whole world dance with joy.10

• rspectival Change

• ong the lines exposed so far, the previous title for the present essay
• s meant to be something like “Claiming Utpaladeva’s Share in
• hinavagupta’s Aesthetics”. This rested on the assumption — a quite
• ausible assumption in itself — that many of Abhinavagupta’s
• eculations on poetry, theatre and art, in general, are rooted in
• paladeva’s philosophical and mystical thought, especially as it is
• aped in his Śivastostrāvalī. From this perspective, contrarily to what
• ppens in his Īśvarapratyabhijñākārikā and in his Siddhitrayī,
• paladeva is the ardent devotee who seeks the divine in every aspect of
• ality, rather than relying on the “arid tools” of logical reasoning.11

• wever, after further research, I came to realize what I have already
• nted at above, via the idea of “progressive differentiation of
• adition”; namely, that in such a philosophical non-dualism, an
• solute non-dualism, a paramādvaita as espoused in so-called Kashmir
• ivism, the most difficult and the most important task for a researcher
• not to interweave and highlight the connections among the different
• mains of thought and among the various meanings of key concepts
• curring in these various domains — because everything cannot but be
• trinsically interrelated to everything else, especially in the grand
• stematization of Abhinavagupta — but instead to explore the
• fferences of theory and argumentation between them. I am not claiming
• at the identification of the aforementioned web of intertwined and
• tangled ideas is useless. Quite the contrary: I am just stating that
• otting the differences can be equally fruitful, and even more
• allenging.

• erefore, for our present concern, for building the palace of the
• rrent discourse, we have to erect, so to speak, two theoretical
• llars: on the one hand, the clear metaphysical background of
• hinavagupta’s aesthetic writings, namely both the Locana and the
• hinavabhāratī,12 where terms such as saṁvid and pratibhā play a
• ntral role; and on the other hand, the existence of a full-fledged
• sthetic thought in Utpaladeva’s writings, where terms such as
• matkāra, or even alaukika rasa13 (“extraordinary aesthetic
• perience”, in Gnoli’s translation) have clearly metaphysical and
• ilosophical bearings too.

• ong the questions that remain to be solved are the following:

• How wide are the divergences exhibited between Utpaladeva’s and
• hinavagupta’s “aesthetic” thought?

• Which sources of inspiration and direct influences shaped the ideas
• these two authors?

• Why do the actual textual embodiments of their “aesthetic”
• eculations differ significantly from one another: only scattered
• ough quite numerous clues found in the various works of Utpaladeva, on
• e one hand, and two massive commentaries on the most important texts
• Alaṁkāraśāstra and Nāṭyaśāstra written by Abhinavagupta, on the
• her?

• What were the theoretical and/or practical reasons and purposes for
• veloping any kind of aesthetics at all?

• my opinion, the crux of the whole discourse is precisely the very
• rm “aesthetics”. Etymologically, the English word is related to the
• eek word αἴσθησις, meaning “sense perception”, or “feeling”.
• erefore, literally, aesthetics is the science of, or better, the
• scourse on sense perception, in the broadest possible sense. Contrary
• its original and etymological meaning, the “new” connotation of this
• rm as “that branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of art,
• ste and beauty” is indeed extremely recent. Precisely, it goes back to
• umgarten’s dissertation, Meditationes philosophicae de nonnullis ad
• ema pertinentibus (1735) and is used commonly only after Kant and,
• pecially, Hegel.

• this regard, my general contention is that, in order to better
• derstand the materials offered by non-dual Kashmir Śaivism, one needs
• keep these two domains of theoretical thinking separate.14 On the one
• nd, we have aesthetics proper, i.e. “aesthetics in its etymological
• nse”, a theoretical discourse on sense perception, its ontology, its
• enomenology, its teleology and its ethics as well. On the other hand,
• have “aesthetics in its modern sense”, what we might call, in a
• mpler way, “art theory”, that is a theoretical discourse on art, its
• sence, purpose, phenomenology, ethics and so forth. If we staunchly
• ep in mind this distinction, the questions raised above might simply
• ssolve into thin air.

• particular, my specific contention is that Utpaladeva’s stray remarks
• rasa, camatkāra, carvaṇā, beauty and related ideas develop an
• esthetics proper”. More explicitly, they provide a vivid picture of a
• mplex theory concerning sense perception, and — specifically — its
• teriological significance, namely the possibly positive role that
• nses and sense perceptions can play on the path towards the final
• entification with the absolute consciousness of Śiva. On the other
• nd, Abhinavagupta’s works on Alaṁkāraśāstra and Nāṭyaśāstra develop a
• ll-fledged and very sophisticated theory of art — completely absent in
• paladeva’s writings — which has only a marginal though very telling
• aring on metaphysical and soteriological issues.

• ntrasting and Interpreting Two Piles of Evidence

• order to flesh out the sketch of the theoretical subdivision that has
• en so far attempted, it is necessary to pile up some evidence from the
• xtual material of Utpaladeva and Abhinavagupta.

• it is — broadly speaking — a well-known characteristic of the Tantric
• iverse, one might not need to glean any evidence from the incredibly
• st array of Tantric texts in order to draw attention to the importance
• the senses, the sense perceptions and the desire that always
• turates them.15

• vertheless, in the individual case of Utpaladeva, further quotations
• om the Śivastotrāvalī might serve the purpose at hand:

• reefold is this path of [sensory]16 cognitions,

• s it is qualified] by pleasure, pain and delusion.

• all-pervading Lord, this is, for the devotees,

• e entire and only cause of your attainment.17

• shown in Bäumer’s recent article (2008) on aesthetics in Kashmir
• ivism, the whole world — according to Utpaladeva — is suffused with
• e beauty of Śiva, as the universe is nothing but his own cosmic form
• iśvarūpa). Śiva himself is, therefore, the source of everything
• autiful.

• Lord, as you are the wellspring

• each and every beauty,

• ll] that is merged within you is invaluable,

• it a gem or a blade of grass.18

• erefore, from the point of view of an advanced devotee who has
• alized that everything is merged in the Lord, every sense object
• comes beautiful and, as soon as it is perceived, bestows the bliss of
• e union with the divine. Consequently, Utpaladeva can rapturously
• ng:

• there any state where you do not reside?

• there anything that is not your luminous body?19

• , again, in a surge of ecstatic elation:

• roar, O! and I dance!

• desires are fulfilled!

• w that you, O Lord,

• extraordinary beauty,

• ve occurred to me!20

• e beauty of the world, therefore, can be either the supreme source of
• ndage — if we do not recognize its identity with the absolute —, or
• e royal path to the realization of the crystalline purity of our
• nsciousness — if we do recognize Śiva as its actual source.

• wever, the most telling example of Utpaladeva’s conception on the role
• sense objects, and therefore, of his aesthetic theory (proper) is yet
• other verse from the Śivastotrāvalī:

• ile incessantly drinking in through the senses

• e heady wine of your worship

• om the overflowing goblet of all objects,

• t madness overtake me.21

• early enough, the madness our author is talking about is the absolute
• d totalizing feeling of thrilled union with the divine that is to be
• tained precisely through a complete immersion in the passionate
• joyment of the objects of senses. Another way of interpreting the
• sitive significance of the sensory fruitions is sketched in the
• llowing verses of the Śivastotrāvalī:

• y there be in me, as there is in common people,

• forceful craving for the objects [of the world],

• Lord, but may I view them as your own body,

• so far as my conceptual divisions have disappeared.22

• t my sense faculties, thrilled with delight,

• attached to their respective objects.

• t may there not be, oh Lord, even for an instant,

• y cruel loss of the joy (rasa) of non-differentiation with you.23

• reover, to better understand the significance of any instance of
• nsory enjoyment, one should not forget what the sense-organs really
• e, i.e. Śiva’s own śaktis, his sense-goddesses.24 As Utpaladeva
• mself almost patently states in another verse:

• mage to the terrifying host of your powers,

• o offer you everything they enjoy

• rough fruitions of the objects

• at are ultimately nothing but pleasure.25

• the whole Tantric corpus of revealed texts, it is easy to spot
• merous examples of practices that aim at multiplying and intensifying
• e fruitions of sense objects in order to detonate, so to speak, the
• mponent of desire that permeates them. My contention is that this very
• tonation of desire in an ecstatic outburst of beatitude and freedom
• presents also, so to say, the ultimate goal of Utpaladeva’s
• esthetics of devotion”. The absolute sentiment of love-brimming
• votion towards the divine, embodied in the enjoyment of sensory
• perience, becomes the blissful immersion in the absolute divine
• nsciousness itself. It represents, therefore, an actual practice of
• lightenment.

• e best-known paradigmatic examples of these practices of complete
• sorption in the sensory experiences and in the fulfilment of desire
• e the 112 dhāraṇās for the attainment of liberation expounded in the
• lebrated Vijñāna-Bhairava.26 Many of these means consist, in fact, in
• rious instances of an incredibly intense sensory experience. In
• neral terms, towards the end of the text, the Vijñāna-Bhairava reads:

• enever the consciousness of the all-pervading Lord is revealed through
• y of the sense-organs, since their nature is ultimately the same, the
• enitude of the self by dissolution into consciousness [itself is
• tained].27

• erefore, Utpaladeva’s ecstatic aesthetics — as I would tentatively
• ll it — represents a clear offshoot of the widespread positive
• sessment, in Tantric traditions, of the role of desire-charged sense
• periences, especially of ravishingly intense and totalizing ones, in
• e human search for enlightenment. Exactly in so far as the whole world
• nothing but the beautiful and playful manifestation of the absolute
• nsciousness, the sensory experience of such a world is nothing but the
• in gate for the realization of our identity with this very world, and
• erefore with the absolute itself.

• e of the main concerns of Utpaladeva’s aesthetics is, thus, the
• efulness of the perception of beauty. But what kind of beauty? The
• auty of creation, namely the beauty of nature, a beauty that is a
• rect mirroring, or even better, the very manifestation of the beauty
• the Lord. But what about the beauty in art, the significance of art,
• pecially in so far as it is different from nature, from the universe
• ordinarily perceive?

• ter a cursory survey of the literature of non-dual Kashmir Śaivism
• ior to Abhinavagupta, including obviously Utpaladeva’s writings, one
• n actually find several stray references to the arts. However, these
• stances do not certainly imply a full-fledged speculation on art nor,
• would argue, are they indicative of “a concern for art in itself”.
• ite on the contrary, I would claim that they are employed as
• ggestive metaphors or as simple instances of an “ordinary” or “common”
• perience, possibly a very intense one.

• st to quote some examples, one might refer to the well-known
• eatrical metaphor hinted at in the famous three aphorisms of the
• vasūtra (3.9: nartaka ātmā “the self is the actor/dancer”, 3.10: raṅgo
• tarātmā “the inner self is the stage” and 3.11: prekṣakāṇīndriyāṇi
• he senses are the spectators”). Unfortunately, all the commentaries on
• e Śivasūtra are later than Utpaladeva and cannot therefore help us in
• trieving the interpretation he might have given to these passages.28
• any case, at this junction, Kṣemarāja quotes a verse from Bhaṭṭa
• rāyaṇa’s Stavacintāmaṇi,29 a text that might well have been known to
• paladeva30 and might have established some of the main coordinates for
• e understanding of the theatrical metaphor in his times.

• is pivotal31 verse reads:

• u have initiated the drama of the three worlds,

• ntaining in its womb the seed of the numerous entities emitted [by
• u].

• there any other poet but you, O Destroyer [i.e. Śiva],

• o might be capable of bringing it to its conclusion?32

• example of the second manner of employing artistic references that I
• ve postulated, i.e. as an instance of an ordinary experience, possibly
• very vivid one, can be found in verses 41 and 73 of the
• jñāna-Bhairava, where the explicit reference is the enjoyment of
• sic. Such is the fame of these verses that their verbatim quotation is
• eless and can be merely included in a footnote.33

• ese and other references, together with the much larger number of
• currences found in the works of Abhinavagupta and the masters who
• llowed him,34 have been gathered, for instance, by Bäumer, in order to
• ove the great importance that the aesthetic dimension plays, and has
• ways played, in the domain of non-dual Kashmir Śaivism.35 As should be
• ear by now, I do agree with this claim, but only in so far as one
• derstands “aesthetics” in its etymological sense, namely as a
• scourse on sense perception.

• nversely, an art theory proper, i.e. “aesthetics” in its contemporary
• nse, did not see the light before the ground-breaking works of
• hinavagupta.36 In other words, before him, any reference to the arts
• the textual corpus under scrutiny was simply a metaphor,37 a powerful
• taphor indeed, for the creativity and the freedom of the absolute
• nsciousness or a simple example of any sensory experience whatsoever.

• rst, in his Locana on Ānandavardhana’s Dhvanyāloka and then, to an
• en broader extent, in his Abhinavabhāratī on Bharata’s Nāṭyaśāstra,
• hinavagupta develops an unprecedented and very sophisticated theory of
• t. As I have also argued in my unpublished doctoral dissertation,38
• e greatest achievement, the veritable paradigm shift, embodied in
• hinavagupta’s art theory consists in the identification of “art” as a
• ecific separate domain of theoretical investigation. In particular,
• hinavagupta’s implicit recognition of the apartness of “art” and of
• he fictional world created by it” is made explicit by the unambiguous
• knowledgement of a complete difference of plane between the
• periences determined by the “real world” and those triggered by the
• preciation of “an artistically created universe”.

• brief, the ordinary (laukika, as Abhinavagupta says) response to
• eryday sensory perceptions brought about by the contact with the
• mmon world of sense objects is almost inextricably entangled with the
• escapable concern for our well-being. Namely, any perception triggers
• emotional response mainly consisting in the cognition of the
• ssibility that the environmental situation might alter our welfare.
• nsequently — unless we recognize the situation as indifferent to it,
• which case no emotion at all is aroused — the emotional response,
• bued by the structural desire to acquire pleasure and to avert
• ffering,39 necessarily prompts us to act in order to remove an (even
• pothetical) state of pain or to prolong an (even hypothetical) state
• pleasure.40

• ntrarily, the “aesthetic” response triggered by the perception of an
• tistically created universe — a response that is to be recognized as
• sa in Abhinavagupta’s reinterpretation of the term — consists in a
• ecial kind of emotion (alaukika or lokottara,41 as he says),
• ndamentally devoid of any feeling of attachment or aversion, and
• erefore consisting in the pure appreciation of emotionality in itself.
• hinavagupta explains this peculiar capacity of art to evoke such a
• sireless, and hence intrinsically beatific emotional response, by
• rrowing the crucial idea of sādhāraṇīkaraṇa (generalization), from
• aṭṭa Nāyaka, one of his predecessors in the analysis of the concept of
• sa. To quickly illustrate his point: the emotions experienced while
• joying an art work are “generalized”, in so far as they become
• eprived of any spatial or temporal qualifications, as well as
• n-belonging to any specific individual”.42 Such a state of
• neralization depends on a sort of clash between cognitive stances. The
• joyers of any artistically created situation, though perfectly aware
• the fictional nature of the represented events, cannot avoid trusting
• e clear, straightforward data of their direct perception.43 In
• hinavagupta’s own words, the generalization occurs “on the basis of a
• mplete suppression of limiting causes such as time, space, subject and
• forth — those really existent as well as those evoked by poetry — as
• result of their reciprocal opposition”.44 Therefore, the artistic
• iverse is perceived as simultaneously real and non-real, so to speak.
• r this very reason, i.e. for the inherent impossibility of a too
• oncerned” involvement, it can indeed become the object of our
• conditioned delight.

• this topic has been extensively treated elsewhere by the present
• thor,45 it is time to go back to our central concern and try to answer
• e questions raised above and, implicitly, to test our initial
• pothesis against the adduced evidence.

• th regard to our question number 1, the one concerning the actual
• vergence between Utpaladeva’s and Abhinavagupta’s aesthetic ideas, I
• ink it is safe to assume now that Utpaladeva’s “aesthetics proper”,
• e. Utpaladeva’s theory of perception, is quite different from
• hinavagupta’s “aesthetics in the contemporary sense”, i.e. from
• hinavagupta’s art theory. On the one hand, we find Utpaladeva’s very
• sitive evaluation of a complete, totalizing, ecstatic immersion in the
• irlpool of sense experiences permeated, as they are, by unquenchable
• sire, possibly by progressively redirecting them towards the active
• ion with the absolute through the very door of the ordinary
• rceptions themselves. On the other hand, we find Abhinavagupta’s
• alysis of art as the trigger for an intrinsically extramundane and
• atific experience, this being possible only in so far as the peculiar
• tological status of the artistic universe — contemporaneously real and
• n-real — determines the temporary suppression of the element of desire
• at haunts the ordinary sensory experience and dooms it to nothing but
• endless succession of unsatisfactory and unsatisfied cravings.

• very important point has gone unmentioned so far. We have already seen
• w, in his speculations on art, Abhinavagupta sheds, so to speak, the
• bes of the Tantric master and advocates a path to the beatific
• vouring of one’s own consciousness that is radically different from
• e one indicated by such texts as the Vijñāna-Bhairava, i.e. the total
• sorption in increasingly more forceful fruitions of sensory objects,
• mersed in the whirling eddy of desire. None the less, the Locana and
• e Abhinavabhāratī represent only a small part of Abhinavagupta’s
• itings. In all his more “sectarian” writings — if I am allowed the
• fair expression — he follows and develops the speculations of his
• ramaguru Utpaladeva, and of the revealed tradition they equally share,
• recognizing both the metaphysical and the soteriological centrality
• sensory perceptions, and of the desire that enlivens them. His
• titude towards sense objects and desire can be illustrated, for
• stance, by two famous stanzas of his Mālinīślokavārttika, a versified
• mmentary on the Mālinīvijayottara-Tantra:

• at which is in desire, in the centre of desire, or opened by the hook
• desire, one shall obtain by desire. Willingly (kāmam) one shall unite
• sires with desires.

• sire is the wish to appropriate. With [desire] as a cover, the
• sirous attains everything, because desire is the ultimate principle of
• is [whole universe].46

• e might actually multiply ad libitum the quotations in this respect,
• this is indeed Abhinavagupta’s standard view regarding sensory
• perience and desire. Therefore, one should ask why he maintains a
• fferent position in his works dedicated to art by implicitly espousing
• e “orthodox” view of “mainstream Brāhmanical thinking”47 — if you
• low me this provisional generalization — namely the view that condemns
• d demonizes the desire-loaded sensory experience as the very shackle
• at fetters us to suffering and transmigration.48 This crucial issue
• ll be tentatively met in answering our fourth question, namely the
• actical and theoretical reasons for the differences between Utpala and
• hinava with regard to “aesthetics”. However, answers to questions two
• d three are presently due first.

• th regard to our question number 2, the one concerning the sources of
• spiration and the direct influences on what we can now call
• paladeva’s “aesthetics” and Abhinavagupta’s “art theory”, we have
• ready given a provisional and, in my opinion, quite plausible
• sponse. On the one hand, Utpaladeva’s ecstatic aesthetics is part and
• rcel of his larger philosophy, based on the revealed śaiva texts
• nging on the recognition of the absolute unity of all experience and
• ality in the perfect totality that is the supreme consciousness of
• va. On the other, Abhinavagupta’s art theory is deeply rooted in the
• eculations of the authors that preceded him in commenting on the
• ṭyaśāstra and in trying to formulate a theoretical discourse that
• uld account for the specific experience one has while enjoying a work
• art. Furthermore, as it is widely acknowledged, Abhinavagupta’s
• sthetics does also maintain a strong śaiva tinge; it could not be
• herwise, but more on that later on.

• th regard to our question number 3, the one concerning the reasons for
• e significant difference in bulk and organization between Utpala’s and
• hinava’s speculation on “aesthetics”, one has to admit that a thorny
• sue did dissolve into thin air, as promised, by means of the
• fferentiation between “aesthetics” and “art theory” I have proposed.
• nce Utpaladeva did not consider aesthetics as a separate domain, it is
• ite obvious that he did not dedicate a specific work to this topic but
• mply discussed the utmost significance of sensory experiences in
• fferent passages of his works. On the contrary, Abhinavagupta could
• t but dedicate specific treatises to the issue of art, especially in
• far as he did want to establish the experience of art as a sui
• neris experience and even resorted to a somewhat different theoretical
• ckground in order to account for its internal logic.

• nally, let us try to respond to our question number 4, the one
• garding the teleological ratio in Utpala’s and Abhinava’s theories
• derlying the very reason and purpose for developing their theories.
• estions about purposes are often the most difficult to deal with, and
• at least in Abhinava’s more complex case — I cannot claim that my
• oposals are more than tentative hypotheses.

• we have already hinted at before, Utpaladeva’s discourse on
• rception is a necessary component of his broader philosophy, therefore
• s existence is somehow self-justified. However, with regard to
• hinavagupta, one might sensibly ask: Why did Abhinavagupta need to, or
• least, why did he choose to conceive an unprecedented theory of art
• d, in addition, one that requires a theoretical framework that seems
• rtly divergent from his śaiva Weltanschauung?

• the spoiler-like subtitle of my paper has already proclaimed, my
• ntative response is that Abhinavagupta’s aesthetics is consciously
• vised as an ecumenical endeavour. In other words, he moves even
• rther along the path traced by his paramaguru Utpaladeva, an attitude
• early described in a section of the blurb of the conference from which
• e present proceedings stem:

• e main aim of the Pratyabhijñā philosophers was to cause the Tantric
• iva sects to emerge from the dimension of restricted circles, often
• voted to transgressive practices, and establish themselves in the
• ratum of social normality, by internalizing, or in any case
• rcumscribing, their own specific differences. Their addressees are not
• e ascetics, but, typically, the householders.49

• hinavagupta conquers, so to speak, another intellectual field,
• nstituted by both Nāṭyaśāstra and Alaṁkāraśāstra — two knowledge
• stems he intended to accommodate and unify by colonizing them with his
• eculative might, although this operation necessarily required a
• tering-down of his extreme, often antinomic paramādvaita.

• is might be the reason for the aforementioned, somewhat paradoxical
• tuation in Abhinavagupta’s works on art: the simultaneous presence of
• ncepts and speculations that do have a strong Tantric śaiva tinge
• ong with ideas and perspectives that clearly do not fit in a Tantric
• iva world-view. On the basis of the ecumenical agenda that I propose
• had in mind, we might see the former aspect of Abhinavagupta’s
• itings as the possible result of an active enterprise of colonization,
• d the latter as a necessary backward step, i.e. the self-aware choice
• downplaying, or simply remaining silent about, the most extreme
• atures of his Tantric legacy — in particular the aspects of his
• ought that could have been charged with the accusation of antinomism
• ay, the centrality of “extreme sensory experience” and “desire”). Such
• tering-down consists, therefore, in the partial — temporary, we might
• y — acceptance of a frame of reference that might be considered
• enable to an audience larger than the comparatively small śaiva
• mmunity.

• ttressing the Paradox

• a sort of corollary and backstage to the current discourse, it is
• portant to present some evidence that might buttress the simultaneous
• esence of contradictory features in Abhinavagupta’s works on art
• eory, features that as yet have been only stated but not really
• vestigated, especially in so far as the non-śaiva ecumenical attitude
• concerned.

• th regard to the well-known and often reiterated overtly śaiva
• atures, one might just mention the use of many “charged” terms such as
• e already mentioned pratibhā, camatkāra, saṁvid and viśrānti, then —
• re specifically — the designation of the aesthetic experience with
• rms that elsewhere label the blissful unity with Śiva;50 the
• rallelism between the experience of art and the experience of the
• solute;51 the introductory and concluding verses of the chapters of
• th the Dhvanyāloka-Locana and the Abhinavabhāratī that unequivocally
• fer to śaiva doctrinal and philosophical notions,52 and many more
• ems that one might add to this short and cursory list.53

• the other hand, the main feature that is indicative of Abhinava’s
• umenical attitude is the very account of the nature of rasa that we
• ve sketchily illustrated earlier. This account necessarily entails an
• plicit and, at least, partial acceptance of a demonization and
• rginalization of sensory experience and desire. Such a theoretical
• ance cannot but be in radical opposition to the śaiva valorization of
• sire as a crucial element in both ontology and soteriology, a
• lorization that Abhinavagupta clearly supports in his other works.54
• other possible hint at such an attitude is the choice of the term
• man to identify the real essence of the individual, instead of using
• e word aham, a term he prefers in his Tantric and philosophical works,
• it better expresses the intrinsically dynamic nature of
• nsciousness.55 Furthermore, as inherently cautious argumenta e
• lentio, one can mention the absence of extremely “loaded” terms such
• pratyabhijñā or vimarśa, and — even more remarkably — the absence of
• otations from any śaiva scripture whatsoever. On the contrary, the
• ny quotations that buttress his arguments on issues of aesthetics (in
• e sense of “art theory”) come mainly from very well-known “mainstream”
• urces such as the Yoga-Sūtra, the Sāṁkhya-Kārikā, the Nyāya-Sūtra or
• e Mānava-Dharmaśāstra. Furthermore, I argue that the mere choice of
• iting about issues regarding literature, and the arts in general,
• ready entails an inbuilt ecumenical attitude, “because — as Bhoja
• ates in his Śr̥ṅgāra-Prakāśa, p. 398, ll.10-11 — literature is
• oroughly non-sectarian (sāhityasya sarvapārṣadatvāt)”.

• at might be regarded as a direct proof of such an ecumenical approach
• the presence of some passages in both the Locana and the
• hinavabhāratī, in which Abhinavagupta argues for the validity of his
• terpretations on aesthetic issues even from the viewpoint of different
• ilosophical or doctrinal positions — and therefore, so to say, even
• dependently of their actual tenets. Equally important in support of
• is view is the presence of some similar passages in which
• hinavagupta refrains from indulging in the analysis of different
• ilosophical positions, in so far as they are considered irrelevant to
• e aesthetic issues at stake. One might quote in extenso a significant
• ssage of the Abhinavabhāratī, where, after giving his interpretation
• a verse, Abhinavagupta adds:

• rthermore, in this regard, one could look at Vijñānavāda,56
• idhābhidhāna,57 sphoṭatattva,58 Satkāryavāda,59 ekatvadarśana,60 etc.
• wever, we have not been taught to resort to the void exertion of
• ighing up bits of knowledge that would prove useless for the subject
• issue. Hence, enough with it.61

• twithstanding the possible — or impossible — identification of the
• rious schools hinted at here,62 the purport of this passage clearly
• es in the idea that the analysis of rasa — or, at least, of the point
• der discussion here — can be considered valid according to all the
• fferent ways of interpreting reality, i.e. according to all traditions
• thought.63 Another passage that possibly harbours a similar implicit
• tionale is Abh ad NŚ 6.15-16, vol. 1, p. 266 where the relation
• tween the main, great rasa and the various — implicitly secondary —
• sas is compared to the relation between word-meaning and
• ntence-meaning according to the various theories of linguistic
• gnification usually upheld in classical Indian philosophy:

• rthermore, because of such a great rasa that is the principal one, the
• her rasas — seen in interpenetration with the [respective] Stable
• ates — can be described as unreal, as in the doctrine of sphoṭa; as
• al in that they have the nature of instruments, as in the doctrine of
• vitābhidhāna; or [as real] in that they have the nature of parts of
• at whole [which is the great rasa], as in the doctrine of
• hihitānvaya (tataś ca mukhyabhūtāt mahārasāt sphoṭadr̥śīvāsatyāni vā,
• vitābhidhānadr̥śīvopāyātmakāni satyāni vā, abhihitānvayadr̥śīva
• tsamudāyirūpāṇi64 vā, rasāntarāṇi bhāvābhiniveśadr̥ṣṭāni rūpyante).65

• ain, beyond the implicit technicalities of the various theories evoked
• Abhinavagupta,66 the main point of the passage seems again to justify
• e “inter-disciplinary” validity of his interpretation of rasa-related
• sues.

• erefore, if it is appropriate to generalize the purport of these and
• milar passages, this sort of almost blatant statements concerning the
• oss-philosophical (or, one might say, cross-sectarian) validity of
• hinavagupta’s aesthetics amounts to the very statement of the autonomy
• the aesthetical discourse proper, at least in my understanding of the
• sue.

• conclude the list of the pieces of evidence regarding Abhinavagupta’s
• umenical stance in aesthetic matters, one might quote the “indirect”
• idence that is the very success of his theories that won general
• ceptance, at least in their main features, among many later authors of
• ṭyaśāstra and Alaṁkāraśāstra, regardless of their varied
• ilosophical-cum-religious affiliation.67

• put it otherwise, my contention is that, if one were to read
• hinavagupta’s Dhvanyāloka-Locana and his Abhinavabhāratī without
• owing anything about Abhinavagupta as a Tantric master and as the main
• ponent of a complex monistic philosophy based on an idea of the
• solute as an intrinsically dynamic and desire-ridden reality, one
• uld not recognize him as such. One could only surmise his Tantric
• iva affiliation from the evidence gathered from the introductory and
• e final verses that frame all the chapters of his works. One might
• rtainly not look for a strictly śaiva rationale of his aesthetic
• sues, as nothing would point to this kind of interpretation (although
• thing would parade against it either).

• wever, to really conclude this digressional section, one should admit
• at the hermeneutical proposal of an ecumenical attitude in
• hinavagupta’s works on aesthetics is, for the time being, highly
• ntative and intrinsically provisional. Its validity can be definitely
• certained only by means of a complete scrutiny of the Abhinavabhāratī
• d the Dhvanyāloka-Locana, a thorough investigation of Abhinavagupta’s
• ilosophical and Tantric works, and a non-cursory analysis of the many
• thors who accepted and developed the main tenets of Abhinavagupta’s
• sa Theory.

• ncluding Remarks

• using or fanning the fire of desire?

• go back to the main issue of the present endeavour and sum up my main
• esis, it should now be apparent that the thinkers of Kashmir treated
• far explicitly recognized the centrality of desire and sensory
• rceptions in the human experience of reality and dealt with their
• erwhelming presence and force by dint of two different paths: the
• efusing desire” strategy and the “detonating desire” strategy. On the
• e hand, the approach of “defusing desire” is pursued by Abhinavagupta
• his works on art theory, as he was implicitly following the lead of
• at has been conditionally called the “mainstream” approach of
• assical Indian thought to the issue of desire, i.e. its demonization,
• pecially with regard to any progress on the soteriological path. This
• s, in my interpretation, a conscious choice, in so far as such a
• rategic, ecumenical move would have let him reach the widest possible
• dience and establish his aesthetic theories as “non-sectarian” and
• nce “universally” appealing. On the other hand, the approach of
• etonating desire” is preferred in both Utpaladeva’s writings and
• hinavagupta’s other works, those not focused on the experience of art,
• accordance with the main tenets of their Tantric tradition, in which
• e tremendous and all-encompassing power of sensory experiences and
• sire is ridden as an untamed stallion in an ever increasingly wilder
• d more frenzied journey of enjoyments and sensory fruitions, up to the
• ry detonation of experience that is the final release and
• entification with the supreme consciousness of Śiva.

• I am deeply grateful to Raffaele Torella, Vincenzo Vergiani, Elisa
• nser, Elisa Freschi and Alessandro Graheli for their precious remarks
• d suggestions. Any mistakes, of course, are mine alone.

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• —, 2010b, “What Was Bhaṭṭa Nāyaka Saying?: The Hermeneutical
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• tter, K.H. ed., 1981, Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies, Advaita
• dānta up to Śaṅkara and His Pupils, Princeton, NJ: Princeton
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• ghavan, V., 1967, The Number of Rasas, Madras: Adyar Library and
• search Centre.

• o, S., 1998, Perceptual Error: The Indian Theories, Honolulu:
• iversity of Hawai’i Press.

• thaye, A., 2010, “The Production of Unpleasurable Rasas in the
• nskrit Dramas of Ārya Kṣemīśvara”, Journal of the American Oriental
• ciety, 130(3): 361-84.

• hmithausen, L., 1965, Maṇḍanamiśra’s Vibhramavivekaḥ. Mit einer Studie
• r Entwiklung der inischen Irrtumlehre, Wien: Österreichische Akademie
• r Wissenschaften.

• n, R.K., 1965, “Imagination in Coleridge and Abhinavagupta: A Critical
• alysis of Christian and Shaiva Standpoints”, Journal of Aesthetics and
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• arma, B.N.K., 1961, History of the Dvaita School of Vedānta and Its
• terature, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.

• ulman, D., 2005, “The Buzz of God and the Click of Delight”, in Hobart
• d Kapferer 2005: 43-63.

• ulman, D., 2008, “Illumination, Imagination, Creativity: Rājaśekhara,
• ntaka, and Jagannātha on Pratibhā”, Journal of Indian Philosophy, 36:
• 1-505.

• —, 2010, “Notes on Camatkāra” in Shulman 2010a: 249-75.

• — ed., 2010a, Language, Ritual and Poetics in Ancient India and Iran:
• udies in Honor of Shaul Migron, Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of
• iences and Humanities.

• auve, S., 1968, La Doctrine de Madhva, Pondichéry: Institut Françias
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• lburn, L., 1964, La Bhakti: le Stavacintāmaṇi de Bhaṭṭanārāyaṇa,
• ris: E. de Boccard.

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• storical Quarterly, 13: 59-84.

• eken, H., 2001, “The Pūrvaraṅga, the Prastāvanā, and the Sthāpaka”,
• ener Zeitschrift der Kunde Sudasiens, 45: 91-124.

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• Pratibhā”, Journal of Indian Philosophy, 18: 95-112.

• rella, R., 1998, “The Kañcukas in the Śaiva and Vaiṣṇava Tantric
• aditions: A Few Considerations between Theology and Grammar”, in
• erhammer, pp. 55-86.

• —, 2000, “The Svabodhodayamañjarī, or How to Suppress the Mind with No
• fort”, in Tsuchida and Wezler, pp. 387-410.

• —, 2002, The Īśvarapratyabhijñākārikā of Utpaladeva with the Author’s
• ̥tti, Critical Edition and Annotated Translation, Delhi: Motilal
• narsidass.

• —, 2004, “How Is Verbal Signification Possible, Understanding
• hinavagupta’s Reply”, Journal of Indian Philosophy, 32: 173-88.

• —, 2007a, “Passioni ed emozioni nelle filosofie e nelle religioni
• ll’India”, in Boccali and Torella 2007: 22-32.

• —, 2007b, “L’invenzione del desiderio”, in Boccali: and Torella 2007:
• -92.

• —, 2009, “Introduzione: Passioni ed emozioni nelle tradizioni
• losofico-religiose dell’India premoderna”, Rivista di Studi Orientali,
• : 11-20.

• —, 2011, The Philosophical Traditions of India: An Appraisal,
• ranasi: Indica Books.

• —, 2013, Gli Aforismi di Śiva con il commento di Kṣemarāja
• ivasūtravimarśinī), Milano: Adelphi.

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• nour of Prof. Minoru Hara on His Seventieth Birthday, Reinbeck: Velag
• r Orientalistische Fachpublikationen.

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• d Forms in Indian Tradition, vol. VI, part I: History of Science,
• ilosophy and Culture in Indian Civilization, New Delhi: Munshiram
• noharlal.

• bster, D., 2005, The Philosophy of Desire in the Buddhist Pali Canon,
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• rk: Routledge.

• ----------------------------------------------------------------------

• As Gerow 1994: 186 puts it: “Since the publication of K.C. Pandey’s
• oneering Indian Aesthetics, one of the leitmotifs of scholarship on
• hinavagupta’s remarkable aesthetic theory has been commentary on his
• hilosophical’ basis”. In particular, the philosophical “basis” of
• hinavagupta’s Rasa Theory is the speculative assumption of Śāntarasa
• d Abhinavagupta’s Philosophy, a very important work by Masson and
• twardhan (1969). On the contrary, Gerow (1994) argues for the somewhat
• pposite” strategy of interpretation, namely, he argues for the
• nability and usefulness of examining Abhinavagupta’s metaphysical
• eses in the light of his aesthetic speculations. As it will be clear
• ter, my proposal of interpretation is different still.

• On camatkāra in secondary literature, see also Gnoli 1968: xlv-xlvii,
• oli 1985: 32, fn. 90; Hulin 1978: 343-58; Masson and Patwardhan 1969:
• ; 1970: 17-18 and notes; Shulman 2005, 2010. For a bird’s-eye view on
• matkāra as an aesthetic concept after Abhinavagupta, see Sathaye 2010:
• 8-80.

• See, for instance, Amaladass 1984. For a general bibliography on
• vani, see Cahill 2004, sub voce.

• The bibliography on pratibhā is extremely rich. On pratibhā in its
• ilosophical (and especially linguistic-philosophical) incarnation, see
• viraj 1923-24; Aiyar 1939; Joshi 1977; Christie 1979; Iyer 1980-81;
• la and Dragonetti 1990. On pratibhā in its aesthetical incarnation,
• e Sreekantiya 1937; Krishnamoorthy 1944; Gonda 1963: 318-48; Sen 1965;
• ishnamoorthy 1980-81; Jhanji 2003 and Shulman 2008.

• See, for instance, Chakrabarti 2005.

• Specifically, I am referring to Bӓumer 1997, 2003b and 2008.

• Specifically — and I hope exhaustively — the occurrences are to be
• und in the Vr̥tti ad Īśvarapratyabhijñākārikā 1.5.11, 4.1, 4.6; in the
• vastotrāvalī 5.15, 13.14; in the Vr̥tti ad Somānanda’s Śivadr̥ṣṭi 1.8,
• 38.

• Besides the already quoted articles by Bettina Bäumer that deal both
• rectly and indirectly with the text, the bibliography of translations
• d studies on the Śivastotrāvalī is comparatively small. See, in
• rticular, Kotru 1985; Bailly 1987; Bonnet 1989 and Lakshman Joo 2008.
• me interesting remarks and analyses on the text are to be found also
• Fürlinger 2009: 71-132. The translation by Bailly has become so far
• e standard English version of the text. Nevertheless, whenever
• illy’s translation does not appropriately suit the purposes of the
• scourse at hand, my own translation will be supplied. For reference
• rposes, Bailly’s rendering will be offered at any rate in the
• otnotes.

• See, for instance, Śivastotrāvalī 2.21:

• mukṣujanasevyāya sarvasantāpahāriṇe ।

• mo vitatalāvaṇyavarāya varadāya te ।।

• e translation by Bailly reads as follows: “May you be glorified, O
• anter of Boons, / Who are served by those aspiring for liberation, /
• d whose boundless depths of beauty / Dispel all afflictions.”

• d Śivastotrāvalī 13.14-15, quoted in extenso in the following note.

• Śivastotrāvalī 13.14-15:

• t samastasubhagārthavastuṣu sparśamātravidhinā camatkr̥tim ।

• ṁ samarpayati tena te vapuḥ pūjayanty acalabhaktiśālinaḥ ।।

• hārayasy akhilam ātmanā sphuran viśvam āmr̥śasi rūpam āmr̥śan ।

• t svayaṁ nijarasena ghurṇase tat samullasati bhāvamaṇḍalam ।।

• is worth noticing that, in translating the root āmrś- with the
• t-too obvious “delighting/filling with delight”, the translator had
• obably in mind the commentary by Kṣemarāja: tathā svarūpam āmr̥śan —
• jaṁ svarūpaṁ camatkurvan nikhilaṁ viśvam āmr̥śasi āsvādanena
• andaghanaṁ ghaṭasi.

• I am obviously oversimplifying the issue for the sake of expounding
• previous, implicitly naïve, line of reasoning.

• Another “aesthetical” work of Abhinavagupta — worth mentioning at
• ast in a footnote, although it will not be dealt with in the present
• ticle — is the Ghaṭakarparakulakavivr̥ti (Commentary on the kulaka
• lled the Fragments of a Pot), a commentary on a short poem attributed
• Kālidāsa. For a translation thereof, see Parlier 1975. For a partial
• udy thereof, see Masson 1975.

• Actually, only one single instance of the term alaukika rasa is
• esent in the whole Śivastotrāvalī, i.e. Śivastotrāvalī 1.21.

• Furthermore, as far as the Sanskrit knowledge system is concerned,
• ere is practically no term for the concept of aesthetics proper, i.e.
• r a discourse on sensory perception, although the issue of perception
• d the senses play an absolutely central role in practically all Indian
• aditions (see, for instance, Matilal 1986 for the discussion on the
• ntrality of pratyakṣa “perception” as the main pramāṇa “means of valid
• owledge”). On the contrary, as far as the existence of an art theory
• concerned, one finds, since a comparatively early date, the
• eculations on “poetry”, i.e. the already quoted Alaṁkāraśāstra (the
• rst extant treatises are Bhāmaha’s Kāvyālaṁkār̥a and Daṇḍin’s
• vyādarśa, both seventh century ce; see Bronner 2012 for the thorny
• sue of their theoretical relation and respective dating), and even
• rlier speculations on “drama”, i.e. the aforementioned Nāṭyaśāstra
• harata’s Nāṭyaśāstra, tentatively dated between the second century bce
• d the second century ce). Furthermore, it is precisely with
• hinavagupta’s overarching theoretical narrative that these
• eculations converge completely and become, at least theoretically, the
• andard paradigm for the interpretation and comprehension of all
• ssible art forms (a partial fusion and somewhat consequential
• novation already occurred in Ānandavardhana’s Dhvanyāloka; see McCrea
• 08). Therefore, also from an emic perspective (an insider’s point of
• ew, if you prefer) it is appropriate to keep separate the two
• ntioned theoretical domains, “aesthetics proper” and “art theory”, in
• far as the former has no direct correspondence in the Sanskrit
• owledge system while the latter does, but only to a certain extent
• he full inclusion of arts such as sculpture and painting is late and
• oblematic) and only from a certain point of time onwards. A somewhat
• ted but synthetic and still interesting introduction to classical
• dian aesthetics — “art theory” — as a whole is Gerow 1977.

• As far as I know, there is no overall study on the concept of desire
• the Tantric tradition, let alone in the whole culture of pre-modern
• dia, and no systematic study to assess the status quaestionis. The
• 15 volume by Purushottama Bilimoria and Aleksandra Wenta is the first
• tempt at filling this gap in scholarship. Biardeau 1995 is a general
• troduction to the Indian tradition, which deepens the notion of
• esire” beyond the common practice of introductory texts. A recent,
• ough not completely satisfying, book on desire in Indian philosophy is
• amarin 2009, to be read together with the review by Brodbeck 2010. As
• r as the Buddhist Pāli Canon is concerned, see the interesting Webster
• 05. Many more essays on single aspects of the concept of “desire”
• ght be quoted. In particular, a recent Italian book Boccali and
• rella 2007 and a recent issue, volume 80, of the Rivista di Studi
• ientali 2007 (published in 2009) are wholly dedicated to emotions and
• sire in South Asia, but not only with regard to the Tantric
• aditions. However, on the pivotal role played by desire as an
• avoidable force in the structure of the human being and of the whole
• iverse according to many Tantric currents, a passage from Torella’s
• troduction to the aforementioned journal issue might well be quoted:
• ’universo — e qui è ancora il grande Abhinavagupta a parlare
• antrāloka 9.62) — è stato creato appunto per soddisfare le anime nelle
• ali una frenesia (lolikā), una febbrile smania di fruizioni è stata
• scitata. Questa sottile frenesia non ha contorni né orizzonti, è per
• sì dire uno “stato desiderante” senza oggetto (niṣkarmā abhilāṣitā),
• o stato di indefinita aspettazione (Jayaratha: lolikā svātmani
• kāṅkṣateva) [The universe — it is again the great Abhinavagupta who
• es the talking — has been created just to satisfy the souls in which a
• enzy (lolikā), a hectic crave for fruitions, has been kindled. This
• btle frenzy has no outline, nor horizons — it is, so to speak, an
• jectless “desiring state” (niṣkarmā abhilāṣitā), a state of indefinite
• pectancy (Jayaratha: lolikā svātmani sākāṅkṣateva)].” Along similar
• nes, on rāga, again “attachment”, “primeval desire” as one of the
• ñcukas (cuirasses) that both enable the single soul to act in the
• rld and prevent it from instantly realizing its unity with the supreme
• nsciousness, see Torella 1998 and 2007b.

• By commenting saṁvinmārgo nīlapītādibodharūpaḥ panthaḥ, Kṣemarāja
• ints out that the cognitions Utpaladeva is talking about are, clearly,
• nsory cognitions.

• Śivastotrāvalī 1.10:

• rva eva bhavallābhahetur bhaktimatāṁ vibho ।

• ṁvinmārgo ’yam āhlādaduḥkhamohais tridhā sthitaḥ ।।

• e translation by Bailly reads as follows: “The path of the senses is
• reefold, / Marked by pleasure, pain and delusion. / For the devotee
• is is the path / That leads to your attainment.”

• Śivastotrāvalī 16.26:

• to ’si sarvaśobhānāṁ prasavāvanir īśa tat ।

• ayi lagnam anarghaṁ syād ratnam vā yadi vā tr̥ṇam ।।

• e translation by Bailly reads as follows: “You are the fountainhead, O
• rd, / Of everything beautiful. / All things become precious at your
• uch / Whether gem or piece of straw.”

• Śivastotrāvalī 6.9:

• ṁ bhūmikāṁ nādhiśeṣe kiṁ tat syād yan na te vapuḥ ।

• anslation by Bailly.

• Śivastotrāvalī 3.11:

• rjāmi bata nr̥tyāmi pūrṇā mama manorathāḥ ।

• āmī mamaiṣa ghaṭito yat tvam atyantarocanaḥ ।।

• anslation by Bailly, slightly modified.

• Śivastotrāvalī 13.8:

• ttadindriyamukhena santataṁ yuṣmadarcanarasāyanāsavam ।

• rvabhāvacaṣakeṣu pūriteṣv āpibann api bhaveyam unmadaḥ ।।

• anslation by Bailly.

• Śivastotrāvalī 8.3:

• kavad bhavatu me viṣayeṣu sphīta eva bhagavan paritarṣaḥ ।

• valaṁ tava śarīratayaitān lokayeyam aham astavikalpaḥ ।।

• e translation by Bailly reads as follows: “Let me, like other people,
• Yearn deeply for the objects of the world, / But allow me to view them
• your form, O Lord, without contradiction.” Quite pregnant is
• emarāja’s commentary on astavikalpa, i.e. galitabhedapratipatti.

• Śivastotrāvalī 8.5:

• janijeṣu padeṣu patantv imāḥ karaṇavr̥ttaya ullasitā mama ।

• aṇam apīśa manāg api maiva bhūt tvadavibhedarasakṣati-sāhasam ।।

• anslation by Bailly, slightly modified.

• Kṣemarāja’s commentary on ŚSĀ 8.5 also stresses the same point by
• ossing karaṇavr̥ttayaḥ with cakṣurādisaṁviddevyaḥ.

• Śivastotrāvalī 2.23:

• khapradhānasaṁvedyasambhogair bhajate ca yat ।

• ām eva tasmai ghorāya śaktivr̥ndāya te namaḥ ।।

• e translation by Bailly runs as follows: “Homage to your terrifying
• nse-goddesses! / Whatever they enjoy / Is all in offering to you.”

• emarāja clarifies the already patent reference: śaktivr̥ndaṁ
• ṁviddevīcakram (the multitude of powers is the circle of the goddesses
• consciousness).

• For the text and the translation of the Vijñāna-Bhairava, see, for
• stance, Bӓumer 2003a. On very similar teachings, see the
• abodhodayamañjarī of Vāmanadatta, edited and translated in Torella
• 00. Along similar lines, see the passage on the sensory organs of
• hinavagupta’s Bhagavadgītārtha-Saṁgraha and the passage on the modes
• fruition in Kṣemarāja’s Śivasūtravimarśinī, both translated and
• ossed in Torella 2007b: 82-84.

• Vijñāna-Bhairava 117:

• tra yatrākṣamārgeṇa caitanyaṁ vyajyate vibhoḥ ।

• sya tanmātradharmitvāc cillayād bharitātmatā ।।

• For the study of the passage in the light of the commentaries, see
• rella 2013: 210-15.

• A recent translation of both Bhaṭṭa Nārāyaṇa’s text and Kṣemarāja’s
• mmentary has been published by Marjanovic 2011. An old and important
• anslation of the hymn is by Silburn 1964.

• Marjanovic 2011: 19 dates Bhaṭṭa Nārāyaṇa as living between the late
• nth and the early tenth century ce, while Silburn 1964: 8 assigns him
• the ninth century, possibly under the reign of Avantivarman (ce
• 5-83). In both cases, it is probable that Utpaladeva might have known
• s work.

• The following are two other interesting verses from the same text by
• aṭṭa Nārāyaṇa that might be quoted in this respect, specifically on
• inting as a metaphor of the world (jagaccitra):

• avacintāmaṇi 9:

• rupādānasambhāram abhittāv eva tanvate ।

• gaccitraṁ namas tasmai kalāślāghyāya śūline ।।

• doration to [Śiva] the bearer of the trident, praised thanks to its
• t [or to the digits of the moon on his forehead], for he draws the
• rld picture even with no canvas, no material cause and no instrument.”

• anslation in Bӓumer 2008, slightly modified.

• avacintāmaṇi 80:

• hur muhur jagaccitrasyānyānyāṁ sthitim ūhitum ।

• ktir yā te tayā nātha ko manasvī na vismitaḥ ।।

• Lord, is there any sensible man who is not amazed by your power,
• pable to conceive, at every moment, the ever new conditions of the
• rld picture?”

• anslation in Bӓumer 2008, slightly modified. It is worth noticing that
• emarāja, in his commentary on this verse, does not refer to the
• gaccitra as a metaphorical expression drawn from the field of the
• ts, as he does — at least implicitly — in the case of his commentary
• verse 59.

• Bhaṭṭa Nārāyaṇa’s Stavacintāmaṇi 59:

• sr̥ṣṭānekasadbījagarbhaṁ trailokyanāṭakam ।

• astāvya hara saṁhartuṁ tvattaḥ ko ’nyaḥ kaviḥ kṣamaḥ ।।

• this verse, the grand metaphor of “the world as drama” is supported
• the use of some technical terms borrowed from the theatrical domain,
• bued with a double meaning, on one side, cosmological, and theatrical,
• the other (such as bīja, the first of the “five elements of dramatic
• tions” or arthaprakr̥tis, i.e. the seed of the dramatic action, an
• ent that contains in nuce the whole development of the drama, see NŚ
• .22 and Bansat-Boudon 1992: 130-31 or the material cause of the whole
• iverse [māyāprakr̥tyādi according to Kṣemarāja’s commentary], and
• astāvanā, the introductory portion of every drama see Bansat-Boudon
• 92: 76-77 and Tieken 2001 or the actual act of initiating the universe
• such). Unfortunately, the commentary of Kṣemarāja on this portion of
• e text is partially lacunose. Anyway, as Kṣemarāja himself says,
• rther expatiating on the technicalities of Nāṭyaśāstra would not be
• eful for the matter under discussion (prakr̥tānupayogῑ).

• Vijñāna-Bhairava 41:

• ntryādivādyaśabdeṣu dīrgheṣu kramasaṁsthiteḥ ।

• anyacetāḥ pratyante paravyomavapur bhavet ।।

• f one listens with undivided attention to the sounds of string
• struments and others which are played successively and are prolonged,
• en one becomes absorbed in the supreme ether of consciousness.” —
• anslation in Bӓumer 1997

• jñāna-Bhairava 73:

• tādiviṣayāsvādāsamasaukhyaikatātmanaḥ ।

• ginas tanmayatvena manorūḍhes tadātmatā ।।

• hen the mind of a yogī is one with the unparalleled joy of music and
• her (aesthetic delights),

• en he is identified with it due to the expansion of his mind which has
• rged in it.” — Translation in Bӓumer 1997

• For some telling examples, see the already mentioned crucial terms
• ch as camatkāra, pratibhā or dhvani and the bibliography quoted above.
• e study of Kṣemarāja’s use of quotations and speculations in glossing
• e occurrences of these, and related, “aesthetically loaded” terms in a
• n-strictly aesthetic context remains, for instance, a scholarly
• sideratum.

• An important case study, in this regard, could be represented by an
• quiry into the use of the “drink metaphor” in Utpaladeva’s
• vastotrāvalī. Briefly, the standard metaphor for the enjoyment of the
• solute — be it in a relation of complete identity or in the loving
• lation of the devotee brimful of the sentiment of bhakti — is the
• inking of a psychotropic liquid. The array of synonyms used for such a
• ink (sudhā, pāna, rasa, amr̥ta, mada, pīyūṣa, asava, seka) or its
• joyment (camatkāra, āsvādana, bhoga, etc.) is indeed stunning. Further
• udy is surely needed both on the remote origin (unmistakably Vedic,
• . the soma juice) and the significance of such “drink metaphor”. As
• r as its relationship with the rasa theory is concerned, my working
• pothesis is that it is the same “drink metaphor” that developed
• dependently, on the one hand, as a metaphor for any extremely intense
• nsory experience that reaches the very essence of the appreciated
• ject — such as in the Śivastotrāvalī — and, on the other hand,
• ssibly along similar lines, as a metaphor for the experience of art —
• rst in the Nāṭyaśāstra, and consequently in Abhinavagupta’s grand
• sthetic theory (see below).

• Obviously, I am not trying to argue that the previous works on
• aṁkāraśāstra and Nāṭyaśāstra did not deal with what we would call
• rt”, but simply that the inquiry into “art” was not yet completely and
• nsciously identified as a specific sui generis domain of theoretical
• vestigation, particularly in so far as the experience of art, the
• esthetic experience”, was not yet considered independently as an
• perience per se in opposition to ordinary experience (see below). But
• might be slightly overstating my point here.

• Moreover, one might try and argue that, in his works that do not deal
• rectly with artistic phenomena, Abhinavagupta himself uses “art” and
• t speculations simply as metaphors. But this line of inquiry would
• quire a separate investigation.

• See Cuneo 2008-09. As convincingly argued by Pollock 2010b, a great
• edecessor of Abhinavagupta and a direct source of his innovativeness
• the aesthetic field is the renowned Bhaṭṭa Nāyaka (see below).

• See ABh ad NŚ 6, prose after 31, vol. 1, p. 281:
• ḥkhasaṁśleṣavidveṣī sukhāsvādanasādaraḥ.

• For a more detailed description of the psychological process briefly
• tlined here, see Cuneo 2007.

• The locus classicus for the discrimination between laukika and
• aukika in Abhinavagupta’s works is Locana ad DhvĀ 1.18. For a list of
• l the passages of Abhinavagupta concerning the alaukika nature of rasa
• r se and a thorough analysis of the idea of alaukikatva — also in
• lation to the Kantian concept of the autonomy of the aesthetic
• perience — see the valuable article by Kulkarni 1986b.

• Cuneo 2013.

• It is worth remembering that, in the most widespread philosophical
• rspectives of classical India, perception is regarded as the first and
• remost means of knowledge, the one that is to be followed and
• lieved. See Matilal 1986.

• ABh ad NŚ 6, prose after 31, rasasūtra, vol. 1, p. 278: vastusatāṁ
• vyārpitānāṁ ca deśakālapramātrādīnāṁ niyamahetūnām
• yonyapratibandhabalād atyantam apasaraṇe. Abhinavagupta actually seems
• maintain that this epistemic incongruence is only the secondary cause
• this generalization of emotions, whereas the primary cause is found
• the specific qualities possessed by the “ideal connoisseur”, the
• hr̥daya. For more on this theoretical nuance, see again Cuneo 2013, n
• .

• Cuneo 2013.

• These verses are Mālinīślokavārttika 1.280-81. The Sanskrit text runs
• follows:

• masthaṁ kāmamadhyasthaṁ kāmāṅkuśapuṭīkr̥tam ।

• mena sādhayet kāmān kāmaṁ kāmeṣu yojayet ।।

• maḥ svīkartum icchaiva tadācchādanayogataḥ ।

• śvaṁ sādhayate kāmī kāmatattvam idaṁ yataḥ ।।

• e translation is by Hanneder 1998: 105, modified only in the last
• mistich, as I prefer to read the compound kāmatattvam as a bahuvrīhi,
• ile Hanneder reads it as a tatpuruṣa and consequently translates: “for
• is [world] is the reality of desire”. The first hemistich of this
• ote is also quite doubtful. Following the suggestion of Raffaele
• rella, one might emend the text on the basis of the well-known
• nfusion -aṁ/-aḥ. Consequently, the text would read: kāmasthaḥ
• mamadhyasthaḥ kāmāṅkuśapuṭīkr̥taḥ. The translation would be: “He who
• ays within desire, in the middle of desire, encapsulated by the hook
• desire, shall obtain desires by means of desire. He shall merge
• sire into desires” which would also improve the scarcely convincing
• illingly” for kāmam in the last pāda. Again, it is Raffaele Torella’s
• ggestion that the expression puṭīkr̥ta might refer to the well-known
• tual procedure to “place” a mantra before and after a ritual act or
• ject. In this way, the two mantras box it or encapsulate it, so to
• y. It is therefore pervaded and sanctified by them. Anyways, whatever
• e text and the meaning might be exactly, the centrality of desire in
• is passage cannot be underplayed.

• On account of the overt over-generalization — only partially
• stified by the quotation of the following note — the inverted commas
• e here a scholarly obligation.

• The locus classicus for this view of desire as the “eternal enemy” is
• viously the astoundingly famous and influential Bhagavad-Gītā (BhG).
• e, for instance, BhG III.36-41:

• juna uvāca —

• ha kena prayukto ’yaṁ pāpaṁ carati pūruṣaḥ ।

• icchann api vārṣṇeya balād iva niyojitaḥ ।।

• ībhagavān uvāca —

• ma eṣa krodha eṣa rajoguṇasamudbhavaḥ ।

• hāśano mahāpāpmā viddhy enam iha vairiṇam ।।

• ūmenāvriyate vahnir yathādarśo malena ca ।

• tholbenāvr̥to garbhas tathā tenedam āvr̥tam ।।

• r̥taṁ jñānam etena jñānino nityavairiṇā ।

• marupeṇa kaunteya duṣpūreṇānalena ca ।।

• driyāṇi mano buddhir asyādhiṣṭhānam ucyate ।

• air vimohayaty eṣa jñānam āvr̥tya dehinam ।।

• smāt tvam indriyāṇy ādau niyamya bharatarṣabha ।

• pmānaṁ prajahi hy enaṁ jñānavijñānanāśanam ।।

• rjuna said:

• o what is it that impels a man to do evil, Varshneya, even
• willingly, as though compelled to it by force?’”

• he Lord said:

• t is desire, it is anger, produced from the constituent of passion
• ajas], all-consuming, all-injuring; know that that is the enemy here.

• a fire is covered by smoke and a mirror by dust; as an embryo is
• vered by a sac, this world is enveloped by that.

• this perpetual enemy of the wise, by this insatiable fire in the form
• desire, knowledge is obscured, Son of Kunti.

• is said that the senses, the mind, and the intelligence are its
• cality; having obscured a man’s knowledge with these, it deludes the
• bodied self.

• erefore, having first restrained the senses, Bull of the Bharatas,
• rike down this evil thing, the destroyer of insight and knowledge.’”

• tr. Johnson 1994: 18.

• r an Italian translation of this passage, along with five verses of
• e Kashmiri recension of the BhG, which is even harsher against desire,
• e Torella 2007a: 27-28.

• Blurb written by Raffaele Torella and pre-circulated among the
• eakers of the conference Utpaladeva, Philosopher of Recognition,
• imla, Indian Institute of Advanced Study, 20-21 August 2010.

• See, for instance, ABh ad NŚ 6, prose after 31, rasasūtra, vol. 1, p.
• 9: tathā hi loke sakalavighnavinirmuktā saṁvittir eva
• matkāranirveśara-sanāsvādanabhogasamāpattilayaviśrāntyādiśabdair
• hidhīyate. “To illustrate: in the ordinary world, words such as
• pture (camatkāra), immersion (nirveśa), relish (rasanā), savouring
• svādana), enjoyment (bhoga), accomplishment (samāpatti), dissolution
• aya) and rest (viśrānti), indicate nothing but the consciousness
• mpletely freed from any obstacle whatsoever.”

• Although I would argue that the depiction of aesthetic experience as
• rictly akin to the mystical experience does not pertain specifically
• the śaiva Weltanschauung or to the philosophy of Pratyabhijñā. At
• is junction, it is appropriate to deal with the concept of śānta rasa,
• ich has often been considered the point of convergence between
• hinavagupta’s aesthetics and philosophy. Probably following the clues
• fered by Udbhaṭa (Kāvyālaṁkārasaṁgraha 4.4) and Ānandavardhana (Vr̥tti
• DhvĀ 4.26 and also 4.5), Abhinavagupta accepts the introduction of a
• nth rasa into the ancient list of eight (NŚ 6.15). This was called
• nta rasa, “rasa of pacification” (the need for its introduction
• veloped probably in a Buddhist or a Jaina milieu, or maybe as a result
• the search for a single dominant rasa in the Mahābhārata). This
• sthetic emotion derived from the successful representation of
• iberation”, the culmination of the mystical experience par excellence.
• e whole śāntarasaprakaraṇa is devoted to this rasa, and, in particular
• the identification of its sthāyibhāva. Without plunging into the
• tails and the analysis of the soundness of the different opinions,
• t’s state Abhinavagupta’s conclusion: the sthāyibhāva of śānta rasa is
• e ātman itself, the immutable substratum of all the contingent
• otional possibilities. Therefore, as its stable state is the most
• able among the stable states, the śānta rasa represents the acme of
• sthetic experience per se. It is the supreme rasa, the fundamental
• sa of which the other rasas can be considered as mere modifications.
• Abhinavagupta states it in another passage (ABh ad NŚ 6, prose after
• , vol. 1, p. 270), eka eva tāvat paramārthato rasaḥ. This utterly
• nistic move of Abhinavagupta — which has been called “rasa-synthesis”
• aghavan 1967: 195-212) — has been recognized as the point of the
• nvergence between aesthetic speculations and philosophical theory.
• wever, on closer scrutiny, nothing specific to paramādvaita or śaiva
• n be found in the description of śānta. On the contrary, its depiction
• ems to follow a somewhat stereotypical and unspecified image of
• beration and its external traits. See, for instance, the first three
• rses on śānta rasa attributed to Bharata and preceding Abhinavagupta’s
• ntarasaprakaraṇa (which, more or less implicitly, comments and
• pports them): mokṣādhyātmasamutthas tattvajñānārthahetusaṁyuktaḥ ।
• iḥśreyasopadiṣṭaḥ śāntaraso nāma sambhavati ।। I ।।
• ddhīndriya-karmendriyasaṁrodhādhyātmasaṁsthitopetaḥ ।
• rvaprāṇisukhahitaḥ śāntaraso nāma vijñeyaḥ ।। II ।। na yatra duḥkhaṁ
• sukhaṁ na dveṣo nāpi matsaraḥ । samaḥ sarveṣu bhūteṣu sa śāntaḥ
• athito rasaḥ ।। III ।। My tentative translation is the following: “I.
• at is called śānta rasa, taught as the summum bonum [in Theatre],
• curs when it arises from an inner self in a state of liberation and in
• nnection with its cause, namely [the aspiration towards] the goal of
• hieving the knowledge of reality. II. One should realize that what is
• lled śānta rasa has its grounding in the inner self via the restraint
• the senses of cognitions as well as of the senses of actions, and is
• nducive to the happiness of all living beings. III. When there is no
• in, no pleasure, no aversion and no passion, it is the śānta rasa that
• displayed, identical in all living beings.” In śaiva teachings,
• ntrarily to what has been outlined here, the absolute and its
• hievement are characterized in somewhat different terms. For instance,
• stated in the Śivadr̥ṣṭi 3.87b-88, Śiva, the absolute, can never be
• fined as quiescent or isolated (śānta, kevala). Therefore, the śānta
• sa is indeed the point of convergence between aesthetics and
• ligiosity, but a kind of religiosity characterized by an ecumenical
• titude, as I tentatively designate it. On śānta rasa, see Pandey 1944;
• 1959b; Raghavan 1967; Masson, Patwardhan 1969, 1970; Bhattacarya
• 72; Gerow and Aklujkar 1972; Bhattacharya 1976 and Gerow 1994.

• For instance, as remarked by Ingalls 1990: 200, “[i]n the final
• okas to the chapters of his Locana Abhinava renders homage to the
• wers or stages of Vāc: at the end of the First Chapter, to the parā
• kti; of the Second, to the paśyantī śakti; of the Third, to the
• dhyamā śakti; and of the Fourth, to the vaikharī śakti. That speech
• ists in four stages is a concept as old as R̥gveda I.164.45. [. . .] To
• ntric authors like Abhinava the four śaktis represent a double process
• evolution: on the metaphysical plane, from undifferentiated unity
• rough two intermediate stages, to the sensible everyday world of
• versity; on a linguistic plane, from the undifferentiated
• bda-Brahman, again through two intermediate stages to the physically
• nifested speech by which worldly communication is carried on.” Then,
• far as the Abhinavabhāratī is concerned, consider, for instance, how
• ery introductory verse to the various chapters of the Abhinavabhāratī
• composed in praise of Śiva in the form of one of the thirty-six (or
• irty-seven) hierarchic tattvas (ontological principles) of śaiva
• taphysics, so that all the maṅgalas taken together represent a praise
• the whole cosmos in all its evolutes. For a general discussion on the
• ttvas, see Tantrāloka 9, passim; Pandit 1997: 71-79 and Gnoli 1999:
• 3.

• This issue is already treated in the well-known pioneering work by
• ndey 1963: 86-150.

• Notwithstanding such valorization of desire in śaiva teachings, it is
• so often the case that some passages of śaiva works share the
• monization of desire typical of “mainstream Brāhmanism” or, at least,
• not undervalue per se the apparently non-desirous states of
• nsciousness. For instance, even in Somānanda (see Śivadr̥ṣṭi 1.41cd-43,
• 53cd-56 and Utpaladeva’s Vr̥tti thereon), the category of śānta is not
• nied and devalued in itself, as one might expect, but neither
• tributed a special status. It is simply an existing state that occurs
• the scriptures, a specific (not-too-high) phase in the multilayered
• ructure of reality and manifestation. What really matters is that even
• such a state the energy of the absolute consciousness is anyway
• esent and throbbing, though in a lesser degree and in a far less
• sible modality, contrarily to what the opponents might try to say by
• ressing the pacified and static aspect of the term śānta. I thank
• ffaele Torella for this suggestion and reference, which allow me to
• operly nuance my otherwise over-generalized picture.

• Although aham and ātman are often just synonyms in Abhinavagupta’s
• chnical terminology (Raffaele Torella, personal communication).

• This is clearly the doctrine of Yogācāra Buddhism. See, for instance,
• lliams 1989: 84-102.

• This might be a vague hint to some form of dualism, possibly of a
• nd similar to the Dvaita Vedānta of the much later Madhva. But this
• uld at best be mere guesswork. On Madhva, see Sharma 1961 and Siauve
• 68. Or maybe some kind of corruption of anvitābhidhāna, although it
• es not seem really pertinent here. Otherwise, it might be a concise
• y to refer to both anvitābhidhāna and abhihitānvaya, with a tentative
• anslation of “the double [theory of] signification”. But, actually,
• e reference remains impervious to all my attempts of understanding.

• This is clearly a reference to the theory of sphoṭa developed in the
• ammatical tradition (Vyākaraṇa). See, for a quick overview of the
• bject matter, Kunjunni Raja 1963: 95-148. It is worth mentioning here
• at Abhinavagupta did not accept the theory of sphoṭa (see Torella
• 04).

• This might be a reference to the theory of causation — in particular,
• e pre-existence of the effect in the cause — upheld by Sāṁkhya, and
• nce to Sāṁkhya itself. See, for instance, Larson 1969.

• This might be a reference to some kind of monism, maybe some sort of
• vaita Vedānta. See, for instance, Potter 1981.

• ABh ad NŚ 6.38, vol. 1, p. 294: atra ca vijñānavādo dvidhābhidhānaṁ
• hoṭatattvaṁ satkāryavāda ekatvadarśanam ityādi draṣṭavyam । vayaṁ tu
• akr̥tānupayogiśrutalavasandarśanamithyāprayāsasaṁśrayam
• uśikṣitapūrviṇa ity āstām. The passage is not overtly clear, to say
• e least, and the translation remains doubtful. But its use as a
• etorical device for furthering the ecumenical nature of
• hinavagupta’s hermeneutical enterprise does not appear doubtful.

• See the preceding notes for some more or less educated guesses.

• For instance, see Abh ad NŚ 1.107, vol. 1, p. 36, where, after
• fining the kind of cognition that the peculiar status of the aesthetic
• perience elicits, Abhinavagupta adds: “Furthermore, this [kind of
• gnition] might well be [interpreted as] a mere form of knowledge,
• mething superimposed on an actual form, something having [only]
• neric features, a creation restricted to that specific time [proper to
• e artwork] or something else. Here we will not annoy the connoisseurs
• th an irrelevant topic, whose result would be the presentation on our
• rt of an amount of information on other systems of knowledge that
• uld be nothing but an obstacle to the illustration of the subject
• tter (tac ca jñānākāramātram āropitasvarūpaṁ sāmānyātmakaṁ
• tkālanirmitirūpaṁ cānyad vā kiñcid astu । nātrāprastutalekhanenātmano
• rśanāntara-kathāparicayaprakaṭanaphalena prakr̥tavastunirūpaṇavighnam
• arantaḥ sahr̥dayān khedayāmaḥ).” With these four brief suggestive
• finitions (jñānākāramātra, āropitasvarūpa, sāmānyātmaka and
• tkālanirmitirūpa), Abhinavagupta is probably referring to the
• esthetic” cognition, proper to the theatrical sphere, as it might be
• derstood in various schools of Indian philosophy. The following
• entifications might be attempted here, at least on a hypothetical
• ound. The term jñānākāramātram, translated as “a mere form of
• owledge”, could be a reference to Yogācāra Buddhism. Along these
• nes, the kind of cognition that occurs in watching a theatrical
• rformance might be interpreted in accordance with Yogācāra philosophy
• d its conception of the external world of objects, i.e. like a mere
• rm or image of knowledge in which the object of this knowledge — the
• al world — is ultimately non-existent (but the identification remains
• ubtful). The term āropitasvarūpa, translated as “something
• perimposed on an actual form”, might refer to the standard view of
• āya philosophy as regards the misapprehension of something, i.e. the
• ther-of-pearl erroneously cognized as silver due to the
• perimposition on the former, which is actually perceived, of some
• aracteristics of the latter, which is only remembered. The term
• mānyātmaka translated as “something having [only] generic features”
• ght refer to the Prābhākara Mīmāṁsā’s theory of error, according to
• ich an erroneous perception amounts to the perception of only general
• aracteristics of the actually present object, which is therefore
• rrectly, yet incompletely cognized as, for instance, something bright
• d lustrous, thus paving the way for one’s recollection of another
• milarly bright object and eventually for the incomplete knowledge that
• xtaposes the two, but fails to distinguish the one from the other. The
• rm tatkālanirmitirūpaṁ, translated as “a creation restricted to that
• ecific time”, reminds of Vedānta’s theory of error, according to which
• e erroneous cognition — and, on a different level, the whole world as
• ll, for what it matters — is an indescribable (anirvacanīya) creation
• māyā (illusion). On the theory of error in Indian philosophy, see
• hmithausen 1965; Matilal 1986: 180-220; Rao 1998 and Torella 2011:
• 7-88. Just as in the case of the previously quoted passage, the
• portance is not in the attempted identifications — speculative in
• ture — but in the intended ecumenical stand that Abhinavagupta seems
• be taking: namely, with respect to his aesthetic theory, every
• ssible philosophical theory can be accepted to explain it, as far as
• e essential points of his own rasa theory are kept intact.

• This is actually my tentative emendation for tatsamudāyarūpāṇi.

• With regard to the same attitude shown in the Locana, see, for
• stance, how the various classical theories of meaning are all
• ntioned on the same plane of value in Locana ad DhvĀ 4.7 (translation
• this passage in Ingalls 1990: 712).

• It is worth trying to illustrate the possible meaning of the
• mparison. According to the theory of sphoṭa upheld by the
• ammarian-philosopher Bhartr̥hari and his followers, with respect to the
• most reality of the sentence and the sentence-meaning, words and
• rd-meanings are ultimately unreal. Similarly, the great rasa is alone
• al, while the other rasas are comparatively unreal. According to the
• vitābhidhāna theory, upheld by the Mīmāṁsaka Prabhākara and his
• llowers, the words are real and constitute the actual elements of
• nguage, but they do not convey meaning except in the context of the
• ntence. Therefore, they are indeed real, but only as instruments for
• e understanding of the sentence meaning. Similarly, the various rasas
• n be considered real, but only in so far as they make savour the
• reat fundamental rasa”. According to the abhihitānvaya theory, upheld
• the Mīmāṁsaka Kumārila Bhaṭṭa and his followers, sentence meaning is
• mply the concatenation of the individual meanings expressed by words.
• milarly, the rasas are only the individual elements that constitute
• e “great fundamental rasa”. For the first general references, see
• njunni Raja 1963: 95-148 on the doctrine of sphoṭa, 193-203 on the
• ctrine of anvitābhidhāna and 203-13 on the doctrine of abhihitānvaya.

• For instance, Abhinavagupta’s aesthetic theory is accepted and
• veloped by authors such as the Kashmirian Mammaṭa, probably of śaiva
• filiation, in his Kāvyaprakāśa, the Jain Hemacandra in his
• vyānuśāsana, up to the Vaiṣṇava Viśvanātha in his Sāhityadarpaṇa (even
• e vedāntin Jagannātha Paṇḍita in his Rasagaṅgādhara is heavily
• fluenced by Abhinavagupta, although it is true that he deviated from
• ny crucial theoretical points). For a bibliography on these authors,
• e Cahill 2004, sub voce.