Abhinava Gupta
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Abhinava Gupta
Abhinavagupta (c. 950 – 1016 CE) was a philosopher, mystic and aesthetician from Kashmir. He was also considered an influential musician, poet, dramatist, exegete, theologian, and logicianRe-accessing Abhinavagupta, Navjivan Rastogi, page 4 – a polymathic personality who exercised strong influences on Indian culture. Abhinavagupta was born in a Kayastha family of scholars and mystics who whose ancestors were immigrated from Ujjain by the great king of Kashmira, Lalitaditya Muktapida. He studied all the schools of philosophy and art of his time under the guidance of as many as fifteen (or more) teachers and gurus. In his long life he completed over 35 works, the largest and most famous of which is ''Tantrāloka'', an encyclopedic treatise on all the philosophical and practical aspects of Kaula and Trika (known today as Kashmir Shaivism). Another one of his very important contributions was in the field of philosophy of aesthetics with his famous '' Abhinavabhāratī'' co ...
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Common Era
Common Era (CE) and Before the Common Era (BCE) are year notations for the Gregorian calendar (and its predecessor, the Julian calendar), the world's most widely used calendar era. Common Era and Before the Common Era are alternatives to the original Anno Domini (AD) and Before Christ (BC) notations used for the same calendar era. The two notation systems are numerically equivalent: " CE" and "AD " each describe the current year; "400 BCE" and "400 BC" are the same year. The expression traces back to 1615, when it first appeared in a book by Johannes Kepler as the la, annus aerae nostrae vulgaris (), and to 1635 in English as " Vulgar Era". The term "Common Era" can be found in English as early as 1708, and became more widely used in the mid-19th century by Jewish religious scholars. Since the later 20th century, BCE and CE have become popular in academic and scientific publications because BCE and CE are religiously neutral terms. They are used by others who wish to be sensit ...
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Theology
Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the supernatural, but also deals with religious epistemology, asks and seeks to answer the question of revelation. Revelation pertains to the acceptance of God, gods, or deities, as not only transcendent or above the natural world, but also willing and able to interact with the natural world and, in particular, to reveal themselves to humankind. While theology has turned into a secular field , religious adherents still consider theology to be a discipline that helps them live and understand concepts such as life and love and that helps them lead lives of obedience to the deities they follow or worship. Theologians use various forms of analysis and argument ( experiential, philosophical, ethnographic, historical, and others) to help understa ...
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Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late Bronze Age. Sanskrit is the sacred language of Hinduism, the language of classical Hindu philosophy, and of historical texts of Buddhism and Jainism. It was a link language in ancient and medieval South Asia, and upon transmission of Hindu and Buddhist culture to Southeast Asia, East Asia and Central Asia in the early medieval era, it became a language of religion and high culture, and of the political elites in some of these regions. As a result, Sanskrit had a lasting impact on the languages of South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia, especially in their formal and learned vocabularies. Sanskrit generally connotes several Old Indo-Aryan language varieties. The most archaic of these is the Vedic Sanskrit found in the Rig Veda, a colle ...
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Bharata Muni
Bharata Muni (Hindi: भरत मुनि) was an ancient sage who the musical treatise '' Natya Shastra'' is traditionally attributed to. The work covers ancient Indian dramaturgy and histrionics, especially Sanskrit theatre. Bharata is considered the father of Indian theatrical art forms. He is dated to between 200 BCE and 200 CE, but estimates vary between 500 BCE and 500 CE.Dace, W. (1963). "The Concept of "Rasa" in Sanskrit Dramatic Theory". Educational Theatre Journal. 15 (3): 249. The ''Nāṭya Śāstra'' is notable as an ancient encyclopedic treatise on the arts, which has influenced dance, music and literary traditions in India. It is also notable for its aesthetic "Rasa" theory, which asserts that entertainment is the desired effect of performance arts but not the primary goal and that the primary goal is to transport the individual in the audience into another parallel reality, full of wonder, where he experiences the essence of his own consc ...
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Natya Shastra
The ''Nāṭya Śāstra'' (, ''Nāṭyaśāstra'') is a Sanskrit treatise on the performing arts. The text is attributed to sage Bharata Muni, and its first complete compilation is dated to between 200 BCE and 200 CE, but estimates vary between 500 BCE and 500 CE. The text consists of 36 chapters with a cumulative total of 6000 poetic verses describing performance arts. The subjects covered by the treatise include dramatic composition, structure of a play and the construction of a stage to host it, genres of acting, body movements, make up and costumes, role and goals of an art director, the musical scales, musical instruments and the integration of music with art performance. The ''Nāṭya Śāstra'' is notable as an ancient encyclopedic treatise on the arts, one which has influenced dance, music and literary traditions in India. It is also notable for its aesthetic Rasa (aesthetics), "Rasa" theory, which asserts that entertainment is a desired effect of performa ...
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Abhinavabharati
''Abhinavabharati'' is a commentary on ancient Indian author Bharata Muni's work of dramatic theory, the ''Natyasastra''. It is the oldest commentary available on the treatise. The ''Abhinavabharati'' was written by Abhinavagupta (c. 950–1020), the great Kashmiri Saivite spiritual leader and a yogi. In this monumental work, Abhinavagupta explains the ''rasasutra'' of Bharata in consonance with the theory of ''abhivyakti'' (expression) propounded in Anandavardhana's (820–890) work ''Dhvanyaloka'' ("aesthetic suggestion"), as well as the tenets of the Pratyabhijna philosophy of Kashmir. According to Abhinavagupta, the aesthetic experience is the manifestation of the innate dispositions of the self, such as love and sorrow, by the self. It is characterised by the contemplation of the bliss of the self by the connoisseur. It is akin to the spiritual experience as one transcends the limitations of one's limited self because of the process of universalisation taking place during t ...
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Trika
Kashmir Shaivism or Trika Shaivism, is a nondualist tradition of Shaivism, Shaiva-Shaktism, Shakta Tantra which originated sometime after 850 CE. Since this tradition originated in Kashmir it is often called "Kashmiri Shaivism". It later went on to become a pan-Indian movement termed "Trika" (lit. The Trinity) by its great exegete, Abhinavagupta, and particularly flourished in Odisha and Maharashtra.Wallis, Christopher; Tantra Illuminated, chapter II, The History of Śaiva Tantra Defining features of the Trika tradition are its Idealism, idealistic and Monism, monistic ''Pratyabhijna'' ("Recognition") philosophical system, propounded by Utpaladeva (c. 925–975 CE) and Abhinavagupta (c. 975–1025 CE), and the centrality of the three goddesses Parashakti, Parā, Parāparā, and Aparā. While Trika draws from numerous Tantras (Hinduism)#Classes of Hindu Tantra, Shaiva texts, such as the Agama (Hinduism)#Shaiva Agamas, Shaiva Agamas and the Tantras (Hinduism)#Classes of Hindu T ...
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Kaula (Hinduism)
In the Hindu religious traditions of Shaktism and Shaivism, Kaula, also known as Kula, ("the Kula path") and ("the Kaula tradition"), is a Tantric tradition which is characterised by distinctive rituals and symbolism connected with the worship of Shakti and Shiva. It flourished in ancient India primarily in the 1st millennium CE. Kaula preserves some of the distinctive features of the '' Kāpālika'' tradition, from which it is derived. It is subdivided into four subcategories of texts based on the goddesses Kuleśvarī, Kubjikā, Kālī, and Tripurasundarī respectively. The Trika texts are closely related to the Kuleśvarī texts and can be considered as part of the Kulamārga. In later Hatha Yoga, the Kaula visualization of kundalini rising through a system of chakras is overlaid onto the earlier bindu-oriented system. ''Kaula'' and ''kula'' The translation of the term ''kula'' in English is considered difficult and has raised some problems for researchers. The basic ...
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Guru
Guru ( sa, गुरु, IAST: ''guru;'' Pali'': garu'') is a Sanskrit term for a "mentor, guide, expert, or master" of certain knowledge or field. In pan-Indian traditions, a guru is more than a teacher: traditionally, the guru is a reverential figure to the disciple (or '' shisya'' in Sanskrit, literally ''seeker f knowledge or truth'' or student, with the guru serving as a "counselor, who helps mold values, shares experiential knowledge as much as literal knowledge, an exemplar in life, an inspirational source and who helps in the spiritual evolution of a student". Whatever language it is written in, Judith Simmer-Brown explains that a tantric spiritual text is often codified in an obscure twilight language so that it cannot be understood by anyone without the verbal explanation of a qualified teacher, the guru. A guru is also one's spiritual guide, who helps one to discover the same potentialities that the ''guru'' has already realized. The oldest references to the concep ...
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Lalitaditya Muktapida
Lalitaditya alias Muktapida (IAST: Lalitāditya Muktāpīḍa; r. c. 724 CE–760 CE) was a powerful ruler of the Karkota dynasty of Kashmir region in the Indian subcontinent. The 12th-century chronicler Kalhana characterizes Lalitaditya as a world conqueror, crediting him with extensive conquests and miraculous powers in his ''Rajatarangini''. According to Kalhana, Lalitaditya defeated the central Indian king Yashovarman, and then marched to eastern and southern parts of India. He subjugated several more rulers on his way back to Kashmir, and then subdued several northern kings. Based on a reconstruction of Kalhana's account, art historian Hermann Goetz (1969) theorized that Lalitaditya managed to create a short-lived empire that included major parts of India as well as present-day Afghanistan and Central Asia. Goetz' analysis was accepted and cited widely by subsequent authors writing on the history of Kashmir. However, Kalhana's account is not supported by the records of Lali ...
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Ujjain
Ujjain (, Hindustani language, Hindustani pronunciation: Help:IPA/Hindi and Urdu, [ʊd͡ːʒɛːn]) is a city in Ujjain district of the States and territories of India, Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. It is the fifth-largest city in Madhya Pradesh by population and is the public administration, administrative centre of Ujjain district and Ujjain division. It is one of the Hindu pilgrimage centres of Sapta Puri famous for the ''Kumbh Mela'' held there every 12 years. The famous temple of Mahakaleshwar Jyotirlinga is located in the center of the city. An ancient city situated on the eastern bank of the Shipra River, Ujjain was the most prominent city on the Malwa plateau of central India for much of its history. It emerged as the political centre of central India around 600 BCE. It was the capital of the ancient Avanti (India), Avanti kingdom, one of the sixteen Mahajanapadas. During the 18th century, the city briefly became the capital of Scindia state of the Maratha Empire, when ...
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