Rajanaka Kṣemarāja (क्षेमराज) (late 10th to early 11th century) was a philosopher and brilliant disciple of

Abhinavagupta Abhinavagupta (c. 950 – 1016 Common Era, CE) was a Indian philosophy, philosopher, Mysticism, mystic and Aesthetics, aesthetician from Kashmir. He was also considered an influential Music of India, musician, Indian poetry, poet, Theatre in ...

, who was a peerless master of

tantra Tantra (; sa, तन्त्र, lit=loom, weave, warp) are the esoteric traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism that developed on the Indian subcontinent from the middle of the 1st millennium CE onwards. The term ''tantra'', in the Indian ...

yoga Yoga (; sa, योग, lit=yoke' or 'union ) is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines which originated in ancient India and aim to control (yoke) and still the mind, recognizing a detached witness-consciou ...

poetics Poetics is the theory of structure, form, and discourse within literature, and, in particular, within poetry. History The term ''poetics'' derives from the Ancient Greek ποιητικός ''poietikos'' "pertaining to poetry"; also "creative" an ...

, and

dramaturgy Dramaturgy is the study of dramatic composition and the Representation (arts), representation of the main elements of drama on the stage. The term first appears in the eponymous work ''Hamburg Dramaturgy'' (1767–69) by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing ...

. Not much is known of Kṣemarāja's life or parentage. His chief disciple was a sage known as Yogāraja. The Pratyabhijnahridayam, a work in which Kṣemarāja brings the main tenets of the Pratyabhijna system into a succinct set of sutras for those who may not have studied in-depth metaphysics, occupies the same place in Kashmir Shaivite or

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 ...

literature as Vedanta Sara does in

Vedanta ''Vedanta'' (; sa, वेदान्त, ), also ''Uttara Mīmāṃsā'', is one of the six (''āstika'') schools of Hindu philosophy. Literally meaning "end of the Vedas", Vedanta reflects ideas that emerged from, or were aligned with, t ...

. Other works of his: Spandasandoha, Spandanirnaya, Svacchandodyota, Netrodyota, Vijnanabhairavodyota, Shivasutravimarsini, Stavacintamanitika, Parapraveshika, Tattvasandoha.

''"Man bound in all the phases of waking, dream and dreamless sleep by the body,'' ''
prana In yoga, Indian medicine and Indian martial arts, prana ( sa2, प्राण, ; the Sanskrit word for breath, " life force", or "vital principle") permeates reality on all levels including inanimate objects. In Hindu literature, prāṇa is ...
, pleasure, etc. does not recognize his own consciousness which is of the'' ''nature of the great power and full of perfect bliss." -- Kṣemarāja''

See also

References

Further reading