Abhinavagupta (अभिनवगुप्त)
c. 950-1016 · Hindu Darshanas · Known
Abhinavagupta was a Kashmiri Saiva philosopher and writer on art who held that one consciousness lights itself up and pours out the world, and that what defines it is total freedom. The world it pours out is real, which set him against Sankara, who called it illusion. Waking to what you already are can happen in an instant. He counted the relish of art a real state of knowing, a taste of that waking.
Signature
The position Abhinavagupta is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Beauty
- mildly between Subjective and Objective
- Role of Emotion
- Path to the Divine
Positions on the 8 axes the sources answer
- Mind
- strongly leans Beyond Brain (100 on a 0–100 scale from Brain Only to Beyond Brain)
- The Divine
- leans Describable (25 on a 0–100 scale from Describable to Indescribable)
- Beauty
- mildly between Subjective and Objective (60 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Identity
- strongly leans Unchanging (0 on a 0–100 scale from Unchanging to Changing)
- Meaning
- leans Inherent (75 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Nature of Reality
- strongly leans Unity (9 on a 0–100 scale from Unity to Multiplicity)
- Opposition
- leans Concurrence (85 on a 0–100 scale from Sublation to Concurrence)
- Ignorance
- leans Bondage (19 on a 0–100 scale from Bondage to Bliss)
12 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Abhinavagupta refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Panentheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Highest Good
- Union with God
What is the highest good? - Perception
- Idealism
What do we directly perceive? - Knowledge
- Grounded in God
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Beginning of Things
- Emanation
What is the origin of reality? - Authority
- Divine Revelation
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Language
- Sacred Speech
What is the fundamental nature of language? - Death
- Union with the One
What happens at death? - Role of Emotion
- Path to the Divine
What is the proper role of emotion? - Primary Bond
- The Divine
What is your primary bond and loyalty?