[that is, not requiring any extrinsic means to know things] […]

[that is, it is self-evident]

The Triadic Heart of Shiva. Kaula Tantricism of Abhinavagupta in the Non-Dual Shaivism of Kashmir

»That is called dry reasoning which does not grasp the power of speech but rather is [employed] merely according to whether things have common qualities or do not have common qualities. Because that [reasoning] violates all āgama, it is baseless.«



Bhartṛhari

(Note 29) 15 Abhinavagupta adduces a variety of considerations in order to demonstrate that scriptural traditions are the final justificatory grounds of all cognition. These considerations may be understood as an extension of the Pratyabhijñā arguments about vimarśa , which disclose Śiva's self-recognition and supreme speech as the reality underlying all human experience. For Abhinavagupta, truth claims are not made on the basis of correspondence with an objective world, but rather states of affairs idealistically generated within linguistic judgments.

16 Elsewhere, I have compared the Pratyabhijñā vimarśa arguments with hermeneutic theories of truth as disclosure (aletheia) . 20 The Śaivas diverge from Heidegger and the mainstream of hermeneutics in their understanding of disclosure as generated from the subjectivity of God—a view which aligns them more with the Christian philosophical theology of logos . 21 They likewise differ in their emphasis on a priori bases of cognition; in the West, attention to the historical determinants of knowledge has largely superseded speculations about either Platonic or Kantian categories. Abhinavagupta's theory of āgama per se exhibits a greater analogy with hermeneutic thought than the other vimarśa arguments, inasmuch as it complements metaphysical and a priori considerations with an appreciation of the role of oral and written traditions in determining »foreknowledge«. My current treatment of the topic seeks to augment my earlier interpretation of the vimarśa arguments.

17 In the very first verse of the three chapters of the Tantrāloka devoted to āgama , Abhinavagupta announces its importance to human life: »All practices, as inherited from the past, are based upon prasiddhi , which is explained to be āgama .« 22 No person learns all of his or her basic assumptions about the world through direct perception and inference. Abhinavagupta argues that even those schools of Indian philosophy, such as Buddhists and materialists, which repudiate āgama as a means of cognition (pramāṇa) , in actual fact still rely upon it in the form of the testimonies of authoritative people (āptavākya) . 23

18 Abhinavagupta does not wish merely to place āgama on a par with the other established means of knowledge. He contends that āgama is the very life (jīvita) of direct perception and inference. 24 According to Abhinava, perception is engendered through a diminution of the perfection (pūrṇatva) of knowledge disclosed by scripture. āgama consists of the recognitive apprehension (vimarśa) of things in their essential nature as one with the same universal, undifferentiated vimarśa . Direct perception is the apprehension of particular objects such as the color blue as contents of the contracted awareness which constitutes an individual subject. 25

19 As with the other arguments about vimarśa , Abhinavagupta conceives of āgama as the subtle linguistic essence of perceptual experience. He adduces this conception in order to explain how ordinary language may refer to the objects of perceptual experience. Abhinava thus explains language learning in terms of āgama as prasiddhi . One may learn the meanings of words through prasiddhis articulated in cultural works such as Purāṇas and Itihāsas. Or one may learn them through definitions. A definition explains the meaning of a particular word through prasiddhis regarding other words. 26 Abhinavagupta also argues for the integrality of prasiddhi to perception on the basis of subtle interpretive processes observable in the behaviors of infants, which would today normally be explained in terms of instincts. It is on the basis of prasiddhi that the infant knows that it must feed on milk. 27

»But Āgama is the inner … activity of the Lord, who is essentially nothing else than pure consciousness … It is the very life of other means of knowledge, such as direct perception.«



Abhinavagupta

(IPV 2.3.1-2) 20 Abhinavagupta again closely follows Bhartṛhari in affirming the dependence of reasoning (tarka, nyāya, anumāna) upon scriptural traditions. One of the main points of both of these thinkers is the need to rely on āgama in formulating reliable inductions. 28 One might roughly analogize their conception with Thomas Kuhn's theory of the paradigm, as model for research and theorization. Because Abhinava's remarks on this point are brief, I will first discuss Bhartṛhari.

21 Bhartṛhari criticizes reasoning employed independently of scripture as »dry« (śuṣka) reasoning:

22 That is called dry reasoning which does not grasp the power of speech but rather is [employed ] merely according to whether things have common qualities or do not have common qualities. Because that [reasoning] violates all āgama , it is baseless. 29

23 The problem with such reasoning is that the various properties and causal relations of things change in different contexts. Sometimes water is cold and sometimes it is hot. Sometimes fire burns particular substances and sometimes it does not. 30 One relying on reasoning without āgama ,

24 is like a blind man quickly rushing about on a mountain path without a guide who possesses eyes. Having comprehended a particular part of the path by touching it with his hands, he crosses over it. From confidence about that, he believes other [parts of the path] to be similar. Thus he arrives at his demise. 31

25 Abhinavagupta draws attention to the two types of observations which are involved in the formulation of inductions—those of anvaya (»co-presence«) and vyatireka (»exclusion«). Take the example of the induction that wherever there is smoke there is fire: The observation of the anvaya is that fire is always present where smoke is present. That of the vyatireka is that smoke is absent wherever fire is absent. 32 Abhinavagupta contends that one must rely on prasiddhi to grasp the anvaya and vyatireka . Without prasiddhi , there would be no restrictions on how to associate the particulars. 33 In inductions, even those as simple as that regarding the concomitance of smoke and fire, we heavily rely on data and basic ways of organizing that data which have been received from the collective wisdom of cultural traditions. In the light of Abhinava's general explanations of prasiddhi discussed above, I think that we should also understand that he intends by the term in this context some kind of innate facility for »knowing that one knows« a concomitance. 34

26 Abhinavagupta continues to follow Bhartṛhari in pointing to the notorious interminability of philosophical debates as evidence of the insufficiency of reasoning which does not rely on āgama :

27 [Rational argument] is strong in its own house [that is, for the one who proposes it] but, in the perspective of another argument proposed by another thinker, it is proved to be weaker. Thus even today there is no end to arguments […] which flow throughout the whole of saṁsāra . 35

28 In order to illustrate the non-finality of reasoning, Abhinava summarizes a complex debate between Naiyayikas and Buddhists about causality and succession. 36