Papers by Mrinal Kaul
Journal of Indian Philosophy, 2025
This essay is an attempt to evaluate the concept of non-duality (advaita) in the philosophy of Ab... more This essay is an attempt to evaluate the concept of non-duality (advaita) in the philosophy of Abhinavagupta (fl. c. 975-1025 CE), one of the leading exponents of Trika Śaivism, who argues for ‘absolute non-duality’ (paramādvaita) as a fundamental principle of everything. According to him, this fundamental meta-category subsumes within itself both ‘duality’ (dvaita or bheda) and ‘non-duality’ (advaita or abheda) in a resolution that, on the surface, appears to be nothing more than an oxymoron. How can two mutually opposing categories be one? However, for Abhinavagupta, both ‘duality’ and ‘non-duality’ are the basic building blocks of an all-encompassing singular meta-category called ‘absolute non-duality’ (paramādvaita). This version of non-duality argues for inclusivism, i.e., for any idea of binary to manifest, someone fundamentally recognises the distinction between, for instance, a ‘pot’ (ghaṭa) and a ‘non-pot’ (aghaṭa) and it is this distinction (dvaita or bheda) that unitarily brings a pot and a non-pot together (advaita or abheda). By saying this, Abhinavagupta is not suggesting that a pot is a non-pot and a non-pot is a pot. But they are singular manifestations in a plural form of and in a singular principle, i.e., non-dual consciousness (advaitasamvit). Using a more contemporary terminology, this form of non-duality may be called ‘pluralistic non-dualism’ or ‘subjective pluralism’, understood in the sense that even two mutually opposing labels, such as ‘pluralistic idealism’ or ‘idealistic realism’, can be used.
Journal of Indian Philosophy, 2024
This essay is one more attempt of understanding the non-dual philosophical position of Abhinavagu... more This essay is one more attempt of understanding the non-dual philosophical position of Abhinavagupta viz-a-viz the problem of reflection. Since when my first essay on 'Abhinavagupta on Reflection' appeared in JIP, I have once again focused on the non-dual Ś aiva theory of reflection (pratibimbavāda) (3.1-65) as discussed by Abhinavagupta (fl.c. 975-1025 CE) in the Tantrāloka and his commentator Jayaratha (fl.c. 1225-1275 CE). The present attempt is to understand their philosophical position in the context of Nyāya realism where a reflection is simply caused by an erroneous apprehension of an entity. For Naiyāyikas, according to both Abhinavagupta and Jayaratha, a reflection (pratibimba) does not have a real existence at all. There are only two ways of looking at a reflection: it can either simply be an original image (bimba) or an illusion (bhrānti). There is no scope for any third entity apart from something being an error or a non-error. In contrast to this, establishing a Ś aiva theory of reflection, Abhinavagupta is corroborating a valid ontological status for the seemingly illusory objects of perception or imagined objects, such as, to use Abhinavagupta's own language, 'an elephant with five trunks and four tusks who is running in the sky'. In other words, he is pleading for the valid cognition of objects which are otherwise deemed to be an error or external to consciousness. While Abhinavagupta's system has generally been referred to as 'idealism', I argue that by establishing the dynamism of reflective awareness that is deemed to be absolutely real, his system should be referred to as 'dynamic realism' i.e., the 'dynamism' that is common to both 'real' and 'ideal'. This is why he uses the metaphor consciousness-as-mirror (ciddarpaṇa) in establishing a non-erroneous ontological status for otherwise illusive idea of reflection.
Viśva-Saṁskṛtam, 2004
TIO '(Jitfijflf fqr{q'fUilf: mo qf:{Uf~T~ ijJ.TT "' i:rrci uitlf qrtri:r~JTtl' ifi1'~) iiurr~: o ... more TIO '(Jitfijflf fqr{q'fUilf: mo qf:{Uf~T~ ijJ.TT "' i:rrci uitlf qrtri:r~JTtl' ifi1'~) iiurr~: o i:r~QJ~H: sf" cfT o '{flJTf~~q sio ~tlt~a: af~<tT!fJJgf ~' 6~~, fcf'flfT: fffl: ~66111; ~1tcfff1 cf111i. . I 9q~ • ff~~ ~ft1lfii ~)fl-'ffll{
Verità e Bellezza. Essays in Honour of Raffaele Torella, 2022
2022, F. Sferra, V. Vergiani (eds.) Verità e Bellezza. Essays in Honour of Raffaele Torella. Seri... more 2022, F. Sferra, V. Vergiani (eds.) Verità e Bellezza. Essays in Honour of Raffaele Torella. Series Minor XCVII. Università degli Studi di Napoli, Dipartimento Asia, Africa e Mediterraneo, Series Minor, Napoli, pp. 679–750.
Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Philosophers, 2021
Springer Handbook of Logical Thought in India, Ed. Sundar Sarukkai and Mihir Chakraborty, Springer India, 2023
Abhinavagupta (fl.c. 975-1025 CE) is a tantric philosopher whose rigorous epistemological discuss... more Abhinavagupta (fl.c. 975-1025 CE) is a tantric philosopher whose rigorous epistemological discussions are deeply rooted in his Śaiva metaphysics. In order to strongly withhold the Trika doctrinal principle of non-duality, Abhinavagupta like his predecessor Utpaladeva (fl.c. 925-975 CE), is struggling to interpret the philosophical question of Causality that rests in the analysis of cause and effect or subject and object duality. In this chapter, a short example from his magnum opus tantric manual, the Tantrāloka (9.1-44) and its elaborate commentary titled-viveka by Jayaratha (fl.c. 1225-1275 CE), is discussed while also contextualising the process of philosophical rationalisation in the history of Trika Śaivism. The champions of the Theory of Causality (kāryakāraṇabhāva), the Buddhists, are precisely targeted and following rational enquiry, Abhinavagupta and Jayaratha want to prove that Śiva alone is the supreme agent (kartā) or cause (kāraṇa) and He indeed is also the effect (kārya) since both cause and effect are the manifestation of and in a single consciousness. Even though the Tantrāloka is based on the revealed knowledge from early scriptures like the Mālinīvijayottaratantra, yet at every step compelling efforts are being made to justify the revealed (āgama) knowledge with reason (yukti).
‘Is there a ‘South Asian Poetics’?’ In Towards a Cultural Poetics of Indian Literatures edited by E.V. Ramakrishnan (ed.) Orient Blackswan Publications, Hyderabad, pp. 23–46, 2024., 2024
‘Is there a ‘South Asian Poetics’?’ In Towards a Cultural Poetics of Indian Literatures edited by... more ‘Is there a ‘South Asian Poetics’?’ In Towards a Cultural Poetics of Indian Literatures edited by E.V. Ramakrishnan (ed.) Orient Blackswan Publications, Hyderabad, pp. 23–46, 2024.
Journal of Indian Philosophy, 2019
In the celebrated tantric manual, the Tantrāloka, Abhinavagupta (fl.c. 975-1025 CE) and his comme... more In the celebrated tantric manual, the Tantrāloka, Abhinavagupta (fl.c. 975-1025 CE) and his commentator Jayaratha (fl.c. 1225-1275 CE) establish a non-dual S ´ aiva theory of reflection (pratibimbavāda) (3.1-65) using the key metaphors of light (prakāśa) and reflective awareness (vimarśa). This paper attempts to explain the philosophical problem of reflection from the standpoint of these non-dual S ´ aivas. It also evaluates the problem in its hermeneutical context, analysing multiple layers of meaning and interpretation. Is the metaphor of reflection only a way of explaining the particular currents of the S ´ aiva phenomenology represented by the concepts of prakāśa and vimarśa? What philosophical problem does Abhi-navagupta seek to solve by complicating the category of reflection and giving it a quasi-paradoxical status? Why does he use the model of the subtle elements (tanmātras) to explain the theory of reflection? What does the 'untaintedness (nairmalya) of the mirror of consciousness' mean for his system? These questions form the focus of this paper.
Tantrapuṣpāñjali: A Commemoration Volume for Pandit H.N. Chakravarthy, Eds. Bettina Bäumer & Hamsa Stainton, 2018
Edited Books by Mrinal Kaul
N A P O L I , 2 0 2 1 ( I T A L I A) (forthcoming), 2021
with Francesco Sferra
Linguistic Traditions of Kashmir (Essays in Honour of Pandit Dinanath Yaksha), 2008
Talks by Mrinal Kaul
Abhinavagupta’s (fl.c. 975-1025 CE) tantric system holds quite a unique position within the class... more Abhinavagupta’s (fl.c. 975-1025 CE) tantric system holds quite a unique position within the classical South Asian philosophical discourse wherein a predominant essential presupposition is not conceived as ‘suffering’, but an idea of everlasting ‘bliss’ or ‘joy’. In fact, even what is often understood as ‘suffering’, as Abhinavagupta would say, is a kind of intense form of ‘bliss’ or ‘joy’ that one needs to cultivate a ‘taste’ for. This phenomenon that a certain taste reflects unto the tasting agent (the one who tastes it) is the experience of ‘joy-full-ness’. There is no distinction created between the transcendental and empirical states of ‘joy’. The substratum of this experience is the knowing and experiencing subject alone (not in the same sense as that of the Buddhist idealists). As one would expect, a number of potent philosophical problems of cognition, perception, imagination, error, and consciousness are involved in here, and their mapping needs further profound probing. However, I am gradually becoming convinced that the larger project of Abhinavagupta was an ‘aesthetic project’ wherein his critical epistemology had an underlying mission of achieving an aesthetic goal.
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Papers by Mrinal Kaul
Edited Books by Mrinal Kaul
Talks by Mrinal Kaul