KASHMIR SHAIVISM: PART 2: Metaphysics and Soteriology

The metaphysical logic of the system rests on four principles. Prakasha is illumination: consciousness shines and reveals all. Vimarsha is reflexivity: consciousness knows itself as shining. Svatantrya is absolute freedom: Shiva is not bound by necessity but manifests the universe out of sovereign will. Abhasa is manifestation: the world is the real, luminous display of consciousness, not an external or independent reality. This fourfold logic affirms the simultaneity of unity and multiplicity: consciousness is one, yet freely expresses itself as the many. To use Kshemaraja’s metaphor, the universe is like a city reflected in a mirror,it appears without altering or limiting the mirror itself. This metaphysics is articulated through the thirty-six tattvas, the graded principles of manifestation. From the pure tattvas (Shiva, Shakti, Sadashiva, Ishvara, Sadvidya) down to the gross elements (earth, water, fire, air, space), the schema traces the descent of consciousness into matter. The middle range, the shuddhashuddha tattvas, explains how the finite subject emerges through maya and its limitations; the ashuddha tattvas account for mind, senses, and elements.

Unlike dualistic Sankhya,where categories are ontologically independent substances (prakrti and purusa standing apart), in Kashmir Shaivism the thirty-six tattvas are modes of awareness (citi-vrtti), gradations of the one consciousness manifesting itself in diverse forms. Their function is not merely descriptive but soteriological: they map the progressive contraction (sankoca) by which the infinite (anuttara) appears as the finite (anu), so the aspirant may retrace the process in reverse, reintegrating into fullness. Bondage (bandha) is thus not an ontological fall into matter but a self-limitation of consciousness. The infinite Shiva, out of svatantrya, contracts universal powers into limited forms. This contraction is explained by two interrelated doctrines: mala (impurities) and kañcuka (sheaths). Together they veil the self’s inherent infinitude.

The Three Malas (trimalani): Malas are limitations or impurities that conceal an individual’s true divine nature as Shiva, preventing self-realization. (1) Anava-mala (subtlest (para)-from anu, “small”): the primordial impurity, an existential sense of limitation or incompleteness, the feeling of being a finite self cut off from totality (the root impurity). (2) Mayiya-mala (subtle (suksma)): arising from maya-shakti, it produces the perception of difference and duality; the world appears fragmented and the self distinct from others and from Shiva. (3) Karma-mala (gross impurity (sthūla)): generated by action under the illusion of separateness, it binds through the accumulation of karmic residues, propelling samsara.

The Five Kañcukas (pañca-kañcukaḥ): These “sheaths” constrict Shiva’s infinite powers into finite capacities: kāla-kañcuka contracts atemporality into sequential time (past-present-future); niyati-kañcuka imposes fixed order/constraint (place, circumstance, causal sequence); vidya-kañcuka reduces omniscience to fragmentary, mediated knowledge; kalā-kañcuka restricts omnipotence to limited agency (“I can only do this, not that”); raga-kañcuka converts plenitude (purnata) into felt lack, generating desire and attachment. Through these layered constrictions, the self (purusa or anu) experiences itself as separate and needy, a fragment among fragments. In reality, this “bondage” is only a superimposition (aropa) upon Shiva-consciousness; yet it governs empirical experience until recognition (pratyabhijña) dawns. Liberation (moksha) is therefore not removal of a real fetter but dissolution of contraction, a re-expansion (vikasa) into awareness of one’s eternal identity with Shiva. Kshemaraja condenses this in the Pratyabhijñahrdayam: “bondage is the contraction of the unlimited into the limited; liberation is the recognition that the individual “I” is none other than the universal “I.””

Shiva’s freedom manifests dynamically through three shaktis: iccha (will), jñana (knowledge), and kriya (action). These are ontological movements, not abstractions: will stirs the desire to manifest, knowledge delineates the form, action brings it forth. Microcosmically, these appear as contracted human faculties, reminding the aspirant that even finite agency mirrors divine sovereignty. Closely related is the doctrine of pancakrtya-the five acts of creation, maintenance, dissolution, concealment, and revelation, understood not as mythic attributions but as the ontological functions of consciousness itself. To perceive anything is to see its arising, sustaining, and fading within awareness, its concealment by ignorance, and its revelation through recognition. Abhinavagupta correlates these with meditative absorptions (samavesha), making cosmology a map of contemplative phenomenology.

Kashmir Shaivism’s pedagogy is deliberately nuanced. Abhinavagupta and Kshemaraja describe four upayas (means of realization):

1. Anavopaya (“means of the finite individual”): the most elaborate, working through body, breath, senses, and mind e.g., pranayama, mantra-concentration, deity-visualization, ritual worship. Beginning from the finite anu, it refines perception until awareness turns inward to its ground.
2. Shaktopaya (“means of Shakti”): subtler; not external ritual but inner cognition. One works with vikalpa (thought) and its dissolution into awareness; discriminative meditation aligns thought-constructs with their source until they subside into luminous self-awareness.
3. Shambhavopaya (“means of Shambhu”): the most direct contemplative method, without manipulating breath or thought; a sudden intuitive resting in one’s essential nature. A single act of iccha can collapse multiplicity into unity, revealing consciousness as Shiva.
4. Anupaya (“non-means”): not properly a method but spontaneous recognition without effort or discipline, occurring only through tivra-shaktipata (the most intense descent of grace). Here no ritual, cognition, or volition is required; liberation is immediate.

The upayas are not sequential stages but adaptive doorways suited to disposition. Their assignment is conditioned by shaktipata (the descent of divine power into the limited individual, awakening recognition of one’s true nature). Abhinavagupta details nine grades of shaktipata, from the most intense, yielding immediate liberation, to the weakest, initiating gradual practice, so that method is already an expression of grace.

Language (vak) is central, not merely as human faculty but as a cosmogonic process by which consciousness unfolds into manifestation. The masters describe four levels of speech: para (supreme, unmanifest), pashyanti (visionary; undifferentiated yet formed), madhyama (internal, structured thought), and vaikhari (fully articulated speech). This progression reflects the descent of consciousness from unmanifest fullness into the particularity of audible sound. In this view, mantras are not arbitrary signs but sonic crystallizations of consciousness; each varna (syllable) embodies a pulse of Shakti, the expressive energy of awareness. Abhinavagupta and Kshemaraja insist that mantra is Shakti-svarupa, the very body of Shakti,sound is a bridge from finite cognition to the infinite ground.

This is systematized in the doctrine of the sad-adhvan (“sixfold path of manifestation”), presenting two interlocking triads. The phonematic path consists of varna (letters/sounds), mantra (power-charged clusters), and pada (words/meaning-units). The objective path consists of kala (cosmic divisions of time/energy), tattva (the 36 ontological principles), and bhuvana (worlds/realms of manifestation). Together, these six “paths” trace how consciousness articulates itself as word and world. Practice often reverses these paths in what Kshemaraja calls layabhavana, the contemplative resolution of the gross back into the subtle: dissolving articulated speech into its source, from vaikhari back to para, from external object to pure awareness. Abhinavagupta’s Paratrimshika-vivarana treats every matrka (phoneme) as a deity, a vibration of the absolute. Misusing speech reinforces bondage; purifying it through mantra and contemplative awareness awakens Shakti. Properly understood, language is not a prison of duality but the ecstatic song of oneness that reveals the Self.

Abhinavagupta’s integration of aesthetics into soteriology is among Kashmir Shaivism’s most original contributions. In the Abhinavabharati on the Natyashastra, he argues that rasa (aesthetic savor) is structurally identical to mystical recognition. On stage, emotions (love, fear, anger, etc.) are universalized and no longer tied to the personal ego; in this universalization, the ego dissolves and the spectator abides in pure subjectivity. Aesthetic experience is thus a yoga of recognition,a temporary moksha where one tastes bliss that is impersonal yet intimate. Abhinava even treats ritual as a form of theater: in the Tantraloka, gestures, symbols, and emotions are staged to lead the practitioner into recognition; art and ritual converge as parallel modes of liberating play. Aesthetics, then, is not ornament but pathway.Extending into daily life (as modern transmitters note), Abhinava holds art and sexuality, rightly approached, nearest to mystical absorption; both dissolve ego-boundaries and taste universality. In tragedy, grief becomes karunya-rasa,compassion universalized,lifting the spectator into an expanded self. Music or poetry can ignite a flash of Consciousness’ scintillating light. Securing shanta-rasa, he links aesthetics to the highest yogic state. Theatre, poetry, and song become vehicles of liberation, preparing Self-recognition beyond meditation..

The doctrine of pratyabhijña (recognition) is the epistemological axis. Somananda laid the groundwork by countering rivals and affirming the continuity of consciousness; Utpaladeva gave the term its technical sense in the Ishvarapratyabhijña-karika: liberation is nothing more (and nothing less) than the irreversible recognition that one’s authentic self is none other than Shiva. Bondage arises from forgetfulness of this identity; recognition restores aishvarya (sovereignty), shifting the practitioner from pashu (bound creature) to pati (Lord). Abhinavagupta weaves these verses into his grand synthesis in two major commentaries; Ksemaraja’s Pratyabhijñahrdayam distills them for a broader audience. Practices (upayas) are thus thresholds, not ladders; they catalyze the flash where self and Shiva are recognized as one.

The Vijñanabhairava Tantra (VBT) embodies this approach with its 112 dharanas. The divine is not hidden in remote abstractions but shines in the immediacy of experience: the pause between inhalation and exhalation, the interval between two thoughts, the sudden shock of sound, immersion in aesthetic rapture. Each ordinary act, if attended with radical awareness, becomes an aperture into Bhairava. Abhinavagupta and Ksemaraja cite the VBT as authoritative, treating its seemingly eclectic techniques: breath control, visualization, mantra, sensory intensification, even shock, as deliberate strategies to dismantle rigid perception and reveal the ekarasa (unitary flavor) of consciousness. Thus, philosophy and yoga are inseparable: recognition is the essence, supported by a spectrum of contemplations that destabilize habit and spark pratyabhijña. Liberation is not the production of something new but the unveiling of what has always been ,Shiva as one’s own innermost Self.

In modern times, Kashmir Shaivism has been preserved and disseminated by Swami Lakshmanjoo whose commentaries brought the system into dialogue with global philosophy and practice.

Shoaib Mohammad (KAS),

Chief Accounts Officer, J&K Govt