Achārya Amr̥tavāgbhava was born in Allahabad in a Maharashtrian Brāhmaṇa family of traditional Sanskrit Scholars from Vārāṇasī in 1903 A.D. In 1919, when he was a student of oriental studies in Sanskrit, he had to face a big problem in his academic career on account of which he took refuge in the lotus feet of Tripurā, his iṣṭadēvatā, for guidance and help. As a result of his faithful and ardent approach to the Divine Mother, he had a vision of sage Durvāsas who blessed him with his grace and imparted to him the method of the highest type, śāmbhavōpaya. As a result of his faithful endeavor in śāmbhava yōga, he not only solved the concerned problem before him but, by and by, had a clear and direct realization of the fundamental philosophic principles of Kashmir Shaivism. After a few years, he composed Paramaśiva stotra while working as a research scholar in the Saraswati Bhavan Library of the then Queen’s College of Sanskrit. Till then, he was known as Vaidyanātha śastrī Varkale but had started to use occasionally his pen-name, Amr̥tavāgbhava. In 1928, he left his home and hearth and started roaming about as a hermit and practicing the śāmbhava yōga taught by sage Durvāsas.
As a result of the practice of such Yoga, he had many visions of several deities and divine phenomena, especially at sacred places of such deities. Besides, he attained direct experience of the subtler nature of the self as well. During such period of his life, he composed several works on the philosophy and theology of Kashmir Shaivism as well as on religion, politics, and literature under his pen name, Amr̥tavāgbhava. Most of his important works are now available in print but some are still lying as manuscripts. His works on Kashmir Shaivism present new ideas and have been composed in accordance with a new approach to the problems of spiritual philosophy and theology, though he does not diverge from the fundamental principles of doctrines of the practice of Kashmir Shaivism, discovered and developed by its ancient authors. The word Neo-Shaivism is coined to denote his such philosophy which is partly ancient and partly new, just like the Nēō-vēdānta of Vivēkānanda.
The very philosophic approach of Achārya Amr̥tavāgbhava to human life and its aims is quite new. All our ancient philosophers were mainly concerned only with the spiritual problems of life and most often showed little interest in its social, economic or political problems. But Achārya Amr̥tavāgbhava was keenly interested in politics. It was his strong belief that the spiritual upliftment of people could not be worked out successfully before their pinching worldly problems were not solved satisfactorily. He felt further that a proper socio-economic setup, capable of relieving people from worldly problems, could not be established in a society without first establishing a good, effective, and just administrative machinery which, in his opinion, was dependent on a right political system. Therefore, he used to say and write that we should, first of all, achieve perfect political independence and then establish an efficient, effective, and just administrative system through the right politics in our country, and after that, we should propagate religio-philosophic ways of spiritual progress. He wanted political workers to follow an ideal of becoming servants of the nation and not its masters. He did not like the ways of our politicians, especially after the passing away of Sardar Patel, and very often predicted the bad results to be brought about by their wrong and dishonest policies.
Perfect spiritual independence was considered by him as the final goal of life and the relative liberation from all kinds of dependence, caused by worldly problems, was taken by him as an essential aid and means for the attainment of perfect liberation of spiritual character. He composed two very important works in his youth and these are ātmavilāsa and Rāṣṭrālōka, one discussing pure spiritual philosophy and the other throwing a brilliant light on his political philosophy. His time to time criticism on the working of Indian democracy and also on the character of its masters, “hiding the darkness of their bodies and minds under their white clothes”, used to come out in the issues of śrīsvādhyāya, a Hindi journal, in beautiful satirical verses in Sanskrit. Some such verses were later included by him in his āmr̥tasūkti-pañcāśikā, published in 1973. Such inclusion of socio-political studies is the most important element of his thought on account of which some name his philosophy as Neo-Shaivism.
The absolute God, according to Shaivism, is both Shiva and Shakti, in His two aspects of transcendence and immanence. In fact, His own nature of Godhead is termed as Shakti, by virtue of which He is God. Therefore, the devotees of His such divine nature call Him Parāmbā, the Supreme Mother Goddess. All charms of Godhead lie in such aspect of God in which He is called Tripurasundarī, the beauty that shines at the three planes of unity, diversity, and diverse unity; and Lalitā, all tenderness shining in the whole existence. Other names given to Him in such aspect are Kāmēśvarī, Rājarājēśvarī, etc. If Shiva were devoid of such Shakti, he would not have any charm for us and would have been a vacuum-like entity like pure space. His aspect of Shakti is thus His aspect of greatest importance. But the word ‘Shakti’, in its grammatical aspect, denotes an entity dependent on some other entity that holds it or possesses it as being Shaktimān. Its similarity with dependent ideas like kr̥ti, ukti, prīti, mati, etc. comes into one’s head on hearing it. The word Shiva, on the other hand, does not denote clearly anything like the power of powerfulness which is the most important essence of absolute reality. In order to avoid such one-sided denotation of the Para-tattva, Achārya coined the word śāka from the root (śak with suffix ghan) and used such term for the absolute and basic reality, the only metaphysical truth accepted in monism. The term can be explained thus: one compact whole of all divine powers. The word Shakti being feminine in gender, creates at once an idea of a female deity in the mind of a listener, but such a thing does not happen on hearing the word śāka, which is masculine in gender. This term has been used profusely by the Achārya in his Siddhamahārahasyam and has been explained there at length in accordance with many aspects of Godhead of the Absolute.
Another new and very important contribution to the method of the expression of the fundamental character of the Absolute by the Achārya is his method of philosophical explanation of some mutually controversial phenomena with the help of the two principles of absolutism and relativity. Such a way of explanation of the truth dispels certain contradictions in the statements of divine scriptures as well. The Achārya assets that the Absolute is understood and expressed through two viewpoints of absolutism and relativity. Accordingly, the manifestations of relative sattā (existence) and asattā (non-existence) have their roots in mahāsattā (the absolute experience) of the Absolute and are manifested by the Absolute through Its divine playfulness as two relative ideas spoken of in the scriptures. Similarly is the case with the relative ideas of the pairs of:
1. Vidyā – correct knowledge
2. Avidyā – incorrect knowledge
3. Svātantrya – independence
4. Paratantrya – dependence
5. Nairmalya – purity
6. Mala – impurity
7. Kartr̥tva – activeness
8. Akartr̥tva – inactiveness etc.
All of these are respectively two types of ideas regarding the phenomenal and relative and relative manifestations of:
1. Mahāvidyā – absolute knowledge
2. Pūrṇasvātantrya – perfect self-dependence
3. Pūrṇanairmalya – perfect purity
4. Pūrṇakartr̥tva – perfect activeness, etc.
– of the absolute reality understood and talked about in relative terms in the plane of relativity. All this has been explained as the vilāsa of the Absolute God.
There is some confusion in the principle of buddhi is taught in several schools of Indian philosophy. On one hand, it is called mahattatva and is accepted as the source of all the universal cosmic elements right from ego (ahaṅkāra) to solid existence (pr̥thvī), and, on the other hand, it is taken as the understanding sense of individual beings. It has thus two mutually contradictory characters of being a universal entity on one hand, and an individual capacity, on the other hand. Achārya, following the traditional teachings of his ancestors and relying on the authenticity of his personal yogic experiences, takes mahattattva and buddhitattva as two different elements and, accommodating chitta (of vēdānta) and manas (of sāṅkhya) respectively in them, removes such contradiction. Mahat, according to him, is that insentient splendor which grows out of prakr̥ti and, bearing the universal reflection of the whole phenomenal existence, undergoes outward evolution assuming the forms of all the twenty-two other instrumental and objective elements, worked out in the sāṅkhya philosophy. He takes Buddhi as the understanding capacity of an individual being. Mahat, in accordance with his views, grows into two elements known as ahaṅkāra (ego) and Buddhi (understanding), each of which appears in two aspects, one facing puruṣa and the other looking towards objective phenomena. Ahaṅkāra, in its objective role, is known as chitta and buddhi in such a role is called manas. In short, these four elements are basically only two, ego and mind. Such an idea dispels the contradiction without increasing the number of such tattvas.
As for the four states of animation, Achārya explains their character in quite a new way. He says in his Siddhamahārahasya, jāgrata, the waking state, is the state of vismr̥ti or total self-oblivion. Svapna, the dreaming state, is that of smrti or recollection, suṣupti, the sleeping state, is that of anubhūti, the state that follows pure existence. Turyā, the state of self-revelation, is that of bhūti or pure existence. The self shines through its own psychic luster of pure consciousness in turyā. That is followed by suṣupti in which a being experiences his pure individual consciousness free from all misery. In a dreaming state, a person feels his capacities to know and to do as unfettered by the laws of causation and restriction as a result of a faint awakening of the past impression of his basic divine nature and hence it has been defined as smrti. In the waking state, a person cannot at all revive his impression of divinity or purity but takes the unconscious physical form as his self. This is a new idea contributed by him to Shaivism.
Having been a student of Sanskrit Grammar for many years of his youthful age, he worked out a fresh philosophication of certain elements of Sanskrit grammar, not touched in such context by Bhartr̥hari or Nāgēśa. Such elements are dhātu pratipādika, uttama-puruṣa, etc., discussed philosophically by him in his Siddhamahārahasya.
With respect to different principles of cosmogony established in different schools of Indian philosophy, he says that the theories of ārambha, pariṇāma, and vivarta are correct at the lower levels of creation and are meant for such aspirants who are yet children in higher spiritual philosophy. Svātantrya-siddhānta, the principle of the free sportive will of the Supreme, is, in his view, the cent percent correct principle of cosmogony and is meant for the aspirants of higher merit. Other schools of thought say that theirs is the only principle that is correct while all other principles are incorrect. The Achārya takes a much broader view on such points. Besides, he crushes down the arguments of Advaita Vēdāntins put forth by them in favor of their theory of vivarta with the help of subtle logical arguments in almost all the chapters in his ātmavilāsa. The vivarta theory had already been criticized by ancient authors of Shaivism but his Neo-Shaivism defeats it in a fresh way of arguments so that it can be taken as a fresh contribution.
Vēdānta takes the absolute truth as indivisible and unitary self-expression of sattā (existence), chitta (consciousness), and ānanda (blissfulness). But the Achārya expresses it as their root cause out of which all these three aspects of the absolute Reality become manifest. He uses the term saccidānanda-kanda and not saccidānanda-svarūpa for the Absolute.
He develops the new principle of vilāsa of the absolute which is the root cause of all phenomenal existence and its all functions. Though such principle of absolute Godhead had already been discovered by ancient authors of Kashmir Shaivism, yet the word vilāsa used for the activity of Godhead, is a new thing contributed by the Achārya. These are the main new philosophic ideas of Achārya Amr̥tavāgbhava. Many more such ideas of minor importance can be found in his works and therefore his philosophy is being termed as Neo-Shaivism.