Abhinavagupta, one of the most prominent authors of Kashmir Shaivism, was a descendant of Atrigupta, a great scholar of Kannauj, whom King Lalitāditya invited to live in Kashmir in the Eighth Century A.D. Atrigupta was not a vaiśya, as the surname would suggest, but was a brāhmaṇa of a high rank as has been mentioned by Abhinavagupta as prāgryajanmā. An administrative officer, governing one hundred villages, was designated in ancient times as gōptā. Some ancestor of Atrigupta was such a prominent gōptā that his family was subsequently known by such surname. Viṣṇugupta, the great Chāṇakya, and Brahmagupta, the great astronomer, were both brāhmaṇas having such surname. The word gupta, in this context, is just a distorted form of the word gōptā.
Many great scholars and teachers appeared in Kashmir in the family of Atrigupta. Vasugupta, the discoverer of Shivasūtra, Lakṣmaṇagupta, a teacher of Abhinavagupta, may have risen from the same family as no other Kashmirian family of scholars under such name has so far come into the light. Narasimhagupta and Varāhagupta, both great scholars and saints, were respectively the father and grandfather of Abhinavagupta. His mother, Vimalakalā, was a yōginī. Manoharagupta was his younger brother and a favorite disciple. His other prominent disciples were Karṇa, Mandra, Vatsalikā, and Ambā. Some other disciples mentioned by him in Tantrālōka include his five cousins named Kṣēmagupta, Utpalagupta, Abhinavagupta, Chakragupta, and Padmagupta.
But none among all such favorite disciples of the great teacher, except Abhinava, the author of Tantravaṭa-dhanikā, a work of minor importance, pursued any remarkable academic activities of writing books or commentaries. His only disciple who showed sufficient interest and ability in such activity was Kṣēmarāja, who is different from Kṣēmagupta and may have belonged to a family from which sprung scholars like Bhūtirāja, ādityarāja, Indurāja, etc. But it is a wonder that Kṣēmarāja’s name has not been mentioned by the great teacher in any of his available works. It is possible that Kṣēmarāja could not have won the favor of his preceptor on account of his being over-conscious about the superiority of his intelligence which may have amounted to egoism not appreciable in the case of a scholar-saint.
Abhinavagupta had many teachers and preceptors from who he picked up many secrets of different śāstras. The greatest of his preceptors was Shambhunātha of Kangra who he refers to at least twenty-two times in his Tantrālōka and for whom he expresses the greatest regard in several important works on philosophy and theology. Abhinavagupta belonged to the later part of the tenth and earlier part of the eleventh century. The year of composition given by him in three of his works corresponds with 990, 992, and 1014 A.D. respectively.
Abhinavagupta wrote on subjects like dramaturgy, literary criticism, logic, etc., in addition to Kashmir Shaivism on which he is the final authority, in both theory and practice. He interpreted correctly and clearly the philosophic principles and theological doctrines of Kashmir Shaivism by writing detailed and elucidative commentaries on the works of Sōmānanda and Utpaladeva. As a commentator and interpreter, he did not leave any stone unturned in the field of the philosophy of Shaiva monism. Besides, he is the only author who arranged, systematized, and interpreted the highly esoteric and mystic doctrines of Shaiva theology lying scattered in the vast scriptural literature of Shaiva āgamas. In addition to these two difficult and colossal tasks, he made the Shaiva philosophy easy to be understood even by beginners through some small and big but easy works that can even now serve as standard textbooks. In addition, he composed several easy religio-philosophic lyrics dedicated to Shiva and Shakti. Such poems throw a wonderful light on some highly esoteric points of spiritual philosophy.
Abhinavagupta’s most important commentaries and independent works are:
1. īśvara-pratyabhijñā of Utpaladeva is the most important work on the philosophy of Kashmir Shaivism. Such a work would not have become fully intelligible and could not have attained much popularity if Abhinavagupta had not explained the principles contained in it through his detailed commentary named Vimarśinī.
2. Utpaladeva had written himself a brief but scholarly commentary on his īśvarapratyabhijñā. Unfortunately, none of its manuscripts have become available so far. Abhinavagupta wrote a voluminous commentary in the form of detailed notes explaining the scholarly ideas of Utpaladeva expressed in that Vivr̥ti. That commentary has been published in three big volumes but cannot be of sufficient use to scholars for want of the original text of the Vivr̥ti which it elucidates. The commentary is known as īśvarapratyabhijñā-vivr̥ti-vimarśinī.
3. Abhinavagupta wrote commentaries on three smaller works of Utpaladeva, but these have unfortunately been lost. Two of them have been quoted by Mahēśvarānanda in his Mahārthamanjarī-parimala. Such commentaries are his Vimarśinīs on ājaḍapramātr̥-siddhi, īśvara-siddhi, and Sambandha-siddhi.
4. A highly lamentable loss is the disappearance of his commentary named ālōcana on Shivadr̥ṣṭi of Sōmānanda. Very few scholars do indeed study Shivadr̥ṣṭi. Had the ālōcana of Abhinavagupta been available, Shivadr̥ṣṭi would have probably become much more popular.
5. Another lamentable loss is that of Kramakēli, his commentary on Kramastotra of Siddhanātha, dealing with a superior type of Trika-yoga termed as Kālīnaya or Kramanaya.
6. Parātrimśikā is a small scriptural work dealing with the esoteric doctrines of the practice of the Trika system. Abhinavagupta’s detailed commentary named Vivaraṇa throws light on many such esoteric practices expressed often through the methods of mysticism. It is thus one of the most important works on the theology of the Trika system of Shaivism.
7. The most important original work of Abhinavagupta is Tantrālōka. It contains the essence of all the scriptural works of monistic Shaivism. Doctrines of Trika-yoga lying scattered in scriptures and expressed through vague and mystic methods were collected, compiled, arranged in proper order, systematized philosophically, and expressed in a lucid style by Abhinavagupta in that work. All the relevant principles of philosophy have also been discussed there, side by side, by the great author. Besides, the work deals with all the important rituals of the Trika system through a philosophic method and contains thus a finer theological study as well. It is thus a unique work on the practical side of philosophy and throws immense light on many obscure and mystic topics of Sādhanā.
8. Tantrasāra of Abhinavagupta is a summary of his Tantrālōka, written in a lucid prose style. It is very often simpler and clearer than the latter but is only a concise summary.
9. Another highly important work of Abhinavagupta is his Mālinīvijaya-vārtika dealing with the esoteric doctrines of theoretical and practical aspects of Shaiva monism as expressed in the Mālinīvijayōttara Tantra of the Trika system. Such an important work as this vārtika should have been explained by some scholars in the line of the disciples of Abhinavagupta. The work, though of very high academic merit, has not so far become sufficiently popular for want of such elucidative commentary.
10. Abhinavagupta had composed another such work on the first (pūrva) portion of Mālinī Tantra. It was known as Pūrva-pañcikā. He had written some other such pañcikās, referred by him, but all of them have been lost.
11. ādiśēṣa had written a philosophic work named Paramārthasāra at a time when theistic Sāmkhya, Vaiṣṇavism, and Upaniṣadic Vēdānta had not yet developed as distinctly separate schools of philosophy. Abhinavagupta was attracted by its merits of clear and accurate expression. But he did not approve of its Vaiṣṇavitē character. So he revised it, gave it a Shaivite form, and presented it as a textbook of Monistic Shaivism useful for beginners.
12. Some other brief works and hymns written by Abhinavagupta are:
(i) Bōdhapancadaśikā dealing with the very fundamental principles of the philosophy of Kashmir Shaivism.
(ii) Paramārthacarcā, a work that can serve as an aid in the Jñānadīkṣā of the Trika Yoga of the highest kind.
(iii) Anuttarāṣṭikā, a small work of the same character as above.
(iv) Anubhava-nivedana-stotra, a hymn describing the Yogic experiences attained through the practice of esoteric mudrās.
(v) Bhairava Stotra, a beautiful hymn that expresses the view of a perfect yogin towards life, death, misery, etc.
(vi) Dēhastha-dēvatā-cakra-stōtra explaining an important element of monistic worship.
(vii) Kramastotra discussing the mystic doctrines of Kālīyōga as prevalent among the adherents of Kashmir Shaivism.
In addition, he wrote many minor works on Shaivism which have been lost and composed several important works on some other subjects like dramaturgy, literary criticism, logic, and so on.
Abhinavagupta alone could explain correctly the works of Sōmānanda and Utpaladeva as he was equally advanced in yogic attainments and scholarship. He alone could write works like Tantrālōka, Mālinīvijaya-vārtika, etc., because as a saint-scholar, he possessed the following merits:
(i) He had the deepest direct realization of the principles of the monistic Shaiva philosophy of Kashmir.
(ii) He had sufficient experience of the highest methods of Yoga of both the Trika and the Kula systems.
(iii) He possessed a very sharp intellect capable of forming a correct conceptual understanding of the truth experienced through a non-conceptual direct realization.
(iv) He had complete command over language and could express it rightly and clearly, whatever he experienced and understood.
(v) He was a master of logic and mīmāmsā and could therefore discuss topics of philosophy with great efficiency.
(vi) He knew thoroughly the theories of different schools of thought like Bauddha, Advaita Vēdānta, etc., and succeeded in examining them critically and in a convincing manner.
(vii) He lived a long life resulting in a high maturity in experience, thought, and expression and could render an immensely valuable service to more than one prevalent subject of study.
It is a pity that all except one of his disciples were interested only in the tasteful experiences of self-realization and did not, consequently, develop any remarkable active interest in academic pursuits with the result that many of his very important works remained unexplained and unelucidated. Even Kṣēmarāja, who is proud of his being the disciple of Abhinavagupta, did not touch any of his works. He wrote commentaries on Shivasūtra, Spanda-śāstra, some Tāntric works, and some philosophic poems, but did not take up the task of explaining the works of greater importance written by his master. The duty of commenting upon Tantrālōka fell down upon Jayaratha a hundred years after Kṣēmarāja. Iśvarapratyabhijñā-vimarśinī was explained by Bhāskarakaṇṭha by the close of the eighteenth century. Some other important works of the great author of Kashmir Shaivism are still lying unexplained. His grandson, Manasārām, popularly known as Manas Rāsdān, attained prominence during the Paṭhān rule. Being disgusted with their tyrannic administration, he left Kashmir and settled finally at Kiladar in Wazirabad area of Punjab and attained great fame as a Saint-scholar. His āśrama and temple of Kildar are maintained by locals as its Hindu priests had to leave the place in 1947 when Pakistan was established as a separate country. Mansārām composed a fresh work on Shaivism under the title Svātantryadīpikā in sūtra style and added a Sanskrit commentary to it. It has not been published so far but is available in manuscript form.
The tradition of writing commentaries and fresh works on Shaivism continues today in Kashmir. Svātantryadarpaṇa, fresh work in couplets in āryā meter, along with explanatory notes in Sanskrit, composed by the author of the work in hand, has been published by Ranbir Vidyapīṭha of the Central Government of India at Jammu.