Summary Of Kashmir Shaivism

Kashmir Shaivism is known as “pure trika system”and also

advocate practical path towards complete self that is three fold
science of man and his world .The term “trika” refers to trinity
of Nara , Shakti and Shiva as given in the tantras .
Nara means Individual
Shakti means universal energy
Shiva means transcendental being
ORIGIN: The lineage of Kashmir Shaivism begins with Shiva
himself . According to tradition, some of the tantras were loot
by somr of kali yoga. Shiva took the form of shrikanthanath at
Mt. Kailash where he fully initiated Durvasa Rishi into all forms
of tantrika knowledge. Durvasa Rishi intensely meditated ith
the hope of finding an adequate pupil to initiate but failed to do
so. Instead, he created three mind born sons and initiated the
first son Tryambaka fully into the monistic philosophy of
Bhairava Tantras . This is known as Kashmir shaivaism ,
Amardaka – dualistic philosophy , Shrikantha – monist-dualist
philosophy . It was the sixth descendent in line of tryambaka
who settled in Kashmir valley namely , Sangmaditya whose
fourth descendent Somanda extracted the principles of
monistic shaiva philosophy from the scriptures and
incorporated them in his famous work “Shiva Drishti”regarded
as first philosophical treatise . This thought reached much later
when it was refined by a galaxy of illuminated sages like
Vasugupta , Kallata , Utpaldeva and Abhinavgupta .
Vasugupta based his philosophy on the Shiva Sutras which he
found engraved or big stone which is identified as Shankar Pal
at eastern foot of Mahadeva Mountain . Non dual shaivism was
developed first by Vaugupta himself in his famous work “
Spanda Karika”.

Abhinavgupta through power of reasoning and spiritual

attainments classified “Trika System”into four broad categories
namely:
1. Pratyabhijna
2. Kula
3. Krama
4. Spanda
His most voluminous work in verse Tantraloka (light of
tantra) deals mainly with three methods (upayas) og
realizing ultimate truth.