CDS (I) 2024 General Knowledge · Question 98 of 120

Correct — A, Vasugupta. Kashmir Shaivism, the non-dual Shaiva school also called Trika, begins with Vasugupta, a Kashmiri philosopher of the first half of the ninth century who composed the Shiva Sutras, its foundational text, and to whom the Spanda Karikas are also linked. He is the figure the tradition itself treats as its starting point. Abhinavagupta, the name most candidates reach for, comes about a century and a half later and is the school's greatest systematiser rather than its originator — a distinction the question is built on.

• (b)Abhinavagupta — This is the intended trap. Abhinavagupta, around the turn of the eleventh century, was the tradition's most celebrated exponent, author of the Tantraloka, but he inherited the school rather than founded it.
• (c)Ramakantha — Ramakantha is the name of later Shaiva commentators associated with the Shaiva Siddhanta side of the tradition, not the propounder of Kashmir Shaivism.
• (d)Ranganathacharya — Not a figure of the Kashmir Shaiva tradition at all; the name belongs to a South Indian Vaishnava register and is a decoy here.

Kashmir Shaivism, or Trika, is a non-dual Shaiva philosophy that developed in Kashmir from the ninth century. It holds that the individual self and Shiva are ultimately one, and that the world is Shiva's own conscious self-expression rather than an illusion — a position that separates it sharply from Shankara's Advaita, which treats the world as maya. Its literature includes the Shiva Sutras, the Spanda school and the Pratyabhijna or recognition school.

This item works on the founder-versus-exponent distinction that examiners like across subjects. In almost every school of Indian thought the most famous name is not the earliest one, and Kashmir Shaivism is a clean example: Vasugupta founded, Somananda and Utpaladeva developed the recognition doctrine, and Abhinavagupta brought it all together. When a question asks who propounded, expect the earliest figure and not the most quoted one. It is also useful to remember that Vasugupta's dates put him in the first half of the ninth century, close in time to Shankara, which is why the two non-dual systems are often compared.

• Vasugupta lived in Kashmir in about 800 to 850 CE and authored the Shiva Sutras.
• The Shiva Sutras are the foundational text of the non-dual tradition of Kashmir Shaivism, also called Trika.
• The Spanda Karikas, on the doctrine of divine vibration, are also linked to Vasugupta's line.
• Abhinavagupta belongs to around 950 to 1016 CE and is the tradition's greatest systematiser, not its founder.

• Answering Abhinavagupta because his name is far better known — he is the exponent, not the propounder.
• Confusing Kashmir Shaivism with Shaiva Siddhanta or with Virashaivism; the three are separate schools with different metaphysics.
• Reading 'non-dual' as identical to Shankara's Advaita; Trika holds the world to be real as Shiva's self-expression.

Asked as a founder-identification item where the most famous name in the tradition is deliberately offered as a distractor.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Shiva Sutras, the foundational text of Kashmir Shaivism, are attributed to

  • (a)Abhinavagupta
  • (b)Vasugupta
  • (c)Utpaladeva
  • (d)Somananda

  Answer(b) Vasugupta — a ninth-century Kashmiri philosopher; Somananda and Utpaladeva developed the recognition doctrine later.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which work is associated with Abhinavagupta?

  • (a)Tantraloka
  • (b)Shiva Sutras
  • (c)Brahmasutra Bhashya
  • (d)Vivekachudamani

  Answer(a) Tantraloka — his encyclopaedic synthesis of the Trika tradition.