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Tantraloka

तन्त्रालोक tantrāloka

'Light on the tantras'; Abhinavagupta's encyclopedic synthesis of the Trika in 37 chapters, the central work of the non-dual Shaivism of Kashmir, preserved for us largely by Jayaratha's commentary.

Where this term appears

  • The Vijnana Bhairava Tantra Lineages

    …pta, systematising this world a couple of centuries later in his vast Tantraloka , sorted the paths to it into a famous scheme of "means," the upayas , graded not by difficulty but by how much of a handhold the…

  • What is Diksha? Lineages

    The classification of these grades is worked out in the Malinivijayottara Tantra and in Abhinavagupta's Tantraloka, and Sanderson has traced it in detail.

  • What is Shaktipat? Lineages

    …ntras' grace-bestowing power as gurudipita , kindled by the teacher ( Tantraloka 15.423), and the long recension of the Guru Gita carries the phrase dipo dipantaram yatha , one lamp lighting another, as a varia…

  • What is Tantra? Lineages

    …bhinavagupta, who flourished around 975 to 1025 CE and whose enormous Tantraloka , "Light on the Tantras," remains one of the summits of Indian thought.

  • Who was Abhinavagupta? Lineages

    In the closing verses of his largest work, the Tantraloka , the Light on the Tantras, Abhinavagupta records his own ancestry, and it begins somewhere else.

  • What is Kashmir Shaivism? Philosophy

    His Tantraloka , with Jayaratha's later commentary, is the encyclopaedic summa of Trika, and his shorter works distilled it for students.

  • Who is Bhairava? Deities

    Abhinavagupta, the great Kashmiri master of around the year 1000, reads the name apart, syllable by syllable, in his Tantrāloka .

  • Who is Shiva? Deities

    …, and reaches its height in Abhinavagupta around the year 1000, whose Tantrāloka is its summit.

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