Sthaneshwar Timalsina

While Indian visual culture and Tantric images have drawn wide attention, the culture of images, particularly that of the divine images, is broadly misunderstood. This book is the first to systematically address the hermeneutic and philosophical aspects of visualizing images in Tantric practices. While examining the issues of embodiment and emotion, this volume initiates a discourse on image-consciousness, imagination, memory, and recall. The main objective of this book is to explore the meaning of the opaque Tantric forms, and with this, the text aims to introduce visual language to discourse. Language of Images is the result of a long and sustained engagement with Tantric practitioners and philosophical and exegetical texts. Due to its synthetic approach of utilizing multiple ways to read cultural artifacts, this work stands alone in its attempt to unravel the esoteric domains of Tantric practice by means of addressing the culture of visualization.

Indian culture relies greatly on visual expression, and this book uses both classical Indian and contemporary Western philosophies and current studies on cognitive sciences, and applies them to contextualize Tantric visual culture. It utilizes the contemporary theories of metaphor and cognitive blend, the theory of metonymy, and a holographic theory of epistemology with a focus on concept formation and its application to the study of myths and images. It applies the classical aesthetic theory of rasa to unravel the meaning of opaque images. This philosophical and cognitive analysis allows materials from Indian culture to be understood in a new light, while engaging contemporary theories of cognitive science and semantics.

This paper explores the philosophy of emotion in classical India. Although some scholars have endeavored to develop a systematic philosophy of emotion based on rasa theory, no serious effort has been made to read the relationship between emotion and the self in light of rasa theory. This exclusion, I argue, is an outcome of a broader presupposition that the 'self' in classical Indian philosophies is outside the scope of emotion. A fresh reading of classical Sanskrit texts finds this premise baseless. With an underlying assumption that emotion and self are inherently linked, this paper explores similarities between the Indian and Chinese approaches.

This paper engages Abhinavagupta’s philosophy of “aham,” “I” or “I-am,” in a global philosophical platform. Abhinavagupta reads aham to ground speech in experiencing and expressing subjectivity. The aham, in this background, has three distinctive topographies: aham as the ego of the empirical subject, aham as the subject of experience that objectifies the ego, and aham as the ego that embodies the totality. Nemec reiterates the fact that the concept of pūrṇāhantā or the vocabulary to support this concept is absent in Somānanda. Besides Abhinava, I am incorporating later Śākta commentarial texts in this analysis. My justification for giving Abhinava main credit is that he formally established this concept and later commentators primarily expand upon his insights. See also Bäumer. While aham in its most exalted sense relates to the absolute I-consciousness that embraces the totality, it immanently encloses all individualities within its embrace, enveloping all to find a singular identity through its transcendental gaze. Aham in this sense is the “I-am” in which all those within the parameters discover their individuality while also finding collectivity. It is the I-sense that determines or delimits the parameters of the body, and in this sense aham also stands for the embodied self-experience.

Rather than considering paradox in a literal sense to be unresolvable, both Bhartṛhari and the Daoists develop a distinctive hermeneutics to decipher them, always exploring an overarching meaning where the fundamental differences are contained within. The conversation on paradox escapes the boundary of paradox then, as it relates to interpreting negation, and above all, the philosophy of semantics. Being and non-being, one and many, or something being both true and false at the same time are examples found from their texts. Just as the static and dynamic domains of the Dao remain a key to address paradox in Chinese literature, the stratification of speech, wherein deeper layers of speech are capable of resolving the apparent tension found at the surface level, seems central to Bhartṛhari’s approach.

In this paper I explore the extent to which the dialectical approach of Śrīharṣa can be identified as skeptical, and whether or how his approach resembles that of the first century Mādhyamika philosopher Nāgārjuna. In so doing, I will be primarily reading the first argument found in Śrīharṣa’s masterpiece, the Khaṇḍanakhaṇḍa-khādya. This argument grounds the position that the system of justification that validates our cognition to be true is not outside of inquiry. Closely adopting Śrīharṣa’s polemical style, I am neither proposing a thesis in this paper that Śrīharṣa is a skeptic, nor am I denying such a possibility. I believe we can pursue our arguments on a neutral ground and let the facts speak for themselves. I will outline salient features that define skepticism in the mainstream philosophical discourse so that analyzing Śrīharṣa’s first argument becomes easier. In so doing, I will introduce some of the arguments of Nāgārjuna in light of Śrīharṣa’s position. This comparison, however, is restricted only to the salient features relevant to further the central argument of this paper and is therefore not aimed to encompass the overall positions of these two giants.

The literature of Bhartṛhari and Maṇḍana attention in contemporary times. The writings of the prominent linguistic philosopher and grammarian Bhartṛhari and of Manḍana, an encyclopedic scholar of later seventh century and most likely a senior contemporary of Śaṅkara, shape Indian philosophical thinking to a great extent. On this premise, this study of the influence of Bhartṛhari on Maṇḍana’s literature, the scope of this essay, allows us to explore the significance of Bhartṛhari’s writings, not only to comprehend the philosophy of language, but also to understand the contribution of linguistic philosophy in shaping Advaita philosophy in subsequent times. This comparison is not to question originality on the part of Maṇḍana, but rather to explore the interrelationship between linguistic philosophy and the monistic philosophy of the Upaniṣadic tradition. Besides excavating the role of Bhartṛhari writings on the texts of Maṇḍana, analysis this will reveal the interrelatedness of the Advaita school of Śaṅkara often addressed as ‘pure non-dualism’ (Kevalādvaita) and the Advaita of Bhartṛhari, identified as ‘non-dualism of the word-principle’ (Śabdādvaita)

The Advaita literature prior to the time of Gauḍapāda and Śaṅkara is scarce. Relying on the citations of proponents and their opponents, the picture we glean of this early monism differs in many aspects from that of Śaṅkara. While Bhavya’s criticism of this monistic thought has received scholarly attention, the chapter Puruṣavāda in Dvādaśāranayacakra has rarely been studied. Broadly, this conversation will help ground classical Advaita in light of the contemporary discourse on naturalism. In particular, this examination will help contextualize the early Advaita that lacks clear imprint of Mahayana Buddhism. The doctrine of Puruṣa, central to this paper, sidelines the role of avidyā or ignorance, and provides a realistic picture of the world. I have relied on the commentary Vṛtti upon the Vākyapadīya as has been substantially cited in DNC in order to advance the arguments. As a consequence, the examination on Puruṣa also paves the path for advancing arguments on linguistic monism.

Neither are there chariots, nor horses or the paths. Hence, [the self] creates the chariots, horses, and the paths.Like the reality created in a dream, the Upaniṣadic passage describes a self that constitutes reality as it pleases and, eventually, entraps itself within its creation. What we call reality is too small a playground. We soar high in the skies of our imagination and dreams, and we reshape the intersubjective on the ground of the subjective. To exist, in this light, is tantamount to believing who I am not and what it is not. In this game of self-deception, fantasy becomes phenomenologically real, and the projected self overpowers its creator. Hence, the subject sacrifices its creative freedom, enters..

The concept of avidyā is one of the central categories in the Advaita of Śaṇkara and Maṇḍana. Shifting the focus from māyā, interpreted either as illusion or as the divine power, this concept brings ignorance to the forefront in describing duality and bondage. Although all Advaitins accept avidyā as a category, its scope and nature is interpreted in multiple ways. Key elements in Maṇḍana’s philosophy include the plurality of avidyā, individual selves as its substrate and the Brahman as its field (viṣaya), and the distinction in avidyā between non-apprehension and misapprehension. A closer investigation shows that Maṇḍana is directly influenced by Bhartṛhari’s linguistic non-dualism in developing the concept of avidyā. This study also compares other key constituents such as vivartta and pariṇāma that are relevant to the analysis of avidyā. As the concept of counter-image (pratibimba) emerges as a distinct stream of Advaita subsequent to Maṇḍana, this study also compares the application of pratibimba in the writings of Bhartṛhari and Maṇḍana.

The concept of avidyā is one of the central categories in the Advaita of Śaṇkara and Maṇḍana. Shifting the focus from māyā, interpreted either as illusion or as the divine power, this concept brings ignorance to the forefront in describing duality and bondage. Although all Advaitins accept avidyā as a category, its scope and nature is interpreted in multiple ways. Key elements in Maṇḍana’s philosophy include the plurality of avidyā, individual selves as its substrate and the Brahman as its field (viṣaya), and the distinction in avidyā between non-apprehension and misapprehension. A closer investigation shows that Maṇḍana is directly influenced by Bhartṛhari’s linguistic non-dualism in developing the concept of avidyā. This study also compares other key constituents such as vivartta and pariṇāma that are relevant to the analysis of avidyā. As the concept of counter-image (pratibimba) emerges as a distinct stream of Advaita subsequent to Maṇḍana, this study also compares the application of pratibimba in the writings of Bhartṛhari and Maṇḍana