Abhinavagupta and Immanuel Kant To think of Abhinavagupta vis-a-vis another paramount philosopher of the West, Immanuel Kant belonging down to the modern age, what we find interesting is their characterisation of space and time in their respective systems of thought. Kant puts time and space under the term categories of understanding along with causality amounting to suggest that they are unessential and are superimposed on the reality from the side of the human mind by way of looking at things in his own way. In his view, it is necessary for the human mind to think of anything by according to it some location and a certain point of time in the absence of which both the subject of understanding remains beyond the range of understanding. Kindred is the position of the concept of causality. Anything can be understood properly only by locating the cause of it or at least the effect of it. It is with the imposition of these concepts that the object may become understandable as a phenomenon otherwise it would remain only an unknowable noumenon, as Kant calls it as the part of the reality as distinct from the other part or perspective of it known as the phenomenon lying within the range of understanding of the human mind. Since Kant has influenced the Western philosophy as much as Plato had done in ancient times it is quite significant to think of Abhinava’s viewpoint in this regard. On this point it is important to note that Abhinava has characterised space and time both as adhvan, the path amounting to the category of understanding. This extent of unanimity on this point between them all the gap of the actual space and time between their actual being is not without its significance. So far as Kant is concerned, he has at his back the philosophy of his Greek predecessor Empedocles of the fifth century BC who has no place for space in his structure of the world of elements. Kant’s similar treatment to it along with time is quite Introduction xxvii in keeping with that ancient tradition behind him. This is by no means applicable to Abhinava with his tradition’s admittance of space also as an essential part of the actual world. In keeping with the spirit of that tradition his characterisation of space along with time does not amount to its negation as a matter of fact but only its subordination to the end it leads to, namely, Shiva-hood. In the same way his Shiva unlike Kant’s noumenon, is not anything simple as a numinous subject with only a bare notion of it with all its insubstantiality but rather Siva is the very essence of all forming, the cause of everything besides Him and not only realisable but the actual destiny of creation as a whole as well as that of the individual. Instead of a sheer idea of Him, there is a way leading to Him, deshadhvan being a part of that way. [Taken From First complete English Translation of Abhinavaguptas Sri Tantraloka and Other Works by Professor Satya Prakash Singh and Swami Maheshvarananda; Vols.I to IX (© Authors)]
Posted on: Sat, 06 Dec 2014 11:45:09 +0000
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