Śākta-Śaiva Meditation as Expanded Awareness in Medieval Kashmir
Gavin Flood
Entangled Religions July 3, 2023 DOI: 10.46586/er.14.2023.10995 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Meditation |
| Citations | 4 |
| Key points | Argues that in the Śākta-Śaiva tradition of medieval Kashmir, as articulated by Abhinavagupta and Kṣemarāja, meditation is understood as the realization of an innate purity of awareness that is simultaneously an expanded awareness, and that liberation is conceptualized as this expanded awareness. |
Abstract
Contemplative traditions focused on Śiva and the Goddess developed during the medieval or post-Gupta period in Kashmir, although not limited to that region. In this paper I present textual accounts of a kind of meditation and its accompanying doctrine geared towards liberation conceptualized as an expanded awareness described in Śākta-Śaiva scriptures. This Śākta-Śaiva tradition has scriptural authority in revealed texts and its vision is articulated in the philosophical discourse of the Śākta-Śaiva philosophers, Abhinavagupta and Kṣemarāja. It is the Śākta-Śaiva idea of meditation as the realization of an innate purity of awareness which is also an expanded awareness that I wish to examine.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on meditation, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mindfulness: A proposed operational definition. | 2004 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mechanisms of mindfulness | 2005 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| How Does Mindfulness Meditation Work? Proposing Mechanisms of Action From a Conceptual and Neural Perspective | 2011 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for depression | 2006 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-transcendence (S-ART): a framework for understanding the neurobiological mechanisms of mindfulness | 2012 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |