Śiva-sūtra
Kashmir Valley · 825
V
Vasugupta
Vasugupta
825 CE · Kashmir Valley (near Mahādeva mountain, Harvan, behind present Shalimar Bagh, Srinagar)
c. 800–850 CE (early-to-mid 9th c.)
Vasugupta (c. 800–850 CE) stands at the source of the systematic non-dual Śaivism of Kashmir. Tradition holds that the Śiva-sūtras — the aphoristic root-text of the tradition — were revealed to him supernaturally, either disclosed in a dream by Śiva or found inscribed on a great rock (the Śaṅkaropala) on Mahādeva mountain in the valley behind present-day Shalimar near Srinagar. He is also associated with the Spanda-kārikā (the doctrine of divine 'vibration,' spanda), elaborated by his disciple Bhaṭṭa Kallaṭa. From Vasugupta's revelation flow the Spanda and (subsequently) the Pratyabhijñā streams that Abhinavagupta would later synthesize into the full Trika system.
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Kashmir Valley (near Mahādeva mountain, Harvan, behind present Shalimar Bagh, Srinagar)
What they did here
Traditional birthplace of Vasugupta.
About Kashmir Valley (near Mahādeva mountain, Harvan, behind present Shalimar Bagh, Srinagar)
A locality in the Kashmir Valley near Mahādeva mountain, in the Harvan area behind the present Shalimar Bagh north-east of Srinagar. Tradition associates this place with Vasugupta (9th–10th c.), to whom the Śiva Sūtras, a foundational text of Kashmir Shaivism, are attributed—he is said to have found their teaching at a rock on the mountain.
The world in their lifetime
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Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Vasugupta’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.