01A pupil of many masters
He came from a family of scholars who had settled in Kashmir; his father Narasimhagupta taught him grammar. He then sought out teacher after teacher, learning the Pratyabhijna (recognition) philosophy of Somananda and Utpaladeva from Lakshmanagupta, and the Kaula way from Shambhunatha. He wrote on all of it. The Tantraloka, in thirty-seven chapters, sets out the whole Trika path from ritual to liberation; the Tantrasara gives it in brief; and his long commentaries on Utpaladeva’s Ishvara Pratyabhijna Karika complete the philosophy.
02Rasa and the last walk
For poets and dancers he matters as much as for yogis. In the Abhinavabharati and his Lochana on Anandavardhana’s Dhvanyaloka he explained how rasa arises in the heart of the sensitive spectator, and argued for shanta, the rasa of peace, as a rasa in its own right. Kashmiri tradition tells that, his work done, he walked with some twelve hundred disciples into the Bhairava cave near Beerwah, reciting his Bhairava Stotra, and was not seen again.
