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Introduction

Vimarśa refers to the cognitive actions of recognitive judgement ^[1]. It is a foundational concept of Kashmir Śaivism, with particular regard to branches of Śaivism that relate to monistic thought such as Pratyabhijñā which were expounded by Utpaladeva and Abhinavagupta ^[2]. These schools of thought derive from Trika Śaivism and expound non-dualistic worldviews that are characteristic of Trika doctrine^[3]. Consequently, philosophy found in sources primary to Trika such as the Mālinīvijayottara Tantra, the Siddhayogeśvarīmata and the Anāmaka-tantra^[4] lay the ground-work that leads to the metaphysics explained by the notion of vimarśa and the related notion of prakāśa.

Philosophical Area of Concern

The cosmogeny of Trika utilizes the notion of vimarśa along with the closely following notion of prakāśa. While prakāśa refers to fundamental subjective awareness which forms the fundamental nature of all objects of cognition, vimarśa refers to the act of judgement that leads to the recognition of all objects. These two ideas engender the metaphysical idea that the Self-Experience of Lord Siva is the primary metaphysical basis of all human experiences, especially those that explain the "ontological categories such as causality, time and action"^[5]. This leads to the idea that ultimately all phenomena have being generated by recognition.

This relation between awareness and recognition leads to position of Pratyabhijñā thinkers that the recognition of all objective phenomena is not other that the subjective awareness of the experiencer, i.e. an act of self-recognition. This in turn leads to the Pratyabhijñā thinkers' cosmogenic position of Śiva’s emanation through Śakti.

The Supreme Lord, who has the nature of awareness (prakāśa), makes His own Self into an object of cognition, even though it is not an object of cognition, because the cognizer is unitary. This is supposed by means of a firm inference making the supposition, which has shown the impossibility of another cause [that is the impossibility of external objects as the causes of the diverse things we experience-which was demonstrated in the prakiaa arguments]. Therefore ... by reason of [His] agency, having the character of Sakti which is recognitive judgment (vimarśa) -as He recognitively apprehends (parāmṛśati) His Self, so, because everything is contained within Him, He appears as blue, and so forth^[6]

Relevance of Vimarśa to the Embodied State

The scholar Kerry M. Skora considers the Pratyabhijñā thinkers Abhinavagupta to hold vimarśa to be a act of recognition that is not separated from a persons body^[7], so that vimarśa leads to the "gathering together the parts of one's self that have been dispersed out into the world of objectivity and that have caused one to forget the self's connection to Śiva-Bhairava"^[8]. This in turn relates to the utility of bodily bliss in kaula and yoginī practices. Abhinavagupta states these practices to lead to an expansion of consciousness caused by enjoyment, and this is itself an act of reflexive awareness or vimarśa that have both the outward flow of consciousness and the inward flow of energy occurring simultaneously. Abhinavagupta states:

At the time of the intense reflexive awareness of one's own-form, [which is] an opening [of consciousness] towards each of one's own various enjoyments, one after the other the goddesses of the secondary wheels reach the center wheel of consciousness^[9]

Abhinavagupta thus holds worship to include sensual acts capable of awakening one's consciousness through bliss^[10].

References

• Skora, Kerry Martin (2007), The Pulsating Heart and Its Divine Sense Energies: Body and Touch in Abhinavagupta’s Trika Śaivism., Numen, vol. 54, no. 4, 2007, pp. 420–58. JSTOR
• Dwivedi, R. C. (1992), BHARTṚHARI AND KASHMIR ŚAIVISM, Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, vol. 72/73, no. 1/4, 1991, pp. 95–107. JSTOR
• Watson, Alex (2020), Further Thoughts on Rāmakaṇṭha’s Relationship to Earlier Positions in the Buddhist-Brāhmaṇical Ātman Debate., Brill, 2020, pp. 87–105. JSTOR,{{citation}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
• Lawrence, David (1998), Śiva’s Self-Recognition and the Problem of Interpretation, Philosophy East and West, vol. 48, no. 2, 1998, pp. 197–231. JSTOR
• Larson, Gerald James (1976), The Aesthetic (Rasāsvadā) and the Religious (Brahmāsvāda) in Abhinavagupta’s Kashmir Śaivism., Philosophy East and West, vol. 26, no. 4, 1976, pp. 371–87. JSTOR