Abhinavaguptā was a brilliant scholar, philosopher, and saint who lived between 950 CE and 1016 CE in Kashmir, India. Born to spiritual parents who worshiped Bhairava, a fierce form of Shiva, the boy was known to have developed scholastic instincts from the womb itself. His first guru gave him the name of “Abhivaguptā” or one who is “authoritative and competent.” Upon the early death of Abhivaguptā’s mother, his father got deeply entrenched in the worship of Shiva and instilled a desire in the boy too, to follow a path of spirituality, philosophy, and theology, as opposed to a life of materialistic pursuits. Some of his later day followers believe Abhinavaguptā was the incarnation of Bhairava Natha (Shiva).
In pursuit of deep knowledge and yogic realization, Abhinavaguptā worked with several gurus, who included Lakṣhmanagupta, Bhaskara, Sambhunatha, Vamanatha, Bhutiraja, and his father.
Abhivaguptā developed into a prolific and systematic writer, penning a diverse body of philosophical and theological work. Tantraloka became his most acclaimed work that addressed Shaivism in Kashmir, his home pitch. One of his works, the Abhinavabharati, a treatise on dramatic theory also came to be largely acknowledged as a work of art.
Abhinavaguptā was a revolutionary who spoke and wrote against the injustice of the caste order, as well as the restrictions imposed on women. He condemned the idea that the path to salvation required intense penance, austerity, abstinence, and self-denial and that only saints could achieve it. He assured and encouraged householders to follow his spiritual practices, to be with the Supreme Being.
Despite being initiated in Kaula (a Kashmiri practice of perfecting purity, sacrifice, and sexual knowledge) by Sambunatha’s wife, Abhinavaguptā never married or procreated. It is said he transmuted his sexual energy into the spiritual, and utilized his entire life as a writer and teacher, in the search and practice of Shiva and Shakti—a combination of the masculine and feminine consciousness.