122. 140 CHAPTER IÍI

140 CHAPTER IÍI

the universalised subject; though the object is not contra- distinguished from another object, yet it is contra-distingui- shed from the subject. The question, therefore, naturally arises, "how is this level reached ?" Abhinavagupta was a rational mystic. He, therefore, attempts the problem, not by any new assumptions, as did Bhatta Nayaka, but by applying the technique of his rational mysticism. / In the mystic system, that he followed, purification from impurities (Mala sodhana) was a recognised method. He himself has discussed various methods of purification from various impurities and has named them separately as Desādhvā, Tattvādhvā, etc. in his Tantrāloka. The Saiva believed that freedom from limitation, liberation, could be attained through purification. Utpalācarya asserted in his Iśvara Pratyabhijna Karika that when the objective world is apprehended as mere "this" through gradual elimination of its determinacy, the state of Iśvara, which is characterised by experience of universal1 "this" by universal "I" (Ahamidam) arises. He recognised intense concentration on an object to be the means of attaining it. Abhinavagupta, therefore, rational mystic, as he was, made use of the doctrine of purification and elimination, which was already well accepted by the Saiva mystics and rationalists, to explain æsthetic experience at the Kathartic level, where there remains only the universalised object, standing as "this" against the universalised subject "I". For, he discovered that æsthetic experience at this level is very much like what Utpalacārya represented to be the characteristic experience at the level of "Isvara". He, however, recognised the fact that the method, through which purification or universalisation of the 1. I. P. V., Vol. II. 265-6.