74. SAIVA BASIS OF ABHINAVA'S ÆSTHETICS 81

SAIVA BASIS OF ABHINAVA'S ÆSTHETICS 81

and not identical with Pasyantī, as Bhartrhari maintained in his Vākyapadīyam. For, Bhartrhari admitted only three aspects of speech (Vak) (Trayya vacah param padam. V.P. 115) and recognition of Para, as distinct from Paśyantī, by Nageśa Bhatta and his followers, was due to the influence of the Saivagama, as pointed out by Professor Surya Narayana Shukla in his commentary on theVakya Padiyam P. 97. Accordingly Abhinavagupta uses the word 'Para' as synonymous with Svatantrya Sakti, Pratyavamarśa, Vimar- śa, Sphurattā and Mahāsattā. He identifies Māya with Para Vak and calls it Mahamaya at the transcendental level. Similarly he identifies Pasyantī with the third category "Sadasiva" of the monistic Śaivaism.

RATIONALISTIC CONCEPTION OF THE ABSOLUTE.

Abhinavagupta was a mystic. And the tradition, as recorded by his followers and commentators, tells us that he had realised the Absolute. And the spiritual discipline, as we have stated already, was concerned, according to him, only with the removal of impurities. Mystic experience, therefore, he held to be nothing but realisation of the Self, free from all impurities, which constitute the individuality of the individual self. This implies the identity of the individual and the universal in essential nature. This means that the universal is essentially the same as the individual. His conception of the Universal, the Absolute, is therefore, based upon the analysis of human mind.

The analysis of human mind reveals two undeniable aspects of it.

1. It receives reflection of, or is affected by, external object, no less than by the residual traces of past experience. In this aspect, it is simply a substratum of the psychic |v 11