The great Śaiva master Utpaladeva (c. 925-975) was the paramaguru (teacher’s teacher) of Abhinavagupta and was the foremost exponent of the Trika lineage’s Pratyabhijñā (Recognition) philosophy, made famous by Abhinavagupta’s disciple Kshemarāja, the author of The Recognition Sutras (or Pratyabhijñā-hrdaya). Scholars of Indian philosophy have gradually come to recognise Utpaladeva as a towering intellect, equal to any in the whole history of the Indian tradition. Though Utpaladeva was not more accomplished than Abhinavagupta, he did produce more original thought and philosophical innovation, especially in his masterpiece Stanzas on the Recognition of the Divine, which Abhinava paid tribute to in two lengthy commentaries devoted to expounding his paramaguru’s genius.
In the Īśvara-pratyabhijñā-kārikās or Stanzas on the Recognition of the Divine, which might be more precisely translated as Stanzas on the Recognition of Oneself as Divine or Stanzas on the Recognition of Divine Consciousness as One’s Own, Utpaladeva presents us with 190 verses (along with his own terse prose explanation of those verses). These verses are often written in a highly condensed and elliptical style that can be impossible to interpret without considerable background in Indian philosophical literature. In my translation of his masterwork, I innovate by combining information from the verse with additional information from Utpala’s terse explanation or vrtti into a single piece of prose (while eliminating redundancy). Thus my translation is an attempt at rendering Utpala’s thought in both an accurate and accessible manner, without the stumbling block of retaining separate textual layers, a structure unfamiliar to nonspecialist readers.*
In the first chapter of Utpala’s text, translated below, he introduces us to his philosophical and spiritual project: to elicit in the reader full and definitive experiential recognition of their true nature—the singular trans-individual Consciousness which is the source and ground of all experience and which is intrinsically boundless, free, and perfect.
He establishes from the outset that in this fully nondual system, there can be no talk of proving or disproving the existence of God, since what is meant by God here is awareness itself, as revealed through nonconceptual awakened self-reflection. But awareness, in this system, is possessed of intrinsic powers and potencies (śaktis) and is innately dynamic and self-transforming (without ever relinquishing its essential nature), which is starkly different from the conception of awareness in Advaita Vedānta, which asserted that awareness or consciousness is changeless and devoid of any powers or potencies (being, on their view, devoid of the need for any powers because it does absolutely nothing).
Utpala seeks to show the reader that their very own consciousness possesses the very same powers and potencies attributed to God: i.e., that each conscious agent creates, maintains, and dissolves their moment to moment experience of reality by deploying the innate capacities of their own awareness, whether they realise that or not. Through the intuition available to us when the mind becomes relatively clear and quiet, we ascertain that the very same divine consciousness is looking out through the eyes of other sentient beings as well.
Utpala’s work was considered a resounding triumph by those who could follow the argument through all 190 verses. It established, once and for all, the viability and respectability of the nondual Tantric Śaiva view of consciousness in the world of rigorous spiritual and philosophical debate that flourished in pre-Muslim India. Manuscripts of his work have been found all over the subcontinent. Even the great Abhinavagupta himself deferred to Utpaladeva in the realm of rigorous philosophical exegesis of that which was merely implied in scriptural revelation.
The first five verses and the final summary verse of the text are translated below; they can be fruitfully contemplated for days or even weeks.
Stanzas on the Recognition of Divine Consciousness
by Utpaladeva
Section One, Chapter One (Introduction)
1.1.1 Having somehow attained, through divine grace, the rare good fortune of being a servant of Śiva, and desiring to benefit all beings, I will here make possible the recognition of Him [as one’s own Consciousness], which brings with it all good things. When everyone has attained the ultimate goal of recognising the sovereignty of their own Consciousness I shall be fully satisfied!
1.1.2 What sentient being could possibly prove or disprove God, when He is their very own Self, established from the beginning as that which makes cognition and action possible? Cognition (jñāna) and Action (kriyā) inhere solely within the Self of all beings, which is the ground [of being] that makes the experience of all objects possible. That Self embraces its own capacity for self-validation, being self-luminous: otherwise it could not establish all the various objects of its experience [which are illuminated by the inherent ‘light’ of its awareness]. Its nature is uniquely that of Knower; it is always already self-established & self-perfected (pūrvasiddha) and primordial. Its sovereignty is established through self-awareness; so only the foolish try to prove or disprove it.
1.1.3 However, though being directly perceived, it is not discerned [in its real nature] because of the confusion occasioned by its power of self-concealment-in-plurality (māyā-śakti), due to which that [innate] divinity does not seem to “reach the heart”, though it is clearly established by the self-awareness of one [who has become self-aware]. One becomes able to recognise it (or more literally, its recognition is revealed) with firm certainty only when its unique powers are made apparent.
1.1.4 Furthermore, the establishment of insentient things rests on the living being [because they can only be said to exist insofar as they are known]; and Cognition and Action are held [in this system] to be the very life of living beings.
1.1.5 On that point, cognition is self-established [in everyone who cognises]; whereas [the energy of] action, when it occurs through the substrate of the body, becomes discernible to others as well. By it, we intuit cognition in others [too], [because all action is catalysed by cognition]. In our system, the existence of God is proven through inner awareness (svasamvedana) precisely because He is none other than the Self perceivable as the fundamental ‘I’-sense in oneself and others.
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IV.17 [verse 189 out of 190]: Imagine a lover, who, after trying every means, finally stands in the presence of his beloved. Though he is there before her very eyes, he does not give her any pleasure until she recognizes who he is--as he seems just like any other man until that moment. In accordance with this simile, the innate Self, which is God itself, cannot manifest its own glory for humankind until its qualities have been investigated and brought to light.
FOOTNOTE:
* We see the same structure in, for example, the Spanda-kārikā and Patañjali’s Yoga-sūtra, which cannot be read without their terse commentaries, both of which scholars now believe to be written by the author of the sūtras themselves—meaning Patañjali wrote both the sūtras and the short commentary on them previously attributed to Vyāsa, and Kallata wrote both the short commentary on the Spanda-kārikās and the kārikās themselves.
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