One of the greatest tantrics of all times was the prolific trika savant abhinavagupta, one of the greatest Indian philosophers of all times. He wrote at least 44 books on tantra, aesthetics (including nATyashAstra) and philosophy. His student madhurAja yogin leaves the following account:
He sits like dakShiNAmUrtI himself as though he has taken a new incarnation in Kashmir. He sits in the middles of a garden of fruits, inside a splendid pavilion filled with elegant paintings. The room smells wonderfully because of he flower garlands, incense sticks and lamps. The walls are smeared with sandal paste. There is music from instruments and singing and dancing in his pavilion. He sits on a golden seat and has pearls decorating his canopy. abhinavagupta is attended by his many students with kShemarAja at their head who write down the various topics he discourses on. To his side are his two female consorts, who are his kulA~NganAs in the tantric rites. They hold a pot of wine, a box of betel-leaves, lotus and matulu~Nga fruits. abhinavagupta’s eyes are filled with the esctasy of tantric bliss. In the middle of his forehead is the conspicous triad mark of vibhUtI. He has one ear-ring with a rudrAkSha bead. His long locks are held by a garland of flowers, he has a long beard and his neck is smeared with the tantric yakShapa~Nka powder. His yaGYopavIta hangs from his neck and he wears a silken dhoti white as the moon beams. He sits in the yogic vIrAsana position holding a rudrAkSha mAlA and shows a mudra signifying the knowledge of mahAdeva.
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- Khitans and Mongols: A story of deep and persistent connections-1
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- The rise of yajña and Kauśika exceptionalism
- Tricakra
- Yantrasiddhi
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- Some ruminations on asteroids and meteoritic falls
- Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF)
- The Vyomavyāpin in the Pāśupata-tantra and a discursion on nine-fold Rudra-mantra-s
- Bhāskara-II’s polygons and an algebraic approximation for sines of pi by x
- Origins of the serpent cult and Bhāguri’s snake installation from the Sāmaveda tradition
- Two simple stotra-s, sectarian competition, and the Varāha episode from the archaic Skandapurāṇa
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- Cārucitrābhisambodhi
- RV 10.78
- The turning of the yugacakra
- A sampler of Ramanujan’s elementary results and their manifold ramifications
- A catalog of attractors, repellors, cycles, and other oscillations of some common functional iterates
- The wink of the Gorgon and the twang of the Lyre
- Some poems
- The Kaumāra cycle in the Skandapurāṇa’s Śaṃkara-saṃhitā
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