In Search of Utpaladeva’s Lost Emphasis Type="Ita

Authors: Isabelle Ratié

Publish Date: 2016/06/20

Volume: 45, Issue: 1, Pages: 163-189

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Abstract

The Īśvarapratyabhijñā treatise—an important philosophical text composed in Kashmir in the 10th century CE by the Śaiva nondualist Utpaladeva—remains partly unavailable to date a crucial component of this work namely the detailed commentary Vivṛti or Ṭīkā in which Utpaladeva explained his own verses is considered as almost entirely lost since only a small part of it has been preserved in a single very incomplete manuscript remarkably edited and translated by Raffaele Torella However our knowledge of the Vivṛti is quickly expanding many additional fragments have recently come to light The article gives an overview of these new findings while highlighting the most interesting of them ie the discovery of the lengthiest Vivṛti fragment known to date in the margins of a manuscript containing Abhinavagupta’s Vivṛtivimarśinī It also provides an edition and translation of the beginning of this fragmentMany thanks are due to Chetan Pandey whose commendable endeavour to make photographs of various manuscripts preserved in Jammu and Kashmir and whose generosity in sharing these photographs with the scholarly community have led to the most interesting discovery mentioned in this article see below fn 21 to Alexis Sanderson among countless reasons for helping me identify the scribe of a manuscript see below fn 12 and to Vincent Eltschinger for carefully reading a previous version of this paper and for providing insightful remarks

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