Notes on Krama and Kashmir Saivism

Notes on Krama and Kashmir Shaivism, introduces Kashmiri Tantricism i.d. Krama, through bringing to the fore in English, the contents of Srikramanayapradipika by Rajanaka Lakshman Joo Raina. Apart from this there are the Siva Sutras, 128 verses in the beginning of the Tantraloka, and the Samgraha-slokas from the Citarthasamgraha.

Arijoy Bhattacharya is an artist based in New Delhi, India. Having obtained his BFA in painting from College of Art, New Delhi in 2009, he studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (S.M.F.A.), Boston for a year till 2010. Drawing from diverse influences ranging from Continental philosophy to Indian metaphysical traditions, his art explores reciprocity and mimesis, like an abstract machine, involving the circular operations that simultaneously reveal and deny phenomenal realities.

Seeing the depths of interest in Arijoy Bhattacharya's research is a deep well. It is complete enough in itself - a darkness for lay people. But he drills on, and I have seen him do so relentlessly, for years. The waters get deeper.

Now again, he reappeared without notice and neither were his tools blunted -literally. Shiva, himself an amazing conceptual phallic manifestation, could have hypothetically marveled at this intimate, but twice-removed study which appears to hairsplit ideas of Shaivism, studied and rarerified - or even 'airified' to transparency.

To comment on such an erudite study with an analogy of contrariness, one must write one line from left to right and the other from right to left, to arrive at the central point of balance, the centrifugal fulcrum, a palm above the navel: a centre above our centre.

So, dive in as deep as you can and if you can manage to stay afloat in the deepest waters, you may emerge on the other side of the well/planet, with Arijoy holding your hand.

It was while working together on de-coding a Newari painting of Viratrupa of Shiva in my possession, that I discovered how far one could fly with esoteric/eso-erotic studies which try to capture the nebulous in language.

Is it the terror or bhaya of knowledge that keeps us in the dark?