'A Five-trunked, Four-tusked Elephant is Running in the Sky’: How Free is Imagination according to Utpaladeva and Abhinavagupta? - HAL-SHS - Sciences de l'Homme et de la Société Accéder directement au contenu
Article Dans Une Revue Asiatische Studien/Etudes Asiatiques Année : 2010

'A Five-trunked, Four-tusked Elephant is Running in the Sky’: How Free is Imagination according to Utpaladeva and Abhinavagupta?

Résumé

According to the Śaiva non dualists Utpaladeva (fl. c. 925-975) and Abhinavagupta (fl. c. 975-1025), imaginary objects, far from being a mere rearrangement of previously perceived elements, are original creations resulting from consciousness’s free creativity. The present article examines how the Pratyabhijñā philosophers defend this thesis against Naiyāyika and Mīmāṃsaka theories of imagination, but also how they link it with their idealism, since Utpaladeva and Abhinavagupta contend that the phenomenal world is created by a universal consciousness through a process similar to the individual subject’s activity of imagination. They thus state – as the Advaita Vedāntins or the Buddhist Vijñānavādins – that the world is an imaginary construction, but they refuse to draw from this the conclusion that it is unreal: paradoxically, they consider that the world is real insofar as it is imagined, and they see imagination as an experience capable of leading the individual subject to liberation.
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Dates et versions

halshs-01182720 , version 1 (03-08-2015)

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  • HAL Id : halshs-01182720 , version 1

Citer

Isabelle Ratié. 'A Five-trunked, Four-tusked Elephant is Running in the Sky’: How Free is Imagination according to Utpaladeva and Abhinavagupta?. Asiatische Studien/Etudes Asiatiques, 2010, 64 (2), pp.341-385. ⟨halshs-01182720⟩
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