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The Journal of Hindu Studies Advance Access originally published online on September 30, 2008
The Journal of Hindu Studies 2008 1(1-2):11-25; doi:10.1093/jhs/hin001
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© The Author 2008. Oxford University Press and The Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Abhinavagupta’s Philosophical Hermeneutics of Grammatical Persons

David Peter Lawrence


  Abstract

In Kashmiri, monistic and tantric Saiva traditions, the adept pursues the realisation of perfect I-hood (purnahamta), consisting of identity with the God Siva, who possesses the Goddess Sakti as his consort and world-constituting power. In earlier publications, the author examined how Abhinavagupta (c. 950–1020), in his philosophical hermeneutics of these traditions, interpreted the Self's/Siva's universal agency with a theory (developing earlier Sanskrit grammar) of verb–noun syntax. This paper examines how Abhinavagupta reinforces and complements that theory with an interpretation of the semantic and dialogical aspects of the grammatical persons. In Abhinavagupta's scheme, the divinised and empowered tantric Self as the enunciator of discourse (English, ‘first person’) contemplatively absorbs within itself the discursive audience (‘second person’) and objects (‘third person’). The paper also compares features of Abhinavagupta's hermeneutics of the grammatical persons with contemporary linguistic and semiotic theories.


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