Muhammad Maroof Shah
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History of religions when reduced to the constrictive history of theologies shows an embarrassing fact of fierce conflicts. Different truth claims have been defended with vehemence. Accusations and counteraccusations of heterodoxy dust the otherwise pristine face of an enquiry and seeking after truth. We see conflict not only between the major world traditions but also within an integral tradition. The fact is that Islam and Hinduism (Vedanta) are generally perceived to be widely divergent and even fundamentally irreconcilable at doctrinal and metaphysical levels. This is not only true about the perception of the laity regarding them but also of dominant majority of scholars of religion and philosophy of religion. Within the specific traditions of Islam or Hinduism we wee different schools which fight with each other on many doctrinal issues. Leaving exoteric aspect of religions aside where room for concordance and convergence is admittedly little, even if we focus on esoteric side, we notice conflict which sometimes turns bloody both between and within them. Generally it is assumed that unitarian (wahdatul wujudi) “Monstic” interpretation of Islam is incompatible with supposedly dualistic interpretation of wahadatush shahud within Hinduism orthodox darsanas are generally assumed to be representative of incompatible truth claims. Within the broader framework of Vedantic Hinduism Saivism has often been presented as alternative philosophical and religious worldview that conflicts with and supplants Vedanta. And within Saivism we see different schools – dualistic, dualistic cum monistic and monistic – generally projected as incompatible with one another or at least differing significantly on certain fundamental issues. In this paper it is attempted to reorient this whole approach that creates opposed schools – philosophical and religious – between and within integral traditions and that foregrounds heterodox character of certain formulations in comparative studies. This paper is a contribution in comparative religion and comparative philosophy that develops insights from perennialist metaphysical perspective – which in the opinion of the paper writer is the best methodology and perspective available for a comparative study – for subsuming Sufism and Saivism under the rubric of traditional metaphysics that is seen to unite all integral religious and traditional philosophical traditions.1
I will start by referring to the concept of universal orthodoxy that we owe to Frithjof Schuon, the foremost representative of perennial philosophy. This concept is perhaps the most significant concept that promises to unearth the unifying thread of all Eastern traditions and traditional religions including the archaic traditions. By universal orthodoxy Schuon means a formulation of metaphysical truths that transcends philosophical and theological straitjackets or frameworks and which forms the most fundamental core of diverse traditions and gives us the broadest possible, the most inclusive formulation and translation of doctrinal content or truth and within it one could see thus the orthodox character of a given theological/philosophical formulation. From the metaphysical perspective2 (which is to be sharply distinguished from merely rational or philosophical mode of inquiry) the perennialists have been able to include the seemingly most diverse philosophical and theological formulations of Semitic as well as non-Semitic and primitive or archaic traditions. Vedanta and Platonism, Sufism and Taoism, non-theistic Buddhism and theistic Islam or Christianity all are easily subsumable under the rubric or universal orthodoxy or Primordial Din or Perennial Philosophy or Sannatana Dharma. Here our focus is on Saivism and Sufism and I will proceed by suggesting a metaphysical or perennialist reading of certain important notions of Saivism.
The perennialists, basing their study on traditional sources – revealed that orthodox commentaries or appropriations that have historically developed – identify God with Reality and the First Principle or the ultimate Reality is taken to be the Absolute rather than the personal God of theology and this Absolute is take to be the Beyond-Being or Pure Being or rather than the Being of Aristotelian and post-Aristotelian Western philosophy. In Saivism the First Principle is the undifferentiated Essence, the pure consciousness, Parmasiva, the non-dual Reality or fundamental ground of all reality, the Absolute. In Sufism the Essence or Zat designates this First principle It is Beyond-Being, the totality or the All. Siva corresponds more or less to personal God, Sakti to All-possibility and Divine infinitude. However Siva is not sometimes anthropomorphized and corresponds to the Essence. God with Names and Attributes is Siva with five faces. Siva taken to be the Supreme Benevolence (al-Rahaman of Sufism) would correspond to Name of the Essence. The Absolute grounds everything and contains all things. The world is implicitly, as archetypes, contained in the Absolute. It is not a creation but a manifestation of what has been there, albeit latent. It is an emanation, a theophany. Sakti literally means letting go or casting out of oneself. It is usually mistranslated as creation as Jaodeva Singh notes (Singh, 1963:107). The world doesn’t confront Siva as the other; God does not act upon an external material. The equivalence of Semitic conception of creation when metaphysically read and NeoPlatonic-Vedantic conception of emanation has been argued by such perennialists as Schuon. Sufism especially in contradistinction to exoteric Muslim theology has subscribed to the conception of world as emanation rather than creation ex-nihilo. Neoplatonic metaphysics that underlies Sufistic metaphysics sides with the concept of emanation. Muslim philosophers in general have felt inadequacy of the theological notion of creatio ex-nihilo. Ibn Arab is metaphysical understanding of the relationship between God and the world avoids traditional philosophical critiques of theological position and seems hardly to disagree with key concepts of Saivism, especially the Trika Saivism. Transcendence of God is not compromised in either Sufism or Trika. The creation of the world doesn’t at all infringe on Divine transcendence. However pantheism is qualified by simultaneous affirmation of transcendence rather than outrightly negated at its own place.
Saivism in general is the perspective of Grace. S. Arulsamy has well argued this point in his Saivism:A Perspective of Grace. It is the divine grace rather than human effort that ultimately saves. But the unconstitutional flow of grace does not invalidate the value of ethical living and need of clearing the debt of karma. In fact in Saivism, as in other integral traditions (e.g. Sufism or Islam) the notion of grace occupies important role. The figures importantly in all traditional religions. We need not accept the simplistic binary of grace/human effort in salvation. In Islam though orthopraxy is characteristically emphasized in connection with eschatological rewards it is God’s grace (fazl) that is believed to save ultimately. The Prophet of Islam (S.A.W) has expressed the necessity of grace in salvation in a famous tradition. It has been incorporated in traditional formulation of Islamic creed. Emphasis on love of God or devotion (Bhakti marg) in both Saivism and Sufism is to be understood in the context of true emphasis on grace. Love takes a devotee in a flash to God. It is the key to the kingdom of God. Sufi Poetry has been characteristically the poetry of Ishq. Although Islam is a religion that emphasizes the saving function of intelligence or jnan. The key notion of pratibijna in Saivism is to be understood as gnosis, as intellectual intuition, pratibha, a vision of intellect (a supraindividual faculty uncloluded by passion it has also nourished the great tradition of Sufi devotional poetry. All traditions have emphasized the necessity of transcending the ego – the principle of separation or alienation. The love of God does the alchemical work and is the principle of dealienation. The self realization or Recognition has the prerequisite of self-negation. This is fundamental enunciation of all religions and mysticism. Both dualistic and non-dualstic schools assert it although the former does not see merger in God and loss of individuality as the necessary end of the path. However, it hardly matters really because God has been conceived as an Ego, as an “I” (and in fact God alone can say “I”) by both Sufism and Saivism. Human ego is a distant reflection of this Divine Ego. Man’s perfection demands developing of divine attributes. Jiva or limited self, being a microcosmos performs all the activities that Siva does, though in a limited manner. Dualists aren’t wrong in emphasizing that man never becomes God because it is only the sprit that in united with Him and as body in space and time he remains, do what he may, a slave, a limited self. Self realization is realization of the self, the Divine I within us rather than a mere negative process of self-negation. Fana is followed by baqa. The dualists seem to focus on the state of subsistence or baqa while the monists foreground the necessity of passing through the process of fana (annihilation) while the baqa is taken for granted as it begins the moment fana is perfected. Devotion or love or transcendence of passional self is common to both dualists and monists in Saivism and Sufism.
It could well be claimed that on the method or practice of path there is essentially no disagreement amongst mystical/religious traditions.3 All mystical traditions and techniques that ultimately are geared towards clearing the fog of passions and ego that veil the face of the Lord from us, transcending the place of thought or mind. Four kinds of paths, which are generally recognized, all contribute to this end. All meditational techniques contribute to this end. Most of the Sufi techniques have equivalents in Saiva mysticism. Japa, pranaymas, mudras, night vigils, fasting, vatras or vows, disciple-guru (Sheikh) relationship are common to both Sufism and Saivism and within them between their different schools.
Svatantra, the absolutely independent and “capricious” or self dependent divine will figures in Islam also. Both Siva and Islamic God are absolved of all conditions and free to do anything He wills. Everything is producer by the mere will of God and that will follows apparently no logic. Asharism, the dominant theological school of Islam, can also be characterized as emphasizing Svatantra.
It is not difficult to find correspondence in many tattvas, the descent of the Absolute or grossification of consciousness in Sufism and Saivism. Zat, Essence, paramsiva, undifferentiated unity of Siva and Sakti is above manifestation. This is also called Ahdiyat by Ibn Arabi. The first Descent of the Absolute, technically called Wahdiyah and the Light of Muhammad has correspondence with Sudha addhava or Supramundance Manifestation. Sadasiva i.e. ever benevolent, Isvara i.e, the Lord and Vidya or Sudhavidya i.e. pure unlimited knowledge- the three tattvas can be seen in Ibn Arabi or al- Jili’s description of Divinity, Names and Attributes and the doctrine of tanazullat ( Descents of Absolute) belong to the realm of divine relativity. After pure being, the impersonal Absolute, the unmanifest consciousness as we descend to supramundance manifestation, the first descent of the traditional six stages of Descent from the Absolute to the material world, we are no longer in the domain of Essence but what is called as Relativity in divinis. Personal God of theism is situated here. Here we can see that tussle between theistic (theistic Saivism) and monistic schools (Vedanta of Sankara) is misfounded. Theism is true but it falls short of the pure truth, the truth of Beyond-Being. God as the Reality figures in monism but in monism the personal aspect of the Absolute stands affirmed but then transcended as Shankara has made clear. Theology is different from pure metaphysics. It is unable to fully transcend or avoid anthropomorphization of Divine principle. It is human appropriation of that which is never conceptualizable or experiencable or desiriable. Names and attributes belong to the perceiving eye rather than to essence in itself. These are the windows to the Divine and these windows are required by man. The essence has never manifested. None has known it. It is Not for human subject which approaches it conceptually. It is Nothingness, Void. For the purusa, the limited experient, the subject of congition, situated in Asuidha addhva or mundane manifestation where Maya reigns the subject-object duality operates. Godhead is never approachable. It is approachable when we rise above all Relativity, when individuality is wholly transcended, when God alone remains and the separate human subject is gone. It is only God’s eye that can see God as the Sufi authorities such as Ba Yazid assert. Parmsiva as prakasa or luminous consciousness is Beyond-Being, Zat-uz-zzat. Self consciousness or pure I consciousness or Vimarsa is a movement or descent of the Absolute. The Supreme Principle can not be spoken as Ego but as soon as we take manifestation into consideration and speak of the world in relation to the Absolute we need to speak in terms of self-consciousness and then desire to manifest. Vimarsa assumes three forms, viz., going out of itself (srsti), manifesting its continued existence (sthiti) and then returning to itself (samhara). Pure Being does not know all this. It is Unmanifest. In it we cannot speak of the Spanda, the iccha of any kind. When certain authors speak of the ultimate as Ego, as self with five fold functions they commit category mistake. The Beyond-Being is neither creator nor preserver nor destroyer nor revealer. One needs to be very clear about the distinction between Being and Beyond-Being as otherwise we mix up theology with metaphysics. Anthropomorphic parmatma or paramsive is monstrosity as Schuon notes.(Schuon, 1976:142) Not keeping the distinction between Attributes and Essence, Relative and the Absolute and without the crucial notion of relatively Absolute (that term we owe to Schuon) we make a mess of Saivism. A host of confusions and rivalries between different schools of Saivism and Muslim theology are put in a proper context by keeping these things in view. Dualist schools are correct descriptions for all practical purposes. However, they stop short of pure metaphysics but this fact hardly affects efficacy of their realizational path. The doctrines don’t or Siddhanta Saivism does take the traveller in proximity of the Lord though the merger doest not occur. Seen from one angle, merger never occurs as long as existentiating dimension that is donned by the servant. Finitude in certain respects is never transcended. The enlightened Buddha doesn’t cease to be invulnerable to the pains that the flesh is heir to. God is never reached. He ever remains the ideal. He is unattainable. The travel to God never ceases. God is not an object, a thing, a far off destiny point. He is not any where. We live in God. We do not become God. The servant-Lord polarity is transcended but Relativity is not negated at its own level when Absolute is approached. The servant remains the servant how far a Saivite or a Sufi may ascend to Lord as Ibn Arabi maintains. Monists never compromise on divine transcendence. The transcendent ever remains transcendent. The transcendent ever remains transcendent. It is possible to be perfected in the image of God but that does not imply total identity in every respect. Shankara and Ibn Arabi the great unitarians didn’t cease to pray and write intensely devotional poetry. God signifies Life in its deepest sense. It is absurd to say that one can cease glorifying life. God as eternity is not reached through time. Time doesn’t exist when eternity dawns. Samsara is no more when Nirvana comes. The world with its multiplicity ceases, so to speak, when God is unveiled. It is only when we unwarrantedly mix or confound the two orders, the eternal and the temporal, the supernatural and the natural, the Absolute and the relative, that we encounter never resolvable theological and philosophical problems. Consistent dualism faces insurmountable problems and it is pure metaphysics which is non-dualist that resolves them. But dualism better makes sense of antimonies of life to encountered at every point of time. Diversity and mutlitiplicy or the world of difference does find its origin and end in the non-dual Absolute and is in essence that non-dual Reality but that does not mean that the world of dualities and Maya are unreal epistemically if not ontologically. Both Saivism and Sufism take the world of name and form, the world of Maya, the world of relativity as real at its own plane, as the expression or emanation from the Real. Everything partakes of the divinity, all things are in God or are sacred. The human ego too has its metaphysical foundation in the Divine “I am.” From a strictly monistic perspective the world of colour and smell almost disappears as illusion, as it is deceptive appearance, as shadow. Extreme subjective idealism such as that of Vijnanvada Buddhism encounters many problems that Saivism which takes the world as real doesn’t. The fact that the eternal consciousness is ever active, Nityodita, ever wake in the Quranic phrase, that there is always spanda or vibration in it is catered by the metaphysical understanding of All-Possibility and infinitude. God creates not as if he had a choice not to create, as if he decides at some particular whim or Iccha. It is His very nature to manifest. There is no creation from His perspective. Divine Nature being Infinite necessarily actualizes possible existences. The further question as to why the Self manifests the abhasa is dismissed by Abhinavgupta who says that the nature of a thing can’t be questioned. It is absurd to ask why fire burns. To burn belongs to the very nature of fire and so to manifest without what lies within is the very nature of the Self.
There is almost complete agreement between Saivism and Sufism on the issue of status of the world in relation to the Absolute. Saivite critique of Mayavada is more or less shared by Sufi metaphysicians. For Islam the world is real though its reality is derived and dependent on the only Real God. Sufis like certain Saivite metaphysicians use the mirror image to explain the relationship between God and the world. The world as play of God is both Vedantic-Saivite as well as Sufi concept. The only existent being God, the only agent or doer being God in unitarian Sufi understanding so whatever we see and do is the expression of Svatantra, God’s pleasure. God is not accountable; He does what He wills according to the Quran. God sees himself only in the mirror of the world. It is absurd to ask what is the purpose of existence or life. It is its own justification. It exists and that is all. It is not a logical problem to be solved but a mystery to be lived, as Osho would say. The world is God as Manifest (az-Zahir).
The epistemology of Saivism and Sufism taking the direct experience of the divine as the highest knowledge is hardly distinguished. Pratybijna and gnosis of Sufis are fundamentally indistinguishable. The only knower and the only known is God. God is veiled in every form and to be an aarif is to see God alone everywhere to see him as the essence of everything, as essentially nondifferent from whatever is, to see Him as the Only Knower. God is the Light of the World. God is Shahid (Witness). Metaphysically it is God who alone can be a witness and thus it is He who says the declaration by which one enters in the fold of Islam. God is not a common substratum of every existent but that very essence. On this point monistic Saivism and unitarian Sufism of Ibn Arabi are in total agreement. The way to attain the vision of God or Siva is the old and familiar mystical discipline. Here we see yet another important convergence between Sufism and Saivism and that concerns exoteric-esoteric division and mutual relationship between them. Saivism recognizes importance of exoterism. According to the Kashmir Saivism a traveler (Salik) on the way to Siva to observe all Vedic rituals. It also respects ritual observance even for those who have reached the other shore. Sufism too has generally been respectful of law though its relativity has also been emphasized and esoterism, according to the perennialists, is best observed or best fructifies in integral religious traditions which incorporate law or shariah. Libertine spirituality has generally been dismissed by Saivite and Sufi authorities. However tantric connection may seem to be inexplicable from this perspective. Kaula School and Tantrics recognize the use of five M’s which include wine and women among other things for attaining self-realization. Saivism has positively appropriated Tantric insights. Properly contextualized Tantricism is only a concrete application of metaphysics of affirmative transcendence. In Kaliyuga ascetic spirituality is not an attractive option for many. So Sufism with its music and dance and dynamic meditations and Tantric Saivism with its positive appropriation of pleasures of the world in the cause of the spirit seem to be efficacious for many. Islam had never endorsed asceticism or rejection of pleasures of the world. Sexual experience gives a foretaste of the Bliss of union with God according to such Sufi authorities as Ghazali. There is also a tradition of feminine spirituality in Islam. The prophet of Islam had famously put women in the list of three things that he loved. He married as many as eleven women. He attributed his great virility to miraculous help from Archangel Jibril. Islam’s paradise, to the dislike of many orientalists and ascetics, is a pleasure garden where women figure prominently. For Ibn Arabi the formless transcendent divinity is best manifested in the female form. His Interpreter of Desire depicting his vision of God in the form of Nizam while circumambulating the Kaaba shows the positive view of women that Islam takes in its most direct fashion. Erotic imagery of Sufi poetry is too well known to need comment. Tantrism only develops some of these points and carries them to logical conclusion. So tantric connection of Saivism takes it closer to Islam and further from ascetic Vedantism.
Theological language carelessly used to describe essentially metaphysical concepts of Saivism causes problems. Different schools are to be understood metaphysically for resolving their conflicts and appreciating their essence. The self’s transcendental aspect is His Sivahood and His universal aspect in His Savihood. For Somnand the whole play of the finefold divine activity of the Lord is His Sakti. Sakti is never different from Siva. Thus Sakti seems to express the ideal of universal possibility or All-Possibility.
Turiya, the fourth state of consciousness, holds a fundamental place in Savite epistemology. Microcosmically, it holds together the working (Jagrat), dreaming (Svapna) and dreamless sleep (Susupti) Macrocosmically, it holds together the three kriyas of Srsti, Sthiti and Samhara. It is integral awareness.4. The Sufi view of divine omniscience and the notion of Lawhi-mahfooz have similar purport. The verse of throne (Ayatul Kursi) explicates the Quranic notion of integral awareness. Suddha (pure Vikalpa), the Vikalpa in which the Sadhaka feels – Sarvo mamayam vibnavah – all this glory of manifestation is of (my) Self in which he identifies himself with Siva. It is means for attaining consciousness free from differentiations. Exact correspondence of Suddha Vikalpa is discernible in Sufi Salik. The vision of the One, the only Reality in fana is fundamentally similar.
Description of different mystical centers or charkas by Savita authors has remarkable similarity with the description of latayif by Sufis. One finds description of Turiya and Turyatita which means transcending the fourth state in certain Sufistic descriptions of fana-al-fana and tawhid of the elite amongst the elite (Tawheedul khasul khas). It is a state beyond the turya where pure consciousness is like an ocean without any ripple or ruffle, and is blissful. It is the consciousness of Siva-himself or one who has reached that state in which the entire universe appears as his self. The vision of the Essence (tamashayi Zat) is Cit, the universal or the absolute consciousness.
The first verse of the Gospel of John that states that in the beginning was the Word and the Word was made flesh is echod in both Savite and Islamic Sufic traditions. The Absolute or the Highest Reality has been conceived as “Sabda-brahman” in the philosophy of Vyaharna. Sabda (word) is unconsciousness itself where thought and world coalesce and are not yet distinguished. Brahman is the eternal world from which everything emanates. According to the Trika system the universe is always in Parmasiva potentially. This stage of unmanifest word is called paravac. This corresponds to the stage described in the prophetic tradition in which the universe is said to be in ‘ama’ darkness. The next stage is that of Pasyanti which is the divine view of the universe in its undifferentiated form, is the medhyama, marking the next stage of the manifestation of the universe into differentiated particulars. These three stages could be abstracted from the diffferent stages of descent. Paravac is the unmanifest Sakti or Logos or cosmic ideation. The Sufi conception of the Light of Muhammad is also as Logos, the Principle of manifestation.
The relation between that which is manifested and the manifested things is not that of fusion or union in Sufism. That which manifests itself does not get divided in manifestation or suffers change. As Sufi poet has put it:
The Beloved is ourselves but not by virtue of ‘Union’,
The house of our being is filled with Him but by means of no fusion.
Sufism accepts neither pure identity nor pure ‘otherness.’ Dualistic schools of Saivism reject the first alternative of pure identity while as the monistic interpretation is a critique of the alternative of pure otherness. Sufi position subsumes the essential position of Saivism as a whole which maintains simultaneous transcendence and immanence of the divine principle. Approaching the issue keeping in consideration the distinction between mystical and metaphysical realization and the distinction between soul and Spirit on which the perennialists stress resolves the apparent conflict between different Saivite and Sufi schools on this key issue.
The use of mantras and belief in their deeper significance is common to Saivism and Sufism. According to the Tantrism there is a correspondence between the para-sakti the ultimate divine creative power and the paravak which is the ultimate divine word bringing about the sum total or words. Mantras can establish contact with the various Sakties. The mystic and astrological symbolism of words and their healing power has been common to Sufis and Savitics, especially Tantric Savites.
The concept of bindu, a metaphysical point, creative force compacted into a point, a point in which lies undifferentiated Reality ‘a’ and ‘na’ joined into aha together sum up the entire manifestation. ‘A’ represents Siva, ‘na’ represents Sakti. This point, anusvara indicates the fact that Siva in spite of the manifestation of the universe undivided such speculations correspond with a Prophetic tradition about the point of Ba of Bismillah, and Sufis have made good use of this imagery.
Prakasa corresponds to the light of Muhammad. Prakase, literally light, is the principle of Self-revelation, the principle by which everything else is known.
Most of the traditional religion, for reasons quite understandable, have taken the negative view of the world. They do not see the world as an instrument of arriving at the soteriological goal but as an impediment. The negative view concerning materiality leads to the development of various means, both the conceptual and practical for transcending the given, that which has name and form. It is Tantrism among the Indian religious traditions and Islam amongst the Semitic religions that have, however, taken a quite affirmative view of world and see it as an instrument of arriving at the final goal. They see it as a support for contemplation. The body is not seen as a burden that has somehow to be thrown of impure or illusory but as something fashioned by God, as a seat, a vehicle and medium for spirit. Islamic-Tantric ontology situates itself the ascetic negative ontology of certain other traditions which thinks that material substances, including the body can never enable one to have the experience of eternal bliss which is gained through the process of negation. Islam and its Prophet have been criticized as sensualist Islamic epistemology has given a very important place to sense experience. All pleasurable experiences are celebrated as gifts from heaven. Islam rejects traditional soul-body dualism and takes the material world as symbol (ayat) of God. Purusa-Prakiti dualism seen in Sankhya-yoga is challenged by Tantrism. Islam sees the world as charged with the grandeur of God. It only asks to see everything temporal in the light of Eternity, with the eyes of God or what is called as being a witness. Choiceless awareness is what seeing with the aarif’s eyes is. Zikr is geared towards developing that contemplative vision. Inward turning that Sufism cultivates is not opposed to lawful enjoyment of senses. Detachment or poverty – the virtue emphasized by Islam is not identical with renunciation and shutting of senses. For Islam Muhammad symbolizes the positivity of the world of manifestation. Muslims are enjoined to bless the prophet and that means blessing the existence. Tawhid understood metaphysically implies oneness of existence. The whole world is an enchanted grarden, a reflection of the Edence Garden, a varitable sanctuary, a mosque, a theophany. It is God’s visible face (az-Zahir). This world is a means to cultivate the other world as a prophetic tradition (Ad-dunya-u-manzraul akhira) testifies. Islam consecrates the world of matter rather than dismisses it as illusory or seductive temptress. Islam, like Tantrism does not see any contradiction between the pleasures of the body and the soteric liberation Islam believes that Eternity can be won here and now and takes a very affirmative view of time. God is smiling in every flower. For Islam the world unveils God. Things are metaphysically transparent. The contemplative, the gnostic ( the term is here used in the primordial and non-sectarian sense) seeing with the eyes of God, sees the essences. Noumenal world wears the garments of the phenomenal. For the sage every flower is metaphysically the proof of the infinite as Schuon says. The Buddhist declaration Samsara is nirvana is taken to its logical development by Tantrism. Islam too affirms this assertion. But that does not mean that every body can assert this. It is only a nirvanic consciousness, a soul that has already passed away in the experience of fana, which can assert it. Tantric celebration of the world of matter reflects the metaphysical view that the world is the extension (Prasara) or emission (visarga) of the Absolute. The world is real being grounded in the Absolute with tantrism Islam does not take a passive view of the Absolute. Islam, like Saivism and Tantrism forgrounds positive divine unlike Hinduism and Buddhism. Allah is personal dimension is much foregrounded in the Quran. All this has direct consequence in affirmation of human individuality. Dynamism inherent in the Islamic conception of deity is reflected also in Islam’s eulogization of change as sign of God. Islam sees time as a moving image of Eternity of God. Like Tantrism which interprets the non-dual Absolute in terms of I-consciousness Islamic theism looks at Reality in personal terms. Sufism, even though sharing a unitarian (or monistic) metaphysics has produced intensely devotional poetry that takes God as a Person, the Beloved with whom the over communes. Sufi and tantrik absolutisms are theistic because the Absolute is predicated with such powers as will, knowledge and action. Islamic and Tantric theisms finds best expression in their idea of liberation. They do not look at liberation as an escape from life in the world. “I” consciousness expresses itself through its enrrgetic powers, in the form of the subject, means of experience and the object of experience at all the levels of existence. Saivism and Tantrism have taken bipolar view of the Absolute the couple of Siva and Sakti. The dynamic aspect implies an affirmative view of the world.
Sufism and Saivism-Tantrism have, like certain other traditions interpreted man as microcosmos. This implies that a positive view of the body is also taken Sufism locates different Prophets in different parts of the body. Saivism posts unity of consciousness and body as Abhinavgipta says: “One should think of the body as full of all the paths (adhvan). Variegated by the workings of time, it is the abode of all movements of time and space. The body seen in this way is all the gods, and must therefore be the object of contemplation, veneration and sacrifice. He who penetrates into it finds liberation.5 This passage has much in common with secret teaching of Sufis. Different lataiyif (Sufi equivalent of Saivte chakras) are all within the body and are to be activated by various methods. The pleasures of the flesh are seen by the Tantriks, as by such Sufis as Ghazali, as foretaste for the bliss achieved on salvific enlightenment. For a tantriha all pleasures are basically spiritual in nature. They are drops from the “ocean of Siva” Bliss. Aesthetic joy is not a property of an object. As an activity of the senses, aesthetic pleasure signifies the pulsation of the cosmic consciousness of Siva Islamic aesthetics based and God’s beauty and Sufi celebration of nature of earthy symbols of the Beloved, the haunting music of Sufi verse and beauty of Islamic architecture all are the feast of senses Islamic metaphysics gives important place to God as Jameel (Beautiful). Sufis have been criticized for venerating earthy beauty of women and young boys. Ibn Arabi’s case had caused a scandal. From the Sufi metaphysical viewpoint God is the real enjoyer all experience. He is the only Beauty that there is. He is Bliss. The vision of God is a kind of highest aesthetic pleasure so Sufis take almost a Tantric view of pleasure (bhoga). The Quran records a statement “who has forbidden the good things of the world.” Islam has not forbidden meat and rejected ascetism. ‘Affirmative transcendence” is thus as characteristic of Islam as it is a Saivism, especially Tantric Saivism. Islam, like Tantrism, true to its unitarian metaphysics, does not maintain dualism of the sacred and the profane, between the temporal and the eternal, between God and the world. It is due to impure between God and the world. It is due to impure dualistic perception or lack of spiritual knowledge that differentiation as opposites are experienced at the empirical level. Every phenomenal entity is the sacred icon of the Absolute. Nothing is really unlawful for the one who has transcended the dichotomy of poison and sugar as Rumi has said. A realized person is no longer under any kind of bondage. He discovers law within and does not feel it as being imposed from without. Sufism, unlike Tantrism, is ever respectful of exoteric laws though fully aware of its relativity. In the vision of God all dichotomies including the dichotomy of subject and object is transcended. God is the only witness, the servant has submitted and surrendered and thus disappeared by virtue of Islam from the scene and subsists in God.
Sufi metaphysicians have rejected the view that attributes are really separate from essence. The Trika view is similar. For the Trika attribute is the very being of the substance. The power of knowledge, for instance, constitutes the very essence of the substance. The distinction between the substance (or the Essence for the Sufis) and attributes is an imaginary one. The various powers of the Absolute are aspects of the Absolute. In the language of the Trika, these powers are “the vimarsa or the Svantantra Satkt of the Absolute.
The Trika established its non-dualism by the theory of reflection. The world is the reflection of Siva. The reflection though ontically not the same as that which is reflected is yet non-different from the latter. It is both real and unreal. Real because its cause is the real “so far as reflection is not what it appears to be, it is unreal (p189). It has reality though a derived one. The term abhasa (appearance) is a reflection which is reflected outside of the mind in contrast to Vimarsa which signifies the forms of reflection or thinking which occurs within the mind and does not get reflected outside ideas within the mind of Siva (Ibn Arabi would call these Ayani-sabita) get externalized which is meant by abhasa. The world, according to the Trika, is a projected appearance of the all inclusive consciousness. The world is real, objectively existing though not of material nature. Ontologically however the world is of the status of dream or appearance. It is false (mithya); unreal (nihsiya). This is the position of Sankjara and Ibn Arabi as well. However it has epistemic reality in Saivism.There isn’t so drastic a difference between nondualistic Vedanta and Saivism on the ontological status of the world really though the contrary view has ofteern been projected. There have been great attempts in the history of Saivism to prove that Saivism represents the essence of Vedanta. On the plane of realization – and it is this that really counts for all mystical traditions rather than dogmas or opinions or formulations of theologies – there is agreement between Vedanta and Saivism. The methods used to attain that realization are different, background attitudes towards certain things such as the pleasures of the world are different but the end is the same. Means may differ and means can vary from individual to individual. There is a famous Sufi adage that there are as many paths to God as there are souls. Metaphysics ( rational metaphysics) and theology don’t save. Buddha’s silence over fourteen metaphjysical and theological questions is quite warranted from the salvific perspective which is the fundamental thing for the creatures caught in samsara. All the scrtiptures are a means; all the dogmas are a means; they are not always concerned with truth as such but with the saving truth, the truth that will be efficacious for salvation. Scriptures maintain silence over many questions. Theological antimonies are explainable from this perspective. Religions don’t attempt consistent formulation of all the facets of truth; their interest lies in saving man and to that end everything, every doctrine, can be an upaya. The concept of personal God is an upaya and it works. The pure truth of Absolute may go into the background and for most of the believers contemplation over the truth plain and naked is quite difficult. Seen from the the perspective of pure metaphysics that sees Absolute as the First Principle rather than personal God the conflict between theistic Sufism and Saivism, nontheistic Buddhism and Taoism disappears. At the plane of Absolute everything is naughted or oned. All religions in their esoteric dimension are geared towards realizing this truth of the Absolute.
To the tricky question if all is Siva wherefrom has come ignorance. The Trika reply is quite straight forward. It is the Lord himself who is the cause of ignorance. The Lord, while concealing his divine nature appears as bound self which, on account of ignorance thinks of itself as being different from everything that is in the world as well as from the Lord. Islam also takes the Lord to be responsible for leading servants astray. Ibn Arabi’s explication of the problem of disbelief or ignorance is superb and converges with Saiva view.
Tantrism and Saivism have enumerated seven mystical centers as follows:
i) Muladhara (Root cakra) situated at the base of the rectum and the genitals, represents the element earth.
ii) Savadhisihana (Own-Abode) the base of sexual organ. Represents water.
iii) Mampura (Jewelled city.) in the region of the navel. The symbol of fire.
iv) Anahata. (Unstruck sound). In the region of the heart. It represents the element air. Also called the hrt-cakra or heart centre.
v) Visuddha (Immaculate). Base of the throat. Represents the element ether.
vi) Ayna (command) Between two eyebrows.
vii) Siahasrara cakra. Thousand petelled lotus. Top of the head.
Sufi classification of latayief is slightly different but certain important centres are common between them.
The masters of traditional wisdom see correspondences for almost every significant symbol of different traditions. Frithjof Schuon, the greatest exponent of Sophia Perennis in the twentieth century sees the symbol of Shiv linga and Quranic Calamus or Pen mentioned in the first five revealed verses of the Quran. The exoteric authorities are unaware of the significance of both of these symbols.
In Pasputism there are practices similar to those used by the sect of malamitya of Sufis. To shed off one’s ego or self-esteem which is the greatest veil between man and God the Sadhaka, poses to behave in public in such a manner outwardly as will incur censure and insults. However inwardly the Sadhaha must be pure, self controlled and reasonable.
Though Saiva sects differ from each other in the concept of moksha they unanimously affirm bhakti as the path to moksha. It is bhakti that is the royal road to God in Sufism.
Thus our arguments so far demonstrate the limitations of such assertions as the following among scholars of Saivism.
1 The fundamental doctruibnes of saivism and Islam are very different (B.N. Pandit in Aspects of Kashmiri Saivism, p.238.)
2 The absolutistic theism of the Trika differs radically from the monism of Sankara as well as from Semitic forms of theism. (Moti Lal Pandit in his preface to The Trika Saivism of Kashmir)
3 The God of Semitic Theism is so remote and transcendent that the gap between the Uncreate God and the created is unbridgeable.(ibid)
Perennialist contention that Saivism and Sufism are both subsumable under the rubric of Perennial Philosophy and share metaphysical basis is borne out in the history of Kashmir’ mysticism. Lalla’s verse is not best approached on exclusivist theological plane. We must rise to the plane of metaphysics to make sense of her and her whole ouvere and her reception in Kashmiri history as Aarifa as well as Saivite. Religious or theological straightjacketting fails in her case as she speaks from the realizational metaphysical domain. We can see how misfounded are those attempts that try to marginalize her Saivite in comparison with her Sufi ( or voice versa) thought. Like Rumi her place is placeless and her track trackless. She can’t be circumuscribed in theological categories. If we understand the metaphysical content and basis of religions we have no difficulty in putting her in a context of perennial philosophy which is rooted in the inclusive Absolute rather than the exclusivist dogmatic exoteric theologies. She inherited and organically fused inher own way Shaivism, Upansadic wisdom and Sufism. Her transcendence of dualist plane is revealed by the fact that her religious identity is still a matter of dispute. The message of Nooruddin and Lalla is hardly distinguishable. Shaivism comes close to Islamic metaphysical doctrines and “wahdatul wajoodi” thought and that accounts for Lalla being at home in either of them. It doesn’t regard phenomenal world as unreal but as the self expression of Shiva, His poem, His art. It thus sees God both as Immanent (Sakti) as well as Transcendent(Siva). If Shiva is all then He isn’t different from an ordinary man who laughs and weeps,sneezes and yawns. This affirmation of world & life, despite its renunciatory ethic or asceticismcharacterizes Kashmiri mysticism. The body too is a temple of God& thus its needs can not be ignored. There is no escapism but positive acceptance of Immanent existence.
Don’t torment your body with the pangs of thirst and hunger,
Whenever it feels exhausted take care of it.
The following Vaakh is the essence of her mysticism:
Lord Shiva is watching out
Treats Hindus & Muslims as one
If you have prowess, know yourself
Therein lies the knowledge of God.
)
For her there is no difference between “I” and the “other”( par te pan); immanence and transcendence, universal and individual; consciousness, subjective and objective reality being but aspects of
the ultimate reality which is indivisible.
Sheikh Nuruddin successfully translated metaphysical content of Sufism in Rishism that appropriated Saivite tradition as well. It is hardly worth debating whether he was a Buddhist or a Muslim. The perennialists have shown that by living one tradition on all planes one lives all the traditions revealed from heaven.
Philosophical reduction of metaphysical content is as dangerous and unwarranted as that of theological appropriation or reduction. To discuss Saivism as a philosophical school in the manner of modern academic discipline of philosophy and to use the terms current from Aristotle in the Western philosophical tradition that is largely oblivious of their complete metaphysic which is the prerogative of the East as has been done in many studies is a gross error and ends in endless confusion rather than a meaningful comparative dialogue. Like Indian darsanas which again are mistranslated as philosophicval schools Saivism represents an alternative darsana, fundamentally not different from Vedanta and can’t be discussed in the terms of modern Western philosophical framework. Philosophy here is tied to moksha ideal and is not a merely rational treatment of the question. The perennialists have revolted against using such terms as pantheism or even monism in describing different darsanas. To assert that Saivism is theistic while as absoltistioc Vedanta is not is to misunderstand both. Theism is put in the proper perspective with both its limitations and strengths by the perennialists who see it as a translation though not an exact one or always indispensable one of the truths of pure metaphysics. Theology caters to sentimentality and individual variation. Pure metaphysics transcends all individualistic or sentimental appropriations. Theism is transcended by esoterism and metaphysics and it has to be. The Absolute can’t be correctly described in theistic terms. It is transtheistic entity. In fact all integral traditions including all Semitic religions approached from a metaphysical perspective are seen to be rooted in the Absolute. Thus all religions are really absolutistic or transtheistic. However all those traditions that are generally supposed to be nontheistic or transtheistic or absolutistic don’t exclude or delegitimize a theistic reading. Theism stands appropriated by them though clearly transcended. So theistic-absolutistic dichotomy is deconstructed in all religious traditions. A clarification of proper relationship between theology and metaphysics on one hand and philosophy and metaphysics on the other hand is crucial to a study of both Sufism and Saivism. Without crucial distinctions between soul and spirit, reason and intellect, Being and Beyond-Being, God and Godhead we can’t properly understand various theological, phiolosophical and metaphysical dimensions of Saivism.
The perennialist approach distinguishes itself from fashionable uniformitarian syncretistic approach that fails to appreciate individuality and unique character and genius of different traditions. There are differences at dogmatic theological levels and rituals which can’t be marginalized in the name of syncretism. At the plane of theology differences are real and need to be respected. Unity is found in the divine stratosphere rather than in the human atmosphere, to use the expression of Schuon. Unity between traditions is to be found thus at transcendental metaphysical plane. This is practically realized by sages and not those phenomenologists of religion who don’t study religion religiously, that is, from the inside. Philosophers’ analyses too can’t be trusted in a domain that transcends reason and is approached through intellective intuition. Neither can be those of exoteric authorities who have not tasted first hand the nectar of transcendence.
Kashmir Saivism has given three hierarchical categories of sadhnas or ways called upayas which are different possible ways to spiritual realization. These are anavopaya or kriyppaya which includes all physical and external forms of worship and sadhna, shaktpaya or jnanpaya which comprises all mental forms of sadhna such as meditations, sambhavupaya or icchopaya, contains all spiritual sadhnas such as surrender of the ego, realization of universal unity. Sufism, as an integral tradition, combines all these ways. It recognizes the value of krioyapaya in its respect for the exoteric discipline and rituals. Its emphasis on devotion, surrender, fana, raza (acceptance of divine will) and love appropriates sambhupava. Its retreats and zikrs and different meditational techniques and its result in gnosis constitute jnanupaya. Sufism combines in itself bhakti yoga, jnan yoga and karma yoga, to borrow Vivekananda’s classification of mystical paths. All integral traditions cater to different types of mentalities and sensibilities, Advocacy of different methods in both Saivism and Sufism shows their integral synthetic character.. The following verse from Abhinavgupta’s Bodhapanchadashika (Fifteen Verses of Wisdom) shows how Saivism combines different methods of attaining to the Supreme.” When, because of the grace of Shiva is showered upon you, or due to the teachings or vibrating force of your Master or through understanding the scriptures concerned with Supreme Shiva, you attain the real knowledge of reality, that is the existent state of Lord Shiva and that is final liberation.”
Sufism gives the same reason for the existence of universe that Saivism has given. Abhnivgupta in his Bodhapanchadashika seems to echo the famous Prophetic tradition that Sufis are fond of which sates that “I was a hidden treasure and I desired to be known and so created the world.. To quote him ”The collective state of the universe is His Supreme Energy (Sakti), which He created in order to recognize His own nature.”
Thus we have argued that Saivism and Sufism resist reduction into exclusivist theological sibboleths are best comparable on mystical-metaphysical planes. Their ethics has hardly distinguishable. Accepting metaphysical reading of key theological notions and eschatological data presented in the scriptures we can decipher a fundamental transcendental unity between doctrinally divergent universes of Isklam and Saivism.
References
1 The ttraditionalist Perennialist perspective began to be enunciated in the West at the beginning of the twentieth century by the French philosopher Rene Guenon, although its precepts are considered to be timeless and to be found in all authentic traditions. It is also known as Perennialism, the Perennial Philosophy, or Sophia Perennis, or Religio Perennis or sometimes simply referred to as the traditionalist or metaphysical school. The term Philosophia Perennis goes back to the Renaissance, while the Hindu expression Sanatana Dharma – Eternal Doctrine –and the slamic expression the javidani khird or al-hikmat al-khalidah has precisely the same signification. The other founding figures of the Traditionalist School were the German philosopher Frithjof Schuon and the Ceylonese scholar Ananda Coomaraswamy. Other important figures in the traditionalist school include Titus Burckhardt, Martin Lings, Marco Pallis, Whitall N. Perry, Syed Hussain Nasr, Lord Northbourne, Leo Schaya, Philip Sherrard, Rama Coomaraswamy, J.E., Brown, Charles le Gai Eaton. There are, apart from the traditionalists themselves, several scholars and thinkers whose work exhibits, in varying degree, a strong tradituionalist influence. Mention may be made of Huston Smith,T. Izutsu, Elemire Zolla,Katheleine Raine, Brian Kebble, William Chittick, James Cutsinger, E.F. Schumacher. Other major figures of the twentieth century have been profoundly influenced by the school, including T.S. Eliot, the Romanian historian of religions Mircea Eliade, British author Aldous Huxley, and the Italian Julius Evola. Thus it has respectable though restricted following among the academic and intellectual elite in the modern West and it is this paper’s contention that there is urgent need to reckon with its claims and its explore its resources for providing a solution to certain nagging problems that Judeo-Christian-Islamic theology, and Western philosophy as well as their modernistic and post-modernistic appropriations encounter. It provides the much needed bridge between the East and the West. As such it demands our serious attention and we need to redress the criminal indifference and ignorance displayed by most academicians in the field towards it. Philosophia perennis pertains to a knowledge which has always been and will always be and which is of universal character both in the sense of existing among peoples of different climes and epochs and of dealing with universal principles. This knowledge which is available to the intellect (which in the traditionalist perspective is a supra-individual faculty distinct from reason though the latter is its reflection on the mental plane) is, moreover, contained in the heart of all religions or traditions. As Nasr says in his The Need for a Sacred Science, SUNY,1993“The philosophia perennis possesses branches and ramifications pertaining to cosmology, anthropology, art and other disciplines, but at its heart lies pure metaphysics, if this later term is understood as the science of Ultimate Reality, as a scientia sacra not to be confused with the subject bearing the name metaphysics in post-medieval Western philosophy.”(p.54) The perennialist school believes that “there is a Primordial Tradition which constituted original or archetypal man’s primal spiritual and intellectual heritage received through direct revelation when Heaven and Earth were stull ‘united.’ This Primordial Tradition is reflected in all later traditions, but the later traditions are not simply its historical and horizontal continuation.”(Ibid, p.57) The traditionalists turn the progressivist/evolutionist assumptions of modernist theorists (both “left” and “right”) and of post-modernists alike on their heads. Perennialism, if at all it may be referred to as an ism, appropriates religious and what Huston Smith calls “wisdom traditions” in their perspective.
2 In the perennialist perspective metaphysic constitutes an intuitive, or in other words immediate knowledge, as opposed to the discursive or mediate knowledge which belongs to the rational order. (Most protagonists as well as critics of concept of religious experience hardly leave this rational order in their discourse. “Intellectual intuition is even more immediate than sensory intuition, being beyond the distinction between subject and object which the latter allows to subsist.” (Ibid., p.168) Subject and object are here identified competently and this complete identification is not an attribute of any inferior or non-metaphysical type of knowledge. A consequence of this is that knowing and being are fundamentally one or two inseparable aspects of a single reality. Knowing and being are indistinguishable in the sphere where all is “without duality.” (Ibid. p.169.) From such a perspective the various “theories of knowledge” with metaphysical pretensions which occupy such an important place in modern Western philosophy (which dominate everything in case of Kant) are purposeless. As Guenon says such theories arise from an attitude of mind that originated in the Cartesian dualism and is shared by almost all modern philosophers. This attitude consists in artificially opposing knowing and being. This is antithesis of true metaphysic. The identity of knowing and being is not merely dogmatically affirmed but realized as well in the integral metaphysic. (Ibid., p.170) 3 Guenon explains the characteristics of traditional metaphysics by foregrounding the notion of metaphysiccccal realization which solves the conflict of dualism vs. monism by appealing toi experience. A merely rational argument or philosophical method can’t arbitrate the matter between dualists and monists. Sheikh Sirhindi opposed monistic interpretation of Ibn Arabi on the basis of personal experience. Dualistic interpretation of mystic experience seems to stop short at mystical as distinct from metaphysical realization. . To quote Guenon again: “the theory and meditational and other practices are a means or aids to such a realization. It need not and could not be certified or verified by other means, other persons or any kind of tests. Of course these considerations appear strange to Western people. Mystical realization is only partial and rather distant approximation or analogy of metaphysical realization. (Ibid., p.172) Consistent dualistic metaphysics doesn’t realize all the implications of metaphysical realization and seems to foreground mystical realization.
The very fact that mystical realization is of a purely religious character shows that it is confined entirely to the individual domain; mystical states are in no sense supraindividual, since they only imply a more or less indefinite extension of purely individual possibilities. Realization of this kind cannot have a universal or metaphysical bearing, and it always remains subject to the influence of individual elements, chiefly of a sentimental order. This realization is also always fragmentary and rarely controlled and doesn’t presuppose any theoretical preparation. (Ibid., p.173) Metaphysical realization is common to all Oriental thought and “mysticism.” Nondualistic metaphysics is based on this anubhava or metaphysical realization. The Spirit is not ours but it is in us and by virtue of that it is possible to realize our essential divinity, our status as nondifferent from the One Reality. Dualistic schools are not wrong when they declare essential nonidentity between the individual soul and the Siva or Absolute. The soul is not supraindividual or transpersonal Spirit. The Quran alludes to the metaphysical status of man in its verse that states that God breathed from His own Spirit into Adam. The identity of subject and object or objectless consciousness are not understandable if dualism is transported into the domain where all distinctions are by definition transcended.
Here we must point out, from the perennialist (more precisely the Guenonian reading of it) point of view the difference between religion and metaphysics. As Guenon points out the metaphysical point of view is purely intellectual while as in the religious or theological point of view the presence of a sentimental element affects the doctrine itself, which doesn’t allow of it complete objectivity. The emotional element nowhere plays a bigger part than in the “mystical” form of religious thought. Contrary to the prevalent opinion he declares that mysticism, from the very fact that it is inconceivable apart from the religious point of view, is quite unknown in the East. (An Introduction to the Study of Hindu Doctrines,2000 (1945) Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers Pvt. Ltd. New Delhi,p.124)The influence of sentimental element obviously impairs the intellectual purity of the doctrine. This falling away from the standpoint of metaphysical thought occurred generally and extensively in the Western world because there feeling was stronger than intelligence and this has reached its climax in modern times. (Ibid., p.125) Modern theistic appropriations of mystical experience by choosing to remain at the level of theology and not cognizing the metaphysical point of view (that brilliantly and convincingly appropriates such apparently divergent varieties of mystical and metaphysical realization as that of Buddhism and Christianity) cannot claim total truth as theology itself cannot do so. And it is not always possible to fully translate metaphysical doctrines in terms of theological dogmas. Only one example will suffice here. The immediate metaphysical truth “Being exists” gives rise to another proposition when expressed in the religious or theological mode “God exists.” But as Guenon says the two statements would not be strictly equivalent except on the double condition of conceiving God as Universal Being, which is far from always being the case in fact (Tillich comes close to holding this view of God), and of identifying existence with pure Being or what the Sufis call Zat or Essence which is metaphysically inexact. The endless controversies connected with the famous ontological argument are a product of misunderstanding of the implications of the two formulae just cited. It is the inadequate or faulty metaphysical background that contributes a lot to controversies on either side of the debate on religious experience in modern discourses of philosophy of religion. Unlike purely metaphysical conceptions theological conceptions are not beyond the reach of individual variations… Antimetaphysical anthropomorphism comes to the fore in this realm of individual variations. (Ibid., p.128-129).
4 Sing, Jaideva, Pratyabhijnahrdayam with English Translation and Notes, Motilal Banarsidas, Delhi,1963, p.122
5 Quoted in Moti Lal Pandit’s The Trika Saivism of Kashmir, 2003, Motilal Banarsidas, Delhi, p.102.