Chapter 1 - The doctrinal background

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Parole dans le Brahmanisme Classique, Paris, 1964, p.209 ).
Somananda and Utpaladeva, during their criticism of the
-
the
Buddhist conception, resumed Bhartṛhari's point of view. They consider that
between the two moments of consciousness in the process of perception
discursive, liable to errors, and the pure perception beyond the reality
there is a gradual and not a qualitative difference. The discursive moment
is contained in the other as the splendid fethering of the peacock pre-exists
in latent unity of the egg. The Kashmir Saiva schools venerate Bhartṛhari
as a great master. Light without thinking, says Utpaladeva, is like a crystal
in which the immobile and discontinuous shadows of things are lifelessly
reflected (Pratyabhijnākārikā, I, 5 verse 11 and commentary).
Somananda presented the monistic point of view on
Bhartṛhari's philosophy of grammar. Siddhanta Saiva Dualism upholds the
dualistic tradition of the same. According to Siddhanta Saiva Dualism, the
first category is siva, which is also called Para Bindu, and the problem of
the Philosophy of Grammar concerning the four apects of speech, is discussed
in the context of this category. Rama Kantha II in his Nada Kārikā and
Srikantha in his Ratna Traya deal with this problem from the dualistic
Saiva conception.
Very similar to, if not identical with Monistic Kashmir
Saivism, is the conception expounded by Nandikesvara in his small Käsika of
twenty-six verses, to which I
referred earlier. In the course of his
interpretation of the first aphorism of the Mahesvara Sutras, he speaks of
the metaphysical reality, which is identical with the first letter "A", as
Brahman (Nandi Kasika, 5-6), which is free from all gunas, that is present