Weeks 2, 4, 6, and 8, Thursday 5.00-6.00, OCHS Library
Professor Alexis Sanderson
The Kashmirian Śaiva theologian Abhinavagupta offers in his magisterial Tantrāloka, composed c. 1000 CE, an all-embracing analysis of the Tantric Śaiva paths to liberation from the standpoint of the Śākta Śaiva system known as the Trika. In these four lectures I will complete my exposition of the opening verses of this text.
Alexis Sanderson studied first Classics and then Sanskrit at Oxford as an undergraduate (1967–71). As a postgraduate student he spent six years in Kashmir studying the Śaiva literature of that region under the guidance of Swami Lakshman Joo, the last learned exponent and practitioner of the Kashmirian Śākta Śaiva tradition. He returned to Oxford in 1977 to teach Sanskrit and Indology. He held that post until 1992, when he became a Fellow of All Souls College through election to Oxford’s Spalding Professorship of Eastern Religions and Ethics. He retired from that position in 2015. He moved to Japan in August of 2022 and there continues his work on the history of the religions of the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. He is currently writing a history of the pre-Islamic religious traditions of Kashmir and producing a critical edition and English translation of the Tantrāloka of Abhinavagupta (fl.c. 975–1025) accompanied by an extensive commentary.
