Dear Deshpande Sir,

I am well aware of the problem that you mention. I have come across this question so many times. Not only the Anubhavāmṛta, but also parts of Jñāneśvara's commentary on the BG resonate with a certain non-dual philosophical notion. But this parallel resonance of ideas and metaphors is very commonly present in the intellectual history of Sanskrit systems at large. But I do not have any good reason to create a narrative about why it should be either influenced by or attached to "Kashmir Śaivism". Whatever the latter term stands for, we have certainly witnessed it rather becoming fashionable to attach all non-dual notions either to "Kashmir Śaivism" or to Abhinavagupta and it also sounds esoterically pleasing to uninformed quasi-modern sensibilities. In a sense, this is what Mādhavācārya (author of the Sarvadrśanasaṃgraha) was doing, at one point in time, placing the svātantrya-advaita-vāda or pratyabhijñā-darśana between the Vaiṣṇava vedānta and Nyāya-vaiśeṣika. Even Madhusūdana Saraswati in his commentary on the Śivamahimnāstotra places svātantrya-advaita-vāda somewhere between Nyāya-vaiśeṣika and Sāṃkhya-yoga. According to them, there ought to have been only one advaita, and that was Advaita-vedānta. This is what is being rhetorically repeated now where all non-dualisms are seen as leading towards "Kashmir Śaivism" and this is probably what the gentleman in the Marathi discussion group is doing.

I would rather like to believe that Jñāneśvara's non-dualism was "his" non-dualism influenced by (as you rightly pointed out) by the active Nātha practicing cults etc. of that time in what is today's Maharashtra. After all, the non-dual Krama ideas were not confined to Kashmir alone. Even though I am not completely sure, but at a point in time I thought this association of Jñāneśvara and Kashmir Śaivism was initiated by Dilip Citre in his English translation of the Anubhavāmṛta (Sahitya Academi, 1996), but the concocted narrative sounds even older. If you read Citre's introduction, he says "I had begun to realize that the seed of Anubhavamruta was to be found in Vasugupta/Kallata's Spandakarikas and Shivasutras and/or to the tradition attributed to Gorakhanatha who in turn could have been influenced by Kashmir Shaiva doctrines." (p. 7). He further adds, "I believe that Anubhavamruta is, to a large extent, Jnanadeva's 'philosophical' response to the key texts of Kashmir Shaivism, in particular, the Shivasutras and the Spandakarikas and the later commentaries on these. In my view, therefore, the Kashmir Shaivagama texts and commentaries are essential background reading to determine contextually the significance of Anubhavamruta" (p. 7-8).

In this light, in the recent past, there have been many attempts of writing or translating the “Kashmir Śaivism” works into Marathi. For instance, to cite only one author, the Marathi translations of the Tantravaṭadhānikā (1997), the Śivasūtras (2004), the Tantrāloka (Chapter first) (2005), Spanda Śāstra (2001), Mahārthamañjarī (2003), and many more texts by Keshav Ramchandra Joshi who seems to seamlessly interpret and connect everything with something called Siddha Yoga that in my understanding is the 20th-century construction that seeks legitimacy from some or many of these archaic Sanskrit texts of Kashmiri origin.

I do not think Jñāneśvara, as original as he is in himself, should be forcefully converted to some “Kashmir Shaivism”. And I would be happy if some learned scholars of this list have an opinion on this.

Mrinal