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Rudra Press to Publish Texts by Abhinavagupta(June 2004)
A very exciting development for Rudra Press is the addition of more texts in Kashmir Shaivism to its product line. We have obtained the rights to publish in North America and Europe a work by the pre-eminent Kashmir Shaiva philosopher, Abhinavagupta. The text is entitled Abhinavagupta’s Commentary on the Bhagavad Gita, and is known in Sanskrit as the Gitartha-Samgraha.
The Gitartha-Samgraha grew out of Abhinavagupta’s desire to elucidate the secret or esoteric meaning of the Gita. The commentary relates to the Kashmiri recension of the Gita, which in places differs from the popular versions. Abhinavagupta’s work presents the Gita in an entirely different light from prior commentators in that he approaches it from a non-dualistic perspective.
The translation from Sanskrit was done by Boris Marjanovic and was published in India by Indica Books in 2002. The 368 page text includes a preface by Pandit Hemendrenath Chakravarti, a foreword by Professor Bettina Baumer, and an introduction by Marjanovic that explains the main principles of Shaiva philosophy.
Rudra Press has also engaged Boris Marjanovic to work with Pandit Hemendrenath Chakravarti on a translation of a major work by Abhinavagupta, his Tantrasara or Essence of Tantra. The Tantrasara is a summary of Abhinavagupta’s most important text, the Tantraloka (Divine Light of Tantra), which is a massive synthesis of the entire Kashmir Shaiva tradition. Because the Tantraloka was written in verse and is difficult for the ordinary disciple to understand, Abhinavagupta composed the Tantrasara in prose.
Although Abhinavagupta was a prolific author, to date few of his works have been published in English. We are pleased that we will be making these books more widely available.
Nityananda Institute, Inc.
P.O. Box 13310
Portland, OR 97213-0310 USA
Phone: 503-231-0383
e-mail: friends@rudrananda.org
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