Trika (Kashmir Śaivism)
A living tradition within Śaivism. The disagreements in the sources are shown rather than settled.
Trika (Kashmir Śaivism) is a living tradition within Śaivism. Also written Kashmir Shaivism, Kashmiri Shaivism.
Origin
Founders named in the sources: Vasugupta, Somānanda, Utpaladeva, Abhinavagupta. No founding year is given below, because the sources read do not agree on one and a date has not been chosen for them. IEP: Vasugupta (9th century) transmitted the foundational Śiva Sūtra; Somānanda (c. 900–950) wrote the Śivadṛṣṭi, 'the first work of full-fledged scholastic philosophy' in the tradition; Utpaladeva c. 925–975; Abhinavagupta c. 975–1025, 'widely recognized as one of the greatest philosophers of South Asia', who systematised tantric theology in the Tantrāloka; Kṣemarāja c. 1000–1050. No founding year exists for the tradition as such.
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Citation
English
The language and the date you read it belong in the citation: this corpus is multilingual and articles are revised after publication.
John Shaqi. “Trika (Kashmir Śaivism).” English version. 11 August 2026. https://johnshaqi.com/articles/sect-trika-kashmir-saivism.
@misc{johnshaqi-sect-trika-kashmir-saivism-en,
author = {John Shaqi},
title = {Trika (Kashmir Śaivism)},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {English version},
url = {https://johnshaqi.com/articles/sect-trika-kashmir-saivism},
note = {Accessed n.d.}
}The word count is counted from this edition. The minute estimate uses 238 words a minute, the silent reading rate for English non-fiction reported by Brysbaert (2019). The Urdu, Hindi and Roman Urdu editions carry a word count and no estimate, because no comparable rate has been published for those scripts.