Utpaladeva

Utpaladeva was the son of a man named Udayākara. He says so himself, in the closing verse of his work on the recognition of the Lord.

His teacher was Somānanda. When Utpaladeva came to write a commentary on the Śivadṛṣṭi, going through it word by word, he opened it by saying who had asked him to.

विभ्रमाकरसंज्ञेन स्वपुत्रेणास्मि चोदितः ।

पद्मानन्दाभिधानेन तथा सब्रह्मचारिणा ॥

ईश्वरप्रत्यभिज्ञोक्तविस्तरे गुरुनिर्मिते ।

शिवदृष्टिप्रकरणे करोमि पदसंगतिम् ॥

vibhramākarasaṃjñēna svaputrēṇāsmi cōditaḥ ।

padmānandābhidhānēna tathā sabrahmacāriṇā ॥

īśvarapratyabhijñōktavistarē gurunirmitē ।

śivadr̥ṣṭiprakaraṇē karōmi padasaṃgatim ॥

I have been urged by my own son, named Vibhramākara,

and likewise by my fellow student, named Padmānanda,

in the treatise my guru made, whose full breadth is told in the Īśvarapratyabhijñā,

the Śivadṛṣṭi, to set out how its words connect.

So he had a son, Vibhramākara, who asked him for it. And he had not been alone at Somānanda's feet: Padmānanda, who studied beside him, asked for it too.

He also wrote a work of his own. It took what his guru had taught in the Śivadṛṣṭi and set it out again in close-built verses, with reasoning for every step, and he called it the Īśvarapratyabhijñā, the recognition of the Lord. It begins like this.

कथंचिदासाद्य महेश्वरस्य

दास्यं जनस्याप्युपकारमिच्छन्

समस्तसंपत्समवाप्तिहेतुं

तत्प्रत्यभिज्ञामुपपादयामि ॥

kathaṃcidāsādya mahēśvarasya

dāsyaṃ janasyāpyupakāramicchan

samastasaṃpatsamavāptihētuṃ

tatpratyabhijñāmupapādayāmi ॥

Having somehow come to be a servant of Maheśvara,

and wishing to help people as well,

I set out the cause of gaining every fullness,

the recognition of him.

He wrote a short commentary of his own on those verses, and in it he said plainly why he had written them. By the grace of the Supreme Lord alone, he says, he had gained the wealth, so very hard to gain, of being his servant. He was ashamed to have that wealth by himself. So he would make all these people too recognise their own Lord, by the means he was about to set out, and by that gain of the highest good he himself would be content.

The whole of the long argument that follows is that recognition. The Lord is not to be reached as something far off. He is one's own self, the knower and the doer, and has never been absent; what is missing is only the recognising.

At the end of the work, Utpaladeva gave the path back to his teacher.

इति प्रकटितो मया सुघट एष मार्गो नवो

महागुरुभिरुच्यतेस्म शिवदृष्टिशास्त्रे यथा ।

तदत्र निदधत्पदं भुवनकर्तृतामात्मनो

विभाव्य शिवतामयीमनिशमाविशन्सिद्ध्यति ॥

iti prakaṭitō mayā sughaṭa ēṣa mārgō navō

mahāgurubhirucyatēsma śivadr̥ṣṭiśāstrē yathā ।

tadatra nidadhatpadaṃ bhuvanakartr̥tāmātmanō

vibhāvya śivatāmayīmaniśamāviśansiddhyati ॥

So I have laid open this new path, easy to walk,

as the great guru told it in the Śivadṛṣṭi;

whoever sets foot on it, seeing that the making of the worlds belongs to his own self,

a making that is all Śiva, and enters it without pause, is fulfilled.

In his own commentary on that verse he names him. This straight path, he says, is new: in it, in the ordinary life of the world just as it stands, Śivahood is gained by recognition alone. It was pointed out by the revered Somānanda, who had seen the form of the Supreme Lord face to face, in the treatise called the Śivadṛṣṭi. Utpaladeva had bound it in reasoning, so that it would reach the heart. One who lives with it is absorbed into Śivahood and is free while still alive.

And in the last verse of all he names himself, with his father.

जनस्यायत्नसिद्ध्यर्थमुदयाकरसूनुना ।

ईश्वरप्रत्यभिज्ञेयमुत्पलेनोपपादिता ॥

janasyāyatnasiddhyarthamudayākarasūnunā ।

īśvarapratyabhijñēyamutpalēnōpapāditā ॥

So that people may be fulfilled without effort, by the son of Udayākara,

by Utpala, this Recognition of the Lord has been set out.

He also wrote hymns to Śiva. Kṣemarāja, who later wrote a commentary on them, tells what happened to them afterwards. Utpaladeva, he says, who always had his own self before his eyes as Maheśvara, made these hymns out of kindness to those who asked; among them were a hymn of gathering, a hymn of victory and a hymn of devotion, and some verses of daily praise, each verse standing by itself. Later, Śrī Rāma and Ādityarāja found them all mixed together and set them out, hymn by hymn. And Kṣemarāja had heard that a man named Viśvāvarta arranged them in twenty hymns, giving the hymns names of his own choosing. It is those twenty hymns that Kṣemarāja explained.

The first hymn begins with a bow, and the bow is not to Śiva but to his devotee.

न ध्यायतो न जपतः स्याद्यस्याविधिपूर्वकम् ।

एवमेव शिवाभासस्तं नमो भक्तिशालिनम् ॥

na dhyāyatō na japataḥ syādyasyāvidhipūrvakam ।

ēvamēva śivābhāsastaṃ namō bhaktiśālinam ॥

Not meditating, not repeating a mantra, with no rite to bring it about,

for him Śiva simply shines: to that one, rich in devotion, I bow.

Utpaladeva's teaching went on through a student called Lakṣmaṇagupta. Abhinavagupta, who learned it from Lakṣmaṇagupta, calls Lakṣmaṇagupta 'born of Utpala', and calls Utpaladeva, the son of Udayākara, the teacher of his own teacher, who made the treatise of recognition.

Of the rest of his life nothing is told: where he lived in Kashmir, how long, or how it ended. What is left is what he chose to say: that he had become a servant of Maheśvara, and that he was ashamed to keep what he had found to himself.