Bettina Baumer
Abhinavagupta’s Hermeneutics of the Absolute Anuttaraprakriya
This study by Bettina Baumer is important and welcome because it deals with what may well be considered as the very core-metaphysically and mystically-of Abhinavagupta's teaching, and of what he still can tell and teach us. Its importance is, of course and foremost, due to the fact that it deals with a work by Abhinavagupta who-as Bettina Baumer forcefully says in her introduction-is undoubtedly one of the most remarkable.
Mysticism in Shaivism and Christianity
If mysticism is hard to define, what is it then ? Or, why have mystics often spoken about what they have realized - notwithstanding the 'unspeakability' of a spiritual experience ? And, yet more significantly, how can a meeting point of different religious traditions be discovered at the mystical level ? Focussing on these and other related questions, eminent scholars from varying religious traditions here explore the nature of mystical experience in two of the world's major traditions: Hinduism and Christianity.