Suny Hindu Studies Allama Prabhu and the Shaiva Imagination, (Paperback)

<p><b>Engages with the life and ideas of the twelfth-century Shaiva mystic and philosopher-poet Allama Prabhu.</b></p><p>In his last, profoundly innovative work, D. R. Nagaraj (1954-1998) engages with the twelfth-century Shaiva mystic and philosopher-poet Allama Prabhu, whose enigmatic writings have perplexed many and thus resisted analysis. Nagaraj situates Allama in three intellectual contexts: the medieval philosophical world built around the worship of Shiva; the pan-Indian bhakti tradition; and, most broadly, Indian mystical thought. This framework enables a reconstruction of Allama through the poet's engagement with fellow poet-spiritualists (<i>vachanakaras</i>) such as Basava, as well as with the Kashmiri Shaiva philosopher Abhinavagupta and the founder of Hindu monasticism Gorakhnath. Nagaraj's close readings of Allama's <i>vachanas</i> offer a vision of Shaiva bhakti that seems to contradict the erotic and romantic expressive modes of Sringara <i>rasa</i> while tracing the limits of language for an understanding of the divine. Allama, Nagaraj suggests, is an epistemological iconoclast who expands the horizons of language and thought.</p><p>Through these explorations, Nagaraj decolonizes the standard modes of inquiry and critiques certain settled notions in Indian philosophy, revealing himself as a postcolonial scholar whose "hermeneutics of suspicion" leads to a novel understanding of Indian texts and traditions. Unifying literary criticism with critical theory, philosophical inquiry, and the history of ideas, the book's focus on a specific religious tradition--Virashaivism--is never singular, making it as much a work for scholars of Indian spiritualism and religious thought as for those interested in frameworks that transgress Eurocentricism. Translated into English by Kannada philosopher N. S. Gundur, this is a major contribution to studies of Indian philosophy and literature.</p>

• Suny Hindu Studies Allama Prabhu and the Shaiva Imagination, (Paperback)
• Author: D R Nagaraj
• ISBN: 9798855807301
• Format: Paperback
• Publication Date: 2026-11-02
• Page Count: 436