Kashmiri philosophers

South Asian Islamic philosopher, poet and politician

Ānandavardhana (c. 820 – 890 CE) was a Kashmiri court poet and literary critic, honored with the title of Rajanak during King Avantivarman's reign. Anandavardhana authored the Dhvanyāloka, or A Light on Suggestion (dhvani), a work articulating the philosophy of "aesthetic suggestion" (dhvani, vyañjanā).

Utpaladeva (c. 900–950 CE) was a Shaiva tantrik philosopher, theologian and poet from Kashmir. He belonged to the Trika Shaiva tradition and is a thinker of the Pratyabhijñā school of monistic idealism. His Īśvarapratyabhijñākārikā (IPK, Verses on the Recognition of the Lord) is a central text for the Pratyabhijñā school of Shaiva Hindu philosophy. Utpaladeva was also a tantrik guru and a religious bhakti poet, having authored the influential Śivastotrāvalī (A Garland of Hymns to Śiva), a collection of Shaiva hymns that remain popular with Kashmiri Shaivas.

Somananda (875–925 CE) was one of the teachers of Kashmir Shaivism, in the lineage of Trayambaka, and the author of the first philosophical treatise of this school (the ). A contemporary of Bhatta Kallata, the two were the first of the Kashmiri Shaivites to propose the concepts of non-dual Shaivism in a rigorous and logical way. Somananda lived in Kashmir—most probably in Srinagar, where most of the later philosophers of the school lived—as a householder.