Theistic Indian philosophy

Shaivism (; ) is an umbrella-term for a number of Hindu religious traditions, which worship Shiva as the supreme being. The followers of Shaivism are called Shaivas or Shaivites, numbering about 385 million people, across South Asia predominantly in India, Sri Lanka, and Nepal.

Vaishnavism (), also called Vishnuism, is one of the major Hindu religious traditions, that considers Vishnu as the supreme being leading all other Hindu deities, that is, Mahavishnu. It is one of the major Hindu denominations along with Shaivism, Shaktism, and Smartism. Its followers are called Vaishnavites or Vaishnavas (), and it includes sub-sects like Krishnaism and Ramaism, which consider Krishna and Rama as the supreme beings respectively.

nondualist Kashmiri Hindu tradition

oldest form of Shaivism

Trika was a school of Kaula which flourished in Kashmir between ca. 900 and 1300 CE, and is often used synonymously for the wole of Kashmir Shaivism, an exegetical tradition which developed in Kashmir after 850 CE, as an adaptation to upper-class Hindu norms of 'wild' tantric Kaula traditions. The Kashmir Trika-tradition developed the "Philosophy of Recognition" (pratyabhijñā), a nondual form of Tantric Shaivism.

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.