Pratyabhijna in the context of "Indian philosopher"

Idealism in philosophy, also known as philosophical idealism or metaphysical idealism, is the set of metaphysical perspectives asserting that, most fundamentally, reality is equivalent to mind, spirit, or consciousness; that reality or truth is entirely a mental construct; or that ideas are the highest type of reality or have the greatest claim to being considered "real". Because there are different types of idealism, it is difficult to define the term uniformly.

Indian philosophy contains some of the first defenses of idealism, such as in Vedanta and in Shaiva Pratyabhijña thought. These systems of thought argue for an all-pervading consciousness as the true nature and ground of reality. Idealism is also found in some streams of Mahayana Buddhism, such as in the Yogācāra school, which argued for a "mind-only" (cittamatra) philosophy on an analysis of subjective experience. In the West, idealism traces its roots back to Plato in ancient Greece, who proposed that absolute, unchanging, timeless ideas constitute the highest form of reality: Platonic idealism. This was revived and transformed in the early modern period by Immanuel Kant's arguments that our knowledge of reality is completely based on mental structures: transcendental idealism.

Kashmir Shaivism tradition is a 20th-century umbrella-term for a body of Sanskrit exegetical literature from several non-dualist Shaiva-Shakta tantric and monistic religious traditions, often used synonymously for the Trika-school or the "Philosophy of Recognition" (Pratyabhijñā). These traditions originated in Kashmir after 850 CE, as an adaptation to upper-class Hindu norms of 'wild' tantric Kaula traditions. Trika Shaivism later spread beyond Kashmir, particularly flourishing in the states of Odisha and Maharashtra.

Defining features of the Trika tradition are its idealistic and monistic pratyabhijna ("direct knowledge of one's self," "recognition") philosophical system, propounded by Utpaladeva (c. 925–975 CE) and Abhinavagupta (c. 975–1025 CE), and the use of several triades in its philosophy, including the three goddesses Parā, Parāparā, and Aparā.

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.

Utpaladeva was a student of Somānanda (875–925 CE) and an influence on the exegete Abhinavagupta, whose works later overshadowed those of Utpaladeva. However, according to the Indologist Raffaele Torella "most of Abhinavagupta’s ideas are just the development of what Utpaladeva had already expounded."