Aham, Subjectivity, and the Ego: Engaging the Philosophy of Abhinavagupta

This paper engages Abhinavagupta’s (11th C.) philosophy of “aham,” “I” or “I-am,” in a global philosophical platform. Abhinavagupta reads aham to ground speech in experiencing and expressing subjectivity. The aham, in this background, has three distinctive topographies: aham as the ego of the empirical subject, aham as the subject of experience that objectifies the ego, and aham as the ego that embodies the totality (It is generally problematic to assign any specific concept to a particular philosopher. For example, the all-embracing nature of aham is already found in Utpala’s writings (Dyczkowski 1990, p. 11). Nemec (2011, p. 42) reiterates the fact that the concept of pūrṇāhantā or the vocabulary to support this concept is absent in Somānanda. Besides Abhinava, I am incorporating later Śākta commentarial texts in this analysis. My justification for giving Abhinava main credit is that he formally established this concept and later commentators primarily expand upon his insights. See also Bäumer (2011, pp. 101–124). While aham in its most exalted sense relates to the absolute I-consciousness that embraces the totality, it immanently encloses all individualities within its embrace, enveloping all to find a singular identity through its transcendental gaze. Aham in this sense is the “I-am” in which all those within the parameters discover their individuality while also finding collectivity. It is the I-sense that determines or delimits the parameters of the body, and in this sense aham also stands for the embodied self-experience.