ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses Indian conceptions of the subtle body, working specifically from Tantric understandings of the subtle body (puryaṣṭaka, sūkṣma śarīra) in Abhinavagupta’s Kashmiri Śaivism. Tantric cosmologies offer one of the most sophisticated maps of the subtle body that we find anywhere. This chapter details these medieval Indian conceptions of the subtle body, particularly in relation to contemporary understandings of philosophy of mind and neuroscience which address concepts of core-self, proto-self and autobiographical/narrative self. A comparison of contemporary psychological mappings of the self to Indian medieval understandings of a pyscho-physical personality that transmigrates offers a lens on how we understand the nature of the body.
