ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the topic of the book, defines important terminology, explains the author’s theoretical approach, sketches the personal background of the author, and provides a chapter outline for the remainder of the book. It begins with a discussion of terminology, including the problematic nature of the term “Kashmir Śaivism,” and offers the alternative “Nondual Śaivism” or “Nondual Śaiva Theosophy” in its place. This introduction then describes the basic monistic vision of Nondual Śaivism as consisting of the cosmogonic myth of the union of the god Śiva (representing pure consciousness) and the goddess Śakti (representing the vibrational energy of consciousness). Next, the chapter relates how this monistic vision was elaborated and synthesized from tantric sources into a sophisticated religious philosophy by medieval Kashmiri exegetes from the tenth and eleventh centuries ce. A thousand years later, beginning in the 1970s, there was a sudden surge of interest in this nearly forgotten system by non-Kashmiri peoples of European descent. This contemporary revival and its new social, cultural and religious context within global consumer capitalism, New Age spiritualities and the Internet are introduced as the central themes of the book.
