ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Abhinavagupta

Abhinavagupta is someone who lived in India a long time ago and was very famous for his knowledge and teaching about things like philosophy, religion, and spirituality. He was kind of like a super smart grandpa who knew a lot about really important things.

He was born more than 1,000 years ago in a place called Kashmir in India. Kashmir is a very beautiful place with lots of mountains and rivers. Abhinavagupta grew up there and he was very curious about the world around him. He wanted to understand everything there was to know.

He was really good at learning about all kinds of different subjects. He read lots of books and studied with some of the smartest people in India. He even wrote books of his own about things like meditation, art, and music.

One of the things that made Abhinavagupta really special was that he didn't just learn about things, he also had a lot of new ideas of his own. He was very creative and came up with lots of ways to explain complicated things so that people could understand them better.

His most famous idea was about something called "Kashmir Shaivism". This is a type of philosophy or way of thinking about the world that says that everything in the world is connected and all part of the same thing. Basically, it means that everything is one big puzzle and we're all pieces of that puzzle. Abhinavagupta talked a lot about how we can all connect with each other to create a better world.

Even though Abhinavagupta is not alive anymore, people still learn from his ideas today. He is remembered as one of the greatest thinkers of India and his ideas have influenced many people all around the world.