The age of Abhinava Gupta and a brief history of his descent.
There is no controversy as to the age of Abhinavagupta, as, unlike Somānanda and others, he is his own historian. According to his own statement, he lived in Kashmir about the end of the tenth and the beginning of the eleventh centuries A. D.
Abhinavagupta traces his descent from the famous Brahmana Attri Gupta, who, he says, lived in Antarvedi, a name which probably implies the tract of land lying between the Ganges and the Jumna. Having made a great name as a Shaiva he was invited to his court by Lalitāditya, a patron of learning, who ruled over Kashmir from 700-736 A, D., and settled down here. Many generations after him, one of his descendants, by name Varāha Gupta, established his fame as a Shaiva of great eminence, As a matter of course, proficiency in Shaiva Shāstra became the heirloom of this family. We also read that Varāha Gupta had a son, named, Narasimha Gupta, alias, Chukhala, who, like his forefathers, was also a zealous devotēe of Shiva. He was the father of Abhinavagupta, our commentator on Parā-Trimshikā, "the great scholar and Shaiva teacher and the dominant influence of his own and subsequent ages in all matters relating to Kashmir Shaivaism."
