परमार्थसार (महामाहेश्वर अभिनवगुप्त - त्रिक-दर्शन, अद्वैत शैव साधना एवं सान्वय सटीक)

38 Paramārthasāra of Abhinavagupta Bhrānter mahatī śaktirna vivektuṁ śakyate nāma. No serpent exists in a rope, but (even then) it causes dread even upto that of death. Such immense power of delusion cannot be explained or discussed fully. A hanging rope, moving this way and that way in a gentle breeze, causes immense dread when it is mistaken for a serpent in its zigzag gait. तद्वद् धर्माधर्म-स्वर्-निरयोत्पत्ति-मरण-सुख-दुःखम् । वर्णाश्रमादि चात्मन्यसदपि विभ्रमबलाद् भवति ॥ २९ ॥ 29. Tadvad dharmādharma-svar- nirayotpatti-maraṇa-sukha-duḥkham Varṇāśramādi cātmanyasadapi vibhrama-balād bhavati. In the same way the matters like piety and sin, heaven and hell, birth and death, pleasure and pain, social castes and stages of life, and so on, do never exist in reality, but appear in the self on account of the effect of delusion. No diversity is the real truth. Its existence is simply apparent. It shines in the Ātman as reflections shine in a mirror. All this appears to a bonded being on account of the delusion caused by Māyā. Śaivism, taking in this way the phenomenon as a mere apparent entity, comes very close to the Advaita Vedānta. But Māyā the basic cause of such reflectional appearance of the pheno- menon, has been taken in Śaivism as the divine power of the Ātman, while it is being accepted in the Advaita Vedānta as a foreign entity coming into contract with the Ātman and manifes- ting it falsely as God, soul and insentient substances. Śaivism propounds thus a highly theistic absolutism, while the fundamen- tal principle of the Advaita Vedānta is sufficiently nihilistic in character. एतत् तदन्धकारं यद् भावेषु प्रकाशमानतया । आत्मानतिरिक्तष्वपि भवत्यनात्माभिमानोऽयम् ॥ ३० ॥ 30. Etat tadandhakāraṁ yad bhāveṣu prakāśamānatayā Ātmānatirikteṣvapi bhavatya- nātmābhimāno'yam. The darkness of delusion is this that all existent phenomena