Trika
Trika
An Indian philosophic system founded by Vasugupta in the 9th cent. A.D., having flourished among the Shivaites of Kashmir till the 14th cent., and now revising along with the Southern, Tamil, offshoot of the Shaiva-siddhanta. Its aim is the recognition of Shiva as one’s own inmost nature (see pratyabhijna) from which ensues progressive dissolution of manifoldness and reduction of the threefold (trika) reality of Shiva, sakti (q.v.), and soul to Oneness, thus reversing the “unfolding” of the universe through the 36 tativas (q.v.). — K.F.L.