2015
Gold plated bronze
Large: 5 x 4 x 2 cm
Small: 2.5 x 2 x 1 cm



In the Trika Śaivism of Kashmir, the Anuttara is that than which there is nothing higher, nothing greater, nothing prior, nothing more intimate, nor closer to the sacred Heart of reality. It expresses the always-already-prior transcendental nature of Supreme Consciousness, meaning that whatever is transpiring on the relative level of life is taking place within the pre-existent ever-present plane of the Absolute. The Anuttara is therefore that which always was and always will be. The sculpture gives form to this ultimately formless condition, embodying the primacy of Consciousness and the direct path to its realisation.

“This Supreme Plane is neither something that exists nor does not exist, nor both, and because it is utterly beyond the range of speech in its ultimacy, is firmly and strongly and stably established and rooted in the path of the Anuttara, than which there is nothing Higher, and thus is both paradoxically based and founded on the great Śakti Potency and yet also devoid of such [outwardly expressed manifested or visible condition] of the great Śakti potency. Thus, those supremely refined beings purified by that Supreme Reality of Consciousness in the midst of which they take their seat and place, are thus not limited nor confined to any particular means or method. Rather they set their feet, so to speak, on that very path of the Anuttara Incomparable Than Which There Is Nothing Higher.”
- Abhinavagupta, Tantrāloka 2.33-34 (trans. Paul Muller-Ortega)

Acknowledgment:
The basis of this form was inspired by an oral description by Dharmabodhi Sarasvatī of the Anuttara.