The Śaivas of the Trika tradition were the principal propagators of the nondualist idealism that flourished in Kashmir from about 900 CE. Although all the known exegetical literature of the Trika is Kashmirian or inspired by Kashmirian authors, there are reasons to doubt that the tradition was Kashmirian in origin. The earliest and probably pre-Kashmirian phase of its development is seen in the Siddhayogeśvarīmata Tantra, the Mālinīvijayottara Tantra, and the Tantrasadbhāva Tantra. These Tantras lack the exegetes' doctrine that the world is the projection in and of consciousness, and their liturgies and yogic systems share the absence of the goddess Kālī/Kālasaṃkarṣiṇi, whose cult was later central to the Trika.

In the earlier period (probably before 800 CE) Trika Śaivism is defined by a system of ritual whose goal is the assimilation of the...