Making sense of Tantric Buddhism: history, semiology, and transgression in the Indian traditions

Abstract

List of Figures and Tables Preface and Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations Introduction: Making Sense in and of the Human Sciences Part 1: Historiography 1. Origins Understanding Tantric Buddhism through its Origins Quest for Origins as Method in the History of Religions 2. Narrating Tantric Buddhism Poetics of Historiography Tropology of Esoteric Buddhism Historical Narrative and Ideological Implication 3. Going Native: Traditional Historiography of Esoteric Buddhism Historiography and Cosmology in Exoteric Buddhism Historiography and Cosmology in Esoteric Buddhism Observations on Structure Part 2: Interpretation 4. Semiology of Transgression Literal and the Figurative in Tantric Hermeneutics Connotative Semiotics as Exegetical Method Connotative Semiotics in Tantric Ritual Connotative Semiotics in Tantric Scripture 5. The of Indian Esoteric Buddhism Terms of Art as an Interpretative Problem Interpreting the Practice Observance I: Irony and Inversion Interpreting the Practice Observance II: Prerequisites and Temporal Frame Interpreting the Practice Observance III: ?aiva Parallels 6. Tantric Buddhist Transgression in Context Social Location of Tantric Buddhism as an Interpretative Problem Contriving Marginality Common Repertoire of Buddhist Professionals Carnivalesque or Rituals of Rebellion? But...Did They Really Do It?! Conclusion: No Two Ways About It Appendix I: Indrabhuti Story According to Pad ma dkar po (ca. 1575) Appendix II: Chapter Nine of the Buddhakapala Tantra, The (Caryapatala) Notes Bibliography Index