Tantric Traditions Research Articles

The power of Tantra: religion, sexuality and the politics of South Asian studies

In the West, the varied body of texts and traditions known as Tantra for more than two centuries has had the capacity to scandalize and shock. For European colonizers, Orientalist scholars and Christian missionaries of the Victorian era, Tantra was generally seen as the most degenerate and depraved example of the worst tendencies of the so-called 'Indian mind': a pathological mixture of sensuality and religion that prompted the decline of modern Hinduism. Yet for most contemporary New Age and popular writers, Tantra is celebrated as a much-needed affirmation of physical pleasure and sex: indeed as a 'cult of ecstasy' to counter the perceived hypocritical prudery of many Westerners. In recent years, Tantra has become the focus of a still larger cultural and political debate. In the eyes of many Hindus, much of the western literature on Tantra represents a form of neo-colonialism, which continues to portray India as an exotic, erotic, hyper-sexualized Orient. Which, then, is the 'real' Tantra? Focusing on one of the oldest and most important Tantric traditions, based in Assam, northeast India, Hugh B Urban shows that Tantra is less about optimal sexual pleasure than about harnessing the divine power of the goddess that flows alike through the cosmos, the human body and political society. In a fresh and vital contribution to the field, the author suggests that the 'real' meaning of Tantra lies in helping us rethink not just the history of Indian religions, but also our own modern obsessions with power, sex and the invidious legacies of cultural imperialism.

On the Making of the Tibetan Translation of Laksmī's Sahajasiddhipaddhati: 'Bro Lotsā ba Shes rab Grags and his Translation Endeavors. (Materials for the Study of the Female Tantric Master Laksmī of Uddiyāna, part I)

AbstractThe medieval Tantric literature entails many uncertainties about authorship and dating. The line between authentic and pseudepigraphical in this genre has traditionally been very fluid, and every Tantric text needs to be treated with due caution. In the case of the Sahajasiddhipaddhati, the Tibetan tradition maintains its author to be the 9th–10th century female master Laksmī from Uddiyāna. Given this work's significance, its possible female authorship and its inclusion of hitherto unresearched hagiographies of twelve Uddiyāna Tantric teachers including four women, it is most crucial to examine its provenance. If its authenticity can be established, the text would become one of the earliest hagiographical collections of the Indian Tantric tradition, predating by two to three centuries Abhayadattaśrī's standard anthology, Caturaśītisiddhapravrtti, which differs considerably from Laksmī's work. The Sahajasiddhipaddhati is only extant in a Tibetan translation by the Kashmirian scholar Somanātha and the Tibetan translator 'Bro Lotsā ba Shes rab Grags. Since the translated work is undated, the investigation of its provenance must begin with ascertaining the date of its Tibetan witness. Through a wide-ranging reading of medieval Tibetan historical sources and colophons of 11th-century Tantric works, it will be concluded that the translation was produced in Nepal somewhere between the years 1070 and 1090. The discovery sets a terminus ante quem for the Sanskrit original, placing its composition at least a century earlier than Abhayadattaśr¯ı's compilation.

Encountering the (Divine) Mother in Hindu and Christian Hymns

AbstractIn Divine Mother, Blessed Mother, the book from which the following excerpts are drawn, I ask about what Christians are to do with the invitation and the powers of sacred Hindu hymns addressed to the Divine Mother, Divine Consort, the Supreme Goddess, particularly in relation to the tradition of Mary available to Catholicism. The book's third chapter explores how texts from the Tantric tradition, such as the Saundarya Lahari, can assist in awakening our Catholic religious and inter-religious imaginations. In the passages excerpted below, I approach this question by setting my reflections on the Saundarya Lahari ("Flood of Bliss, Flood of Beauty") side-by-side with my reading of the Stabat Mater, a medieval hymn to Mary ("Flood of Sorrow, Flood of Love"). Since my reading of the Saundarya Lahari cannot be reproduced here in full, due to spatial restrictions, I refer the reader to the book itself for a more detailed exegesis of the Hindu hymn.

TheCakrasamvara Tantra: Its History, Interpretation, and Practice in India and Tibet

AbstractThis essay explores the history of theCakrasamvara Tantraand its related practice traditions. Beginning with the traditional Cakrasamvara origin myths, it introduces evidence concerning social context in which it was likely composed, and explores the debate concerning the degree to which it was influenced by Hindu Shaiva tantric traditions. It argues that the development of this tradition cannot be fully understood without taking into consideration the political ramifications of the tradition's mythology and iconography. The essay also overviews both the major practices associated with this tradition, and provides a short history of its transmission to Nepal and Tibet.

Exegesis, Theology, and Spirituality: Reading the Dvaya Mantra According to Vedānta Deśika

There is a significant body of literature on the meaning and use of mantras in Hindu and other Indian traditions (see, for example, Alper 1989; Coward and Goa 1991; Padoux 2003; Patton 2005).2 Much is known today about Vedic mantras and their use and their interpretation in the systematic analyses of the Mimamsa (see Clooney 1990: 116?22); the importance of mantras in ancient and contemporary devotional traditions too is clear, and texts such as the Laksml Tantra instruct us amply on the use of mantras in certain Tantric traditions (see Gupta 2000: particularly 391-98). But we still require a better sense of how mantras fit into the worldview and practice of specific communities in accord with their own self-understanding. There is a limit to how much of this richer understanding can be acquired from texts, apart from the living traditions of speech and practice; but it would be a mistake to overlook how traditions have explained mantras and highlighted their significance in their written texts, often at great length. In this essay I take a single example from the Srivaisnava Hindu tradition, an ancient tradition of South India, devoted to worship of Narayana as the sole God, along with his consort, Sri Laksml. I will show that its sources give us very ample information by which to understand how and why particular mantras (though I give just one extended example) are meaning ful for that ancient and continuing community. In Srivaisnava sources we find three particularly cherished mantras1, that encode in three ways prapatti or saranagati, the act of taking refuge with the divine couple: the Tiru Mantra, awn namo narayanaya (aum, praise to Narayana), a confession of the utter dependence of all beings on that divine person; the Carama Sloka, sarvadharman parityajya mam ekam saranam vraja, aham tva sarvapapebhyo moksayisyami ma sucah (Having completely given up all modes of righteousness, to Me alone come for refuge. From all sins I will free you. Do not grieve), as the divine invitation to take refuge with the divine person and live one's life without self-righteousness; and the Dvaya Mantra, srimannarayanacaranau saranam

Remembering Ourselves

Through a brief cultural genealogy of the West’s encounter with Asian Tantric traditions from the late 1880s through the early 1980s and some personal reflections on the controversies surrounding the author’s Kali’s Child, this essay suggests that contemporary Indology’s orienting turn to Tantric texts and traditions and its occasional “excessive” focus on sexuality and gender do not derive in any direct or primary sense from Western colonialism, as is often argued, but rather from the altered states and newly won freedoms of a shared American- British counterculture. That is to say, Euro-American scholars turned to Tantric subjects in the 1980s and 90s because the counterculture from which they had just emerged in the 60s and 70s had earlier turned to these same traditions as “Asian countercultures” in which historical actors, accurately or no, saw their own convictions and experiences ecstatically reflected and religiously authorized. This thesis is then fleshed out through brief studies of Pierre Bernard, Sylvais Hamati, Sir John Woodroffe, Atul Behari Ghosh, Aldous Huxley, Timothy Leary, and Agehananda Bharati. Some final reflections on the poignant integrity of both the controversial scholarship and its critics conclude the essay.

Subtle Bodies, Wrathful Deities and Men in Buddhist Tantric Traditions

Combining fearsome images, ‘magical’ rites of subjugation and challenging portrayals of sexuality, wrathful deities appear to epitomize all that makes tantric Buddhism distant from early Buddhism’s traditional orientations. On one level, this distance can be attributed to processes of incorporation of ‘demonic’ elements from other indigenous religious traditions. Drawing from the theoretical perspectives of Durkheim and Mauss, however, I will argue that it is precisely this motif of ‘incorporation’ that not only gives wrathful deities their distinctive potency, but also positions them at the centre of the ambivalence that is tantric Buddhism. While the tantric Siddha, in common with Mauss’s magician, incorporates bodily leavings and peripheral rites, he also, I suggest, absorbs and negotiates potentially poisonous emotional states such as terror and anger through the medium of the subtle body, thereby forming a model of masculinity that is both a defining force within tantric Buddhism and suggestive of further investigation within anthropological studies of male cultures more broadly.

Mandala of the Self: Embodiment, Practice, and Identity Construction in the Cakrasamvara Tradition

Tantric traditions have often been ignored by scholars studying Asian social history, in part because the structure of traditions, and hence their social impact, have been poorly understood. This paper seeks to remedy this lacuna by exploring in some depth a particular tradition, that centring around the Cakrasamvara Tantra, an Indian Buddhist scripture that became the basis of a popular practice tradition in Nepal and Tibet. Following Charles Taylor and the Comaroffs, I will argue that the Cakrasamvara practice tradition encourages a construction of self-identity based on a rather different set of assumptions than those common in the West, i.e., assumptions concerning the limits and constitution of the self. I will explore the nature of this considerably more expansive and fluid sense of self and its social and historical ramifications, both in the pre-modern and contemporary manifestations of this tradition.

Indian Esoteric Buddhism: A Social History of the Tantric Movement. By Ronald M. Davidson. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002. Pp. xvii+ 475, 4 maps, 23 illustrations. $60.00 (cloth); $25.00 (paper).

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsIndian Esoteric Buddhism: A Social History of the Tantric Movement. By Ronald M. Davidson. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002. Pp. xvii+ 475, 4 maps, 23 illustrations. $60.00 (cloth); $25.00 (paper).Christian K. WedemeyerChristian K. WedemeyerUniversity of Chicago Search for more articles by this author University of ChicagoPDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by History of Religions Volume 45, Number 4May 2006 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/507859 Views: 31Total views on this site Citations: 2Citations are reported from Crossref Permission to reprint a book review printed in this section may be obtained only from the author.PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Rachel Fell McDermott Body Building in the Hindu Tantric Tradition, Postscripts: The Journal of Sacred Texts, Cultural Histories, and Contemporary Contexts 10, no.1-21-2 (Aug 2019): 70–87.https://doi.org/10.1558/post.38087David B. Gray The Cakrasamvara Tantra : Its History, Interpretation, and Practice in India and Tibet, Religion Compass 1, no.66 (Oct 2007): 695–710.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-8171.2007.00046.x

Mind and Experience in a Hindu City

Robert Levy's study of the ritual and religious or- ganization of a city in Nepal offers insights into how the peo- ple of this Hindu community are shaped by cultural context. (Hinduism, selfhood, ritual, Robert Levy) any people may assume that Robert Levy's work ended with the Tahitians, but his work in Nepal pursues themes central to his study of Tahiti. Consistent with his belief in a comparative anthropology, he continued to explore the question of how mind exists in different cultural settings, as these settings exist within different kinds of communities. Relative to Tahiti, in Nepal he finds a different kind of community, one unimagined in the wildest dreams of the South Seas: a Hindu city in the shadow of the Himalayas, a place with a caste hierarchy, an intricate ritual system, and a Tantric tradition, a place where goddesses accept blood sacrifices, and religion organizes much of life. Out of his fieldwork here comes a monumental book, Mesocosm. In it, Levy examines Bhaktapur, the city where he worked in Nepal's Kathmandu Valley, in terms of its religious organization, with a central focus on the cycles of rituals central to the civic order. What Levy offers is a study of Hinduism in an urban incarnation, of urbanism in a Hindu incarnation. The dialectical relationship is crucial. Levy shows us how Hinduism and urbanism constitute each other in a particular city, yet one that represents a historically important class of Hindu communities-those that developed as the royal centers of small Hindu states. Levy also sees Bhaktapur as relevant to the comparative understanding of a wider set of ancient cities, including the Greek cities of antiquity.

Yoga: The Indian Tradition (review)

Reviewed by: Yoga: The Indian Tradition Marzenna Jakubczak Yoga: The Indian Tradition. Edited by Ian Whicher and David Carpenter. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003. Pp. xii + 206. For anyone seeking a popular book on yoga that offers a few easy hints on how to lighten the load of everyday stress or to regain comfort and psychosomatic health through a few minutes of weekly or daily yogic practice there is no point in reaching for Yoga: The Indian Tradition, edited by Ian Whicher and David Carpenter. This book would not be of much use to the general reader interested in yoga as the system of physical and mental fitness widely propagated in the West in teach-yourself handbooks, which are now available for purchase online. Instead, the editors of this volume present a set of scholarly articles, each by a different author, exploring in depth the very complex and influential tradition of yoga from several historical and methodological perspectives. As a result, we do not receive a homogeneous and uniform image of yoga—and this exactly suits this diverse and extraordinarily rich spiritual and philosophical tradition. The interesting collection presented here is highly recommended to every serious student of Indian philosophy and religions who is able to follow the detailed interpretations of the Sanskrit sources. The book is divided into two main parts: "Classical Foundations," comprising five chapters, and "The Expanding Tradition," embracing four. As we read in the "Introduction," the nine essays collected here are intended to provide "a sense of the historical emergence of the classical system presented by Patañjali, a careful examination of the key elements, the overall character and contemporary relevance of the system, as found in the Yoga Sūtra, and a glimpse of some of the tradition's many important ramifications in later Indian religious history" (p. 1). An essay on yoga in the Mahābhārata opens part 1, followed by four chapters devoted to a detailed analysis of the oldest and most prominent text of the classical yoga system. The four chapters forming part 2 discuss, successively, the yoga of Advaita Vedānta, yoga according to Śvetāmbara Jainism and its relation to the Nāth Siddha tradition, yoga in early Hindu tantras, and yoga developed in the Vaiṣṇava Sahajiyā tantric traditions of medieval Bengal. Brockington's examination of yoga in the epic literature introduces the yoga tradition in its pre-classical and pre-systematic phase of development recorded mainly in texts such as the Mokṣadharma, Bhagavadgītā, and Sanatsujātīya. He reminds us that in the Mahābhārata the term "yoga" has a quite general and wide meaning of "practice," while the term "sāṁkhya," with which yoga is commonly associated, is understood as "theory." Thus, the terms refer not so much to philosophical positions as to spiritual methodologies. Brockington argues that Sāṁkhya and Yoga owed much to ascetic traditions outside Vedic orthodoxy, and at the phase of their development depicted in the epics they surely cannot be regarded as the fully elaborated systems we know in their later distinctive shape provided by Īśvarakrsna and Patañjali. [End Page 353] Among the themes discussed in this essay, there are different practices, such as japa, tapas, ekāgramanas or ekāntin, ekāgratā, prāṇāyäma, and dhyāna, which seem to be closely likened to the yoga techniques that had already been diffused throughout the period of the epics and were not limited to a specific school. According to Brockington, despite some essential differences between these practices and the "eightfold" technique of Patañjali, yoga practice as presented in the Mahābhārata comprises four main aspects that are also characteristic of the classical system, namely: general preparations through such things as moral conduct, diet, posture, and surroundings; the practice of breath control; the withdrawal of the senses; and concentration and meditation (p. 19). The remaining four essays in part 1, which focus on Patanjala yoga, seem to compose a distinct section of the book, which offers a variety of attitudes to the Yoga Sutra worthy of more detailed review. The subsequent articles, which offer some perspectives on the interpretation of the core treatise of classical yoga, make...

Shamanism and tantra in the Himalayas

The Himalayan kingdom of Nepal may be the only culture in the world where both shamanic and tantric techniques are still alive and in full practice today. The result of eighteen years' research, Shamanism and Tantra in the Himalayas presents for the first time a comprehensive overview of shamanism based on the knowledge and experience of the different tribes from that region. Included are original statements from the various ethnic groups and 135 colour thangkas, which act as visual guides to the specific practices of the tantric tradition. In addition to the thangkas, the book is lavishly illustrated with numerous photos of different shamanic healing ceremonies, ritual objects and culturally significant plants that have never been published before. The book also contains a wealth of original recipes, smoking mixtures, scientific tables, charts and descriptions of more than twenty plants whose psychoactive properties and uses by shamans have never before been researched or documented.

Is Buddha a Couple? Gender-Unitary Perspectives from the Lahu of Southwest China

This article explores the dynamic processes by which the Lahu people negotiate Buddhist gender ideologies according to their cosmology of gender unity. It focuses on the contesting gender symbolism embedded in the local images of Buddha as a pair of indigenous supreme gods, a non-Lahu missionary who founded Lahu Buddhism, and three charismatic Lahu monks in history. This study contributes to scholarly inquiries into the complexities and diversity of women's religious status across cultures. (Buddhism, gender, ethnicity, religion, China) ********** In recent years, feminism has created a virtual paradigm shift in religious studies (Christ 1987; King 1995:2; Sharma 2000). Yet the issue of women's religious statuses and roles remains more ambiguous and controversial in Buddhism than it is for other world religions (e.g., Joy 1995; Mann and Cheng 2001; Saliba, Allen, and Howard 2002). While some suggest that the core of Buddhist tenets contains egalitarian (Tsomo 1999:35; Ueki 2001) and feminist (Gross 1993) tendencies, others point out the perpetuation of male dominance and patriarchy in Buddhist thought (Cabezon 1985) or even criticize the religion for playing a critical role in women's oppression (Hantrakul 1988; Thitsa 1980). Meanwhile, many scholars recognize the ambiguous and conflicting representations of women and femininity in Buddhist canons and monastic institutions alike, a phenomenon described by a variety of terms, including androgyny, androcentrism, ascetic misogyny, and soteriological inclusiveness (Sponberg 1985; van Esterik 2000). Beyond general assessments of Buddhist gender ideologies, research also demonstrates the great diversity of women's positions in different traditions within the religion. Elaborating on the association of women with immorality, defilement, seduction, falsehood, and desire in early Buddhist texts (Paul 1985 [1979]:308; Ueki 2001:4), Theravada tradition reserves the right to pursue enlightenment in monastic institutions exclusively for males (Keyes 1984; van Esterik 2000:75). In contrast, the Mahayana tradition (especially the Chan tradition) highlights the general Buddhist wisdom of nondiscrimination through the concept of emptiness, which perceives the state of perfection as transcending any distinctions, including the distinction between the sexes (Paul 1985 [1979]; Ueki 2001:112). Despite the relatively egalitarian gender ideology of Mahayana Buddhism and its institutional manifestation in female ordination, femaleness is still commonly considered an undesirable state, and transformation into men is often believed necessary for women to achieve ultimate enlightenment (Crane 2001; Paul 1985 [1979]:171; Sunim 1999). Departing from mainstream Buddhism, the marginal Tantric tradition is characterized by both positive feminine symbolism in texts (Simmer-Brown 2001) and balanced gender roles in practice, manifested dramatically by the emphasis on the blissful and contemplative yoga of sexual union in achieving enlightenment (Shaw 1994:142). Situating particular Buddhist traditions in specific sociocultural contexts, scholars have also explored the dynamics and complexity of gender ideologies and institutions resulting from the interactions between Buddhism and society, particularly in state-based societies marked by gender hierarchy (Kirsch 1985; Ueki 2001; Tsomo 1999:7). Mainstream Mahayana Buddhism as practiced in the dominant societies of East Asia serves as an example. On the one hand, while the male-dominant ideologies and institutions of these societies are noted for distorting the gender-egalitarian core of Gautama Buddha's teachings (Harris 1999:62; Ueki 2001), Buddhist practice is also considered to perpetuate local patriarchal traditions in different forms to varying degrees (Cabezon 1985; Lancaster 1984). For instance, reconciling the Confucian focus on the patrilineal family and the monastic requirement for celibacy, Han Chinese monks declared the superiority of their supernatural contributions to ancestors over the social responsibility of producing sons, while the Japanese drastically transformed Buddhist monasteries into patrilineal family enterprises run by married male priests (Lancaster 1984). …

Reconstructing Tantric Sex

David Gordon White. 2003. The Kiss of the Yogini: "Tantric Sex" in its South Asian Context.Chicago: University of Chicago Press. I smile to myself as I think of a modern-day self-avowed Tantric enthusiast, maybe somewhere in California, cruising Amazon.com looking for more readings on the latest enlightening import from India: a phenomenon known as Tantra, a spiritual practice that also teaches you how to have really great sex. Workshops and seminars abound on the Internet: "Tantra Sexuality Coach—Tantra Love Skills, Private Sessions, Extended Sexual-Spiritual Orgasm;" "Become A Tantric Master—hypnotic system, demystified Tantra methods to become a superior lover;" "Tantra Workshops, Tantric Seminars, Tantra Retreats—teach you the basics of sacred sex and extended lovemaking techniques." But they are expensive—hundreds or even thousands of dollars for weekend or week-long workshops. Our budding Tantrika, deciding on the self-taught route, goes to Amazon.com and types in "Tantra" as keyword. 249 responses immediately appear: among them, Tantra: The Art of Conscious Loving, Soul Sex, Tantra for Gay Men, Ecstatic Sex: A Guide to the Pleasures of Tantra, The Essential Tantra: A Modern Guide to Sacred Sexuality; Tantra: The Yoga of Sex; Tantra for Two, and last but not least—Tantra Between the Sheets: The Easy and Fun Guide to Mind-Blowing Sex. Hmmm...so much to choose from! How about something more serious, scholarly, South Asian? There are numerous works as well by various [End Page 539] Swamis—even the Dalai Lama—and translations of Tantras. O.k., maybe that's a little too serious, too South Asian—there's probably not enough about the sex part in there. How about this one? Kiss of the Yogini: "Tantric Sex" in its South Asian Context. Perfect! Still has the sex in it, but also some substantive stuff; the Yogini sounds titillating, and the South Asian context erudite... Two clicks and two days later, David Gordon White's new book arrives on the doorstep. Our unsuspecting Tantric enthusiast opens it, and eyes eagerly skimming the text, sees these words: "California, France and Italy, in particular, are crawling with [North Americans and Europeans dressed up as Tantric specialists], many of whom advertise New Age 'retreats' or 'workshops' in 'Tantric Sex' and many other types of hybrid practice on the Internet. (xi-xii)" Uh-oh, the apostrophes around the "Tantric Sex" should have been a warning. White goes on, and our enthusiast's brows begin to furrow. "New Age 'Tantric Sex' is a Western fabrication, whose greatest promise, if one is to take its Internet advertising at face value, is longer sexual staying power for men and more sustained and frequent orgasms for women. None of this has ever been the subject matter of any authentic teaching. All is Western make-believe except for one detail: the pricey weekends and workshops the 'Tantric sex' merchants are selling cannot be had for play money. (xiv)" White closes his preface with his intent for the pages to follow: "Although I will but rarely address or describe this New Age phenomenon, I intend, by reconstructing the medieval South Asian and Kaula and Tantric traditions that involved sexual practices, to deconstruct the 'product' that these modern-day entrepreneurs of ecstasy are selling to a benighted Western public. (xv)" Bravo, David Gordon White. Solid scholarly work has been done on the demographics and economics of the modern-day Western Tantra phenomenon (White references that of Hugh Urban), and fine scholarship abounds in the discipline of Tantric Studies. But White is the first that I have encountered who makes such a sustained, intellectually impeccable, exhaustive analysis of the origins of "Tantric Sex" in order precisely to destabilize the perch from which the Western "Tantric" gurus spout their "banalities and platitudes. (xiv)" Lest I have seemed unduly smug in enjoying the discomfiture of our hypothetical Tantric enthusiast, White makes clear at the outset why there is something wrong to what these self-appointed gurus are doing: "There is and has never been a hegemonic religious institution...

The Word (Vāc) in the Cosmology and Soteriology of Kashmir Śaivism

The article deals with the meaning of the Divine Word in the agamic Kashmiri Śaiva tradition. At first, making a brief overwiev of the history of the sacred word in Indian culture, attention is drawn to the fact, that the function of word and oral language as an agent of transformation from the human realm to the divine has been perennial concern of Indian theological speculation, since language in Hinduism is nearly always identified with both human consciousness and the divine cosmos. It has been pointed out, that an elaborate mysticism of the word found in the Śaiva Tantras has Vedic precendents and presupposes the philosophy of Bhartrhari. Tantra has the assumption that man and the universe correspond as microcosm and macrocosm and that both are subject to the mysterious power of words and letters. The Tantric Kashmiri tradition, while building upon the Śaiva-Āgamas and Grammarian tradition, formulates its own unique rational theology of traidic monism and of complex verbal cosmology, wherein sacred Verbum is fundamental to both the creation of the universe and to the reintegration of the soul into the cosmos. The climax of a hermeneutics of synthesis and the sacred word exegesis is represented in Abhinavagupta’s works. Abhinavagupta’s subtle speculation on the Word extends from its mystical dimension to the intricacies of Sanskrit alphabet and linguistic speculation, from psychological subtleties to philosophical reasoning.

The Path of Power: Impurity, Kingship, and Sacrifice in Assamese Tantra

Infamous throughout both Indian and western literature as a land of black magic, violent ritual, and tribal superstition, the region of Assam in northeast India has long been imagined to be the heartland of the secret and licentious practice of Tantra. Yet, despite their infamous reputation, the Tantric traditions of Assam have seldom been explored in any serious way by modern scholarship but have instead typically been dismissed as a thin veneer of Brahminical Hinduism over a substratum of indigenous tribal religion. This article suggests a fresh approach to the study of Assamese Tantra by looking at the deep relations among Tantric ritual, political power, and kingship in ancient Assam. Using insights from Michel Fou-cault and Georges Bataille, this article argues that much of Assamese Tantra centers around the unleashing and harnessing of power {śakti) in all its forms—social, political, and spiritual alike. Above all, Tantric ritual involves a systematic transgression of the normal laws of purity in order to release the dangerous power that lies bound up with impurity and violence. As such, Tantra was naturally very attractive to many of Assam's kings, enmeshed as they were within the dangerous, often impure world of statecraft, military struggle, and the inevitable violence of political power. You are the Primordial Supreme sakti, you are all power.It is by your power that we are powerful.

Vajrayāna Art and Iconography

Iconographic imagery in the Indo‐Tibetan Buddhist Tantric (i.e., Vajrayāna) tradition is replete with polymorphic symbolic forms. Tantric texts themselves are multivalent, addressing astronomy, astrology, cosmology, history, embryology, physiology, pharmacology, alchemy, botany, philosophy, and sexuality. The Sr? Kaālacakra, a medieval Indo‐Tibetan manuscript of great import, de‐scribes ritual visualization sequences in whichpractitioners visualize elaborate manidialadesigns and deified yab‐yum (father‐mother) consort couples. The Kālacakra system is the preeminent conduit for the globalization of Tibetan Buddhism, and contemporary enactments of its initiation ceremony incorporate a variety of aesthetic genres, including sand manidiala construction and ritual dance.

Les cuisines de Laozi et du Buddha

The tradition of the Heavenly Cuisines, a psychophysiological technique aimed at salvation through abstention from food, is a major example of Buddho-Taoist interchange in medieval China. In particular, it is one of the few cases in which Buddhism is undoubtedly indebted to Taoism both scripturally and ritually. These contemplative Cuisines, originally Taoist and claimed as such by the representatives of the Dao, were adopted and adapted in the eighth century by Tantric Buddhism, which produced its own sutras on the Cuisines and attributed them to the Buddha. Clearly popular in China, these scriptures were exported to Japan toward the end of the eighth century and were integrated into the Tantric tradition of Mt. Kōya. An examination of the apocryphal sutras of the "Three Cuisines," found among the manuscripts of both Dunhuang and Mt. Kōya, along with a study of the Taoist scriptures of the "Five Cuisines," lends support to the arguments of the tenth-century Taoist Du Guangting, who denounced the Buddhist sutras as forgeries.

Transformations in the Art of Love: Kāmakalā Practices in Hindu Tantric and Kaula Traditions

Previous articleNext article No AccessTransformations in the Art of Love: Kāmakalā Practices in Hindu Tantric and Kaula TraditionsDavid Gordon WhiteDavid Gordon White Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by History of Religions Volume 38, Number 2Nov., 1998 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/463532 Views: 14Total views on this site Citations: 12Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1998 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Monika Hirmer The Self as Combination of Deities and Yantras: Divinisation Rituals among Contemporary Śrīvidyā Practitioners in India, Religions 13, no.88 (Aug 2022): 738.https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13080738Bjarne Wernicke‐Olesen Hinduism and the Goddess, (May 2022): 245–274.https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119144892.ch13Patricia Sauthoff Kaula, (Jan 2022): 765–768.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-1188-1_547Monika Hirmer 'Devi Needs those Rituals!' Ontological Considerations on Ritual Transformations in a Contemporary South Indian Srividya Tradition, Religions of South Asia 14, no.1-21-2 (May 2021).https://doi.org/10.1558/rosa.19323Maciej Karasinski A Goddess Who Unites and Empowers: Śrīvidyā as a Link Between Tantric Traditions of Modern Kerala—Some Considerations, Journal of Indian Philosophy 48, no.44 (Apr 2020): 541–563.https://doi.org/10.1007/s10781-020-09430-5Jeffrey C. Ruff Exchange and Transaction as a Form of Life and Meaning in the Logic of Tantric Concepts, Journal of Dharma Studies 3, no.11 (Jun 2019): 131–154.https://doi.org/10.1007/s42240-019-00042-1Jeffrey C. Ruff Modern Transformations of sādhanā as Art, Study, and Awareness: Religious Experience and Hindu Tantric Practice, Religions 10, no.44 (Apr 2019): 259.https://doi.org/10.3390/rel10040259Patricia Sauthoff Kaula, (Oct 2018): 1–4.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-1036-5_547-1Mark Elmore Definitional Transgression, or the Revenge of the Vernacular in Hindu Tantric Studies, Religion Compass 1, no.66 (Sep 2007): 752–767.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-8171.2007.00041.xKerry Martin Skora Abhinavagupta’s Erotic Mysticism: The Reconciliation of Spirit and Flesh, International Journal of Hindu Studies 11, no.11 (Jul 2007): 63–88.https://doi.org/10.1007/s11407-007-9037-5Elizabeth K. Ullery Consideration of a Spiritual Role in Sex and Sex Therapy, The Family Journal 12, no.11 (Aug 2016): 78–81.https://doi.org/10.1177/1066480703258710Sarah Caldwell The Heart of the Secret: A Personal and Scholarly Encounter with Shakta Tantrism in Siddha Yoga, Nova Religio 5, no.11 (Oct 2001): 9–51.https://doi.org/10.1525/nr.2001.5.1.9

Mandala et rituel de confession à Dunhuang

Abstract This is a study of several Dunhuang manuscripts connected with mandalas. A link is established between several sketches of unfinished mandalas and an apocryphal Tantra called Jingangjun jing &ЖШШ , which is an imitation of the famous Jingangding jing ййШМ, a Chinese translation of the Vajrašekhara-sutra, or Diamond Pointed Sutra, supposed to be the basis of the one of the two great mandalas in the Chinese- Japanese tradition, the Vajradhâtu-mandala. The Dunhuang apocryphal Tantra also claims to have been translated into Chinese by Amoghavajra (VIIIe s.), the translator of the Jingangding jing. The Tantras (P. 3913 in the Paris collection, S. 2144 V° in the London collection and dong 74 in Beijing collection) and sketches of mandalas (P. 2012 in the Paris collection) seem to belong to the same ritualistic tradition. The sketches fit well with some of the descriptions of mandalas in the Tantra and the Tantra supplies ritual procedure for drawing the mandalas. Ritualized confession is the basis of these mandalas. Preliminary rites, such as jingdi (purify ritual place), jingjie (purify ritual enclosure), jiejie (delimit ritual enclosure), chanhui (confession), and primordial elements (dhàtu) like feng (wind), shui (water), kong (space), are now the names of Bodhisattvas. The four immeasurable thoughts, dad (great benevolent), dabei (great compassion), daxi (great joy), dashe (great equanimity), also become divine protectors, or Vajrasattvas. These new Bodhisattvas and Vajrasattvas are assigned a place in the mandalas. These Dunhuang mandalas are akin to the mandalas known from Indian, Tibetan and Chinese canonical sources, but with specific modifications. They belong to a local tantric tradition, different from the ones known from India and Tibet and from Japan, which borrowed it from China.