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The Society for Tantric Studies Proceedings (2016)
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The Society for Tantric Studies Proceedings (2016)

A special issue of Religions (ISSN 2077-1444).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2017) | Viewed by 124505

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Glen A. Hayes

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Religion, Bloomfield College, Bloomfield, NJ 07003, USA
Interests: history of religion; cognitive science; neuroscience; gender and sexuality; Tantra; Yoga
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Sthaneshwar Timalsina

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
College of Arts and Letters, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA 92182, USA
Interests: Vedic and Tantric traditions; Yogacara philosophy; literary theory; ritual studies
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue will contain a selection of papers presented at the 2016 meeting of the Society for Tantric Studies in Flagstaff, Arizona, September 23–25. In this three-day conference, scholars from around the world, specializing in different areas and disciplines, came together to share their recent research into Tantric Studies. Although limited to those who participated in the actual meeting, this issue will be of great interest to those interested in the most recent research and methodologies in Asian studies, Yoga, Tantra, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, History of Religions, Anthropology, Gender Studies, Embodiment, Philosophy, Cognitive Science, Ritual Studies, Traditional Medicine, and other areas.

Prof. Dr. Glen A. Hayes
Prof. Dr. Sthaneshwar Timalsina
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Tantra
  • Yoga
  • India
  • Assam
  • China
  • Tibet
  • Japan
  • Hinduism
  • Buddhism
  • Jainism
  • History of Religion
  • Cognitive Science
  • Anthropology
  • Magic
  • Ritual
  • Gender
  • Sexuality
  • Embodiment
  • Medicine

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Published Papers (17 papers)

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33 pages, 7683 KiB  
Article
Kālavañcana in the Konkan: How a Vajrayāna Haṭhayoga Tradition Cheated Buddhism’s Death in India
by James Mallinson
Religions 2019, 10(4), 273; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel10040273 - 16 Apr 2019
Cited by 13 | Viewed by 11135
Abstract
In recent decades the relationship between tantric traditions of Buddhism and Śaivism has been the subject of sustained scholarly enquiry. This article looks at a specific aspect of this relationship, that between Buddhist and Śaiva traditions of practitioners of physical yoga, which came [...] Read more.
In recent decades the relationship between tantric traditions of Buddhism and Śaivism has been the subject of sustained scholarly enquiry. This article looks at a specific aspect of this relationship, that between Buddhist and Śaiva traditions of practitioners of physical yoga, which came to be categorised in Sanskrit texts as haṭhayoga. Taking as its starting point the recent identification as Buddhist of the c.11th-century Amṛtasiddhi, which is the earliest text to teach any of the methods of haṭhayoga and whose teachings are found in many subsequent non-Buddhist works, the article draws on a range of textual and material sources to identify the Konkan site of Kadri as a key location for the transition from Buddhist to Nāth Śaiva haṭhayoga traditions, and proposes that this transition may provide a model for how Buddhist teachings survived elsewhere in India after Buddhism’s demise there as a formal religion. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Society for Tantric Studies Proceedings (2016))
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25 pages, 370 KiB  
Article
The King Must Protect the Difference: The Juridical Foundations of Tantric Knowledge
by Jason Schwartz
Religions 2018, 9(4), 112; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel9040112 - 4 Apr 2018
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 4285
Abstract
Drawing upon inscriptional, art historical, as well as largely unstudied and unpublished textual evidence, this paper examines the conceptualization of religious diversity in the Medieval Deccan prior to the Islamic invasions. What our archive suggests, somewhat counterintuitively, is that from the perspective of [...] Read more.
Drawing upon inscriptional, art historical, as well as largely unstudied and unpublished textual evidence, this paper examines the conceptualization of religious diversity in the Medieval Deccan prior to the Islamic invasions. What our archive suggests, somewhat counterintuitively, is that from the perspective of the state and other disciplinary institutions, religious difference was conceived of in primarily juridical as opposed to doxographical terms; it was a matter of law rather than belief. In other words, in practice, the social performance of the religious identities of particular communities proved inseparable from the delineation of the highly specific legal rights and obligations to which those communities were entitled to adhere. Succinctly, medieval India’s religious diversity was inextricable from the widespread acceptance of a rather capaciously imagined emic form of legal pluralism. The early medieval Dharmaśāstric commentarial tradition locates the textual foundation of this approach to legal pluralism in a discrete and consistent canon of textual resources. As the present work demonstrates, by the eighth century—from the perspective of the Brahmanical legalists themselves—it is this internally coherent body of dharma knowledge that emerges as the key conceptual resource that makes a place within the wider social ecologies of the medieval Deccan for the Tantric knowledge systems and those who practice them. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Society for Tantric Studies Proceedings (2016))
18 pages, 459 KiB  
Article
A Day in the Life of an Aesthetic Tāntrika: From Synaesthetic Garden to Lucid Dreaming and Spaciousness
by Kerry Martin Skora
Religions 2018, 9(3), 81; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel9030081 - 14 Mar 2018
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 4981
Abstract
This essay addresses the question of the relationship between Aesthetics and Tantra, in the world-view and life-world of Hindu Tantric visionary Abhinavagupta (ca. 975–1025 C.E.) and his tradition. I respond to a classic work on Abhinavagupta’s understanding of aesthetic experience and religious experience [...] Read more.
This essay addresses the question of the relationship between Aesthetics and Tantra, in the world-view and life-world of Hindu Tantric visionary Abhinavagupta (ca. 975–1025 C.E.) and his tradition. I respond to a classic work on Abhinavagupta’s understanding of aesthetic experience and religious experience by shifting the focus from ultimate experience to the life of a liberated being. I argue that Abhinavagupta’s blending of Aesthetics and Tantra naturally follows from his view of liberation, which re-integrates the body and senses into the religious life, and affirms the reality of the material world in which the liberated being is embedded. I recover the very humanness and boundedness of Abhinavagupta as an additional way of understanding liberation. I draw on hymns of praise, descriptions of ritual, thoughts on hermeneutics of Being, and complex metaphors, from Abhinavagupta’s tradition, and engage with various thinkers, including Performance Theorist Richard Schechner and neurologist James Austin, to flesh out complex metaphors depicting the relationship between consciousness and the world. I conclude by reflecting on similarities between the Trika model of Self, as interpreted by Abhinavagupta’s student Kṣemarāja, and lucid dreaming. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Society for Tantric Studies Proceedings (2016))
16 pages, 4527 KiB  
Article
The Invisible Path of Karma in a Himalayan Purificatory Rite
by Arik Moran
Religions 2018, 9(3), 78; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel9030078 - 12 Mar 2018
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 7183
Abstract
Indic rites of purification aim to negate the law of karma by removing the residues of malignant past actions from their patrons. This principle is exemplified in the Kahika Mela, a rarely studied religious festival of the West Himalayan highlands (Himachal Pradesh, India), [...] Read more.
Indic rites of purification aim to negate the law of karma by removing the residues of malignant past actions from their patrons. This principle is exemplified in the Kahika Mela, a rarely studied religious festival of the West Himalayan highlands (Himachal Pradesh, India), wherein a ritual specialist assumes karmic residues from large publics and then sacrificed to their presiding deity. British officials who had ‘discovered’ this purificatory rite at the turn of the twentieth century interpreted it as a variant of the universal ‘scapegoat’ rituals that were then being popularized by James Frazer and found it loosely connected to ancient Tantric practises. The However, observing a recent performance of the ritual significantly complicated this view. This paper proposes a novel reading of the Kahika Mela through the prism of karmic transference. Tracing the path of karmas from participants to ritual specialist and beyond, it delineates the logic behind the rite, revealing that the culminating act of human sacrifice is, in fact, secondary to the mysterious force that impels its acceptance. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Society for Tantric Studies Proceedings (2016))
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247 KiB  
Article
Kuṇḍalinī Rising and Liberation in the Yogavāsiṣṭha: The Story of Cūḍālā and Śikhidhvaja
by Ana Laura Funes Maderey
Religions 2017, 8(11), 248; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel8110248 - 14 Nov 2017
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 4160
Abstract
Various Śaiva Tantric elements have been identified in the Yogavāsiṣṭha, but little has been written about the role of kuṇḍalinī rising in relation to this text’s notion of living liberation (jīvanmukti). The story of Cūḍālā and Śikhidhvaja is relevant to [...] Read more.
Various Śaiva Tantric elements have been identified in the Yogavāsiṣṭha, but little has been written about the role of kuṇḍalinī rising in relation to this text’s notion of living liberation (jīvanmukti). The story of Cūḍālā and Śikhidhvaja is relevant to examine in Tantric studies not only because it includes one of the few descriptions within Sanskrit literature of a kuṇḍalinī experience as explicitly pertaining to a woman, but also because it offers key elements of comparison between experiences of enlightenment: one including kuṇḍalinī rising (Cūḍālā) and another one without it (Śikhidhvaja). This paper compares Cūḍālā’s experience of enlightenment with that of Śikhidhvaja’s in order to understand what role kuṇḍalinī rising plays in the pursuit for liberation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Society for Tantric Studies Proceedings (2016))
228 KiB  
Article
Recognizing Recognition: Utpaladeva’s Defense of Śakti in His “Proof of Relation” (Sambandhasiddhi)
by Sean MacCracken
Religions 2017, 8(11), 243; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel8110243 - 1 Nov 2017
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 3900
Abstract
Though one of many possible interpretive orientations, Utpaladeva’s short work, “The Proof of Relation”, may be profitably read in terms of the intention to reveal Śiva via an exposition of His śaktis. This intention, as declared by the author himself in his [...] Read more.
Though one of many possible interpretive orientations, Utpaladeva’s short work, “The Proof of Relation”, may be profitably read in terms of the intention to reveal Śiva via an exposition of His śaktis. This intention, as declared by the author himself in his much more widely studied Verses on the Recognition of the Lord, if carried over into the “Proof of Relation”, does much to account for Utpaladeva’s intention in the latter text, which, although written to convey a rational argument across sectarian lines, may also be read as an exposition of the opening verses of benediction. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Society for Tantric Studies Proceedings (2016))
273 KiB  
Article
Tantric Yoga in the Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa of Hinduism and the Jñānārṇava of Jainism
by Christopher Key Chapple
Religions 2017, 8(11), 235; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel8110235 - 26 Oct 2017
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 8417
Abstract
This paper explores the Markaṇḍeya Purāṇa, one of the earliest expositions of what become Tantric themes in Hinduism, and the Jñānārṇava, which provides an early template for the practice of Jaina Tantra. The former text follows the traditional mapping of the five elements [...] Read more.
This paper explores the Markaṇḍeya Purāṇa, one of the earliest expositions of what become Tantric themes in Hinduism, and the Jñānārṇava, which provides an early template for the practice of Jaina Tantra. The former text follows the traditional mapping of the five elements and correlative senses, linking earth to smell, water to taste, fire to form, air to touch, and space to hearing, in a sequence of ascent. In contrast, the Jaina practice relates earthy, lotus-like material to the earth, to be incinerated by fire, stirring up strong winds that involve vigorous breathing that bring pounding rains, washing away all karmic impurity and its residues, exposing one’s true nature as a distinct liberated soul. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Society for Tantric Studies Proceedings (2016))
1492 KiB  
Article
On Not Understanding Extraordinary Language in the Buddhist Tantra of Japan
by Richard K. Payne
Religions 2017, 8(10), 223; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel8100223 - 11 Oct 2017
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 4235
Abstract
The question motivating this essay is how tantric Buddhist practitioners in Japan understood language such as to believe that mantra, dhāraṇī, and related forms are efficacious. “Extraordinary language” is introduced as a cover term for these several similar language uses found in [...] Read more.
The question motivating this essay is how tantric Buddhist practitioners in Japan understood language such as to believe that mantra, dhāraṇī, and related forms are efficacious. “Extraordinary language” is introduced as a cover term for these several similar language uses found in tantric Buddhist practices in Japan. The essay proceeds to a critical examination of Anglo-American philosophy of language to determine whether the concepts, categories, and concerns of that field can contribute to the analysis and understanding of extraordinary language. However, that philosophy of language does not contribute to this analysis, as it is constrained by its continuing focus on its founding concepts, dating particularly from the work of Frege. Comparing it to Indic thought regarding language reveals a distinct mismatch, further indicating the limiting character of the philosophy of language. The analysis then turns to examine two other explanations of tantric language use found in religious studies literature: magical language and performative language. These also, however, prove to be unhelpful. While the essay is primarily critical, one candidate for future constructive study is historical pragmatics, as suggested by Ronald Davidson. The central place of extraordinary language indicates that Indic reflections on the nature of language informed tantric Buddhist practice in Japan and are not simply cultural baggage. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Society for Tantric Studies Proceedings (2016))
3140 KiB  
Article
The Dead Speak: A Case Study from the Tiwa Tribe Highlighting the Hybrid World of Śākta Tantra in Assam
by Sravana Borkataky-Varma
Religions 2017, 8(10), 221; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel8100221 - 11 Oct 2017
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 7163
Abstract
In this paper, we shall examine how possession is understood in Assam, India. We are aware that the larger northeastern frontier of India retained indigenous practices, religious festivals, and beliefs in a plethora of exotic goddesses, rituals, which have continued unabated through modern [...] Read more.
In this paper, we shall examine how possession is understood in Assam, India. We are aware that the larger northeastern frontier of India retained indigenous practices, religious festivals, and beliefs in a plethora of exotic goddesses, rituals, which have continued unabated through modern times. This has resulted in cross-pollination between the Vedic or traditional Brahmanical or orthodox Hindu practices and the indigenous practices, which in turn has yielded a hybrid world of Śākta Tantra rituals and practices. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Society for Tantric Studies Proceedings (2016))
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171 KiB  
Article
Reinscribing the Goddess into the Culturally Relative Minutiae of Tantric Texts and Practices: A Perennialist Response to Tantric Visual Culture
by Jeffrey S. Lidke
Religions 2017, 8(10), 217; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel8100217 - 3 Oct 2017
Viewed by 3874
Abstract
A celebration and critical evaluation of Sthaneshwar Timalsina’s brilliant book, Tantric Visual Culture: A Cognitive Approach. In this groundbreaking work, Timalsina utilizes the lens of cognitive studies to shed interpretive light on the Tantric visualization practices that he knows both as a [...] Read more.
A celebration and critical evaluation of Sthaneshwar Timalsina’s brilliant book, Tantric Visual Culture: A Cognitive Approach. In this groundbreaking work, Timalsina utilizes the lens of cognitive studies to shed interpretive light on the Tantric visualization practices that he knows both as a scholar and lifetime practitioner. Timalsina argues that mastery of Tantric practice requires immersion in the culturally relative metonymic and holographic logic framed by the Tantric ritual texts. The conclusion that arises from his analysis is that Tantric “truths” are bound to the linguistic and cultural systems that frame them. In response, I herewith offer a perennialist critique and argument for a more nuanced consideration of the transcendent “truth” or “being” that is the stated aim of Tantric practice. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Society for Tantric Studies Proceedings (2016))
291 KiB  
Article
The Cross-Cultural Kingship in Early Medieval Kāmarūpa: Blood, Desire and Magic
by Paolo Eugenio Rosati
Religions 2017, 8(10), 212; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel8100212 - 29 Sep 2017
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 6497
Abstract
Kingship in early medieval Kāmarūpa (Assam) was influenced by the collision of orthodox and heterodox Brahmanic traditions with various tribal cultures. Since the last part of the Śālastambha period (seventh–tenth century) the royal tutelary deity of Kāmarūpa was the menstruating Kāmākhyā, an ancient [...] Read more.
Kingship in early medieval Kāmarūpa (Assam) was influenced by the collision of orthodox and heterodox Brahmanic traditions with various tribal cultures. Since the last part of the Śālastambha period (seventh–tenth century) the royal tutelary deity of Kāmarūpa was the menstruating Kāmākhyā, an ancient kirāta goddess. According to the Puranic tradition, the cult of Kāmākhyā was absorbed within Hindu religious folds by the mytho-historical king Naraka of Kāmarūpa. According to textual and epigraphic records, Naraka was conceived by Pṛthvī (Earth goddess) during her menstrual period, through a sexual intercourse with varāha (boar form of Viṣṇu). All early medieval dynasties of Kāmarūpa traced back their origins to Naraka, connecting their lines to the divine power but also to the menstrual blood—a substance considered extremely impure though powerful in Vedic and post-Vedic traditions. The king operated as a cross-cultural mediator: he was the only actor who was able to harness the produced polluted forces, through the Tantric rituals, in order to strengthen the political power. Thence, this essay aims to demonstrate, through inter- and intra-textual evidences, epigraphic records, and ethnographic data, that in Assam throughout the early medieval ages, the kingship grounded its roots in an osmotic cross-cultural process which was influenced by tribal traditions and orthodox and heterodox Hindu sects. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Society for Tantric Studies Proceedings (2016))
253 KiB  
Article
Piercing to the Pith of the Body: The Evolution of Body Mandala and Tantric Corporeality in Tibet
by Rae Erin Dachille
Religions 2017, 8(9), 189; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel8090189 - 18 Sep 2017
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 6030
Abstract
Buddhist tantric practitioners embrace the liminal status of the human body to manifest divine identity. In piercing to the pith of human embodiment, the tantric practitioner reconfigures the shape and contours of his/her reality. This article investigates the evolution of one particular technique [...] Read more.
Buddhist tantric practitioners embrace the liminal status of the human body to manifest divine identity. In piercing to the pith of human embodiment, the tantric practitioner reconfigures the shape and contours of his/her reality. This article investigates the evolution of one particular technique for piercing to the pith of the body on Tibetan soil, a ritual practice known as body mandala [lus dkyil Skt. deha-maṇḍala]. In particular, it uncovers a significant shift of emphasis in the application of the Guhyasamāja body mandala practice initiated by champions of the emerging Gandenpa [Dga’ ldan pa] or Gelukpa [Dge lugs pa] tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, Tsongkhapa (1357–1419) and Mkhas grub rje (1385–1438). This article reveals some of the radical implications of ritual exegesis, ranging from the socioreligious aspects of securing prestige for a tradition to the ultimate soteriological goals of modifying the boundaries between life and death and ordinary and enlightened embodiment. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Society for Tantric Studies Proceedings (2016))
606 KiB  
Article
Magicians, Sorcerers and Witches: Considering Pretantric, Non-sectarian Sources of Tantric Practices
by Ronald M. Davidson
Religions 2017, 8(9), 188; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel8090188 - 13 Sep 2017
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 8285
Abstract
Most models on the origins of tantrism have been either inattentive to or dismissive of non-literate, non-sectarian ritual systems. Groups of magicians, sorcerers or witches operated in India since before the advent of tantrism and continued to perform ritual, entertainment and curative functions [...] Read more.
Most models on the origins of tantrism have been either inattentive to or dismissive of non-literate, non-sectarian ritual systems. Groups of magicians, sorcerers or witches operated in India since before the advent of tantrism and continued to perform ritual, entertainment and curative functions down to the present. There is no evidence that they were tantric in any significant way, and it is not clear that they were concerned with any of the liberation ideologies that are a hallmark of the sectarian systems, even while they had their own separate identities and specific divinities. This paper provides evidence for the durability of these systems and their continuation as sources for some of the ritual and nomenclature of the sectarian tantric traditions, including the predisposition to ritual creativity and bricolage. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Society for Tantric Studies Proceedings (2016))
19616 KiB  
Article
Where the Heroes and Sky-Goers Gather: A Study of the Sauraṭa Pilgrimage
by Paul B. Donnelly
Religions 2017, 8(8), 157; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel8080157 - 21 Aug 2017
Viewed by 6118
Abstract
Tibetan and Himālayan Buddhist doctrine and meditative traditions have been extensively studied and are well-known even to non-scholars, but pilgrimage and other non-elite practices have received far less attention. Pilgrimage is one of the most important practices for Tibetan and Himālayan Buddhists, whether [...] Read more.
Tibetan and Himālayan Buddhist doctrine and meditative traditions have been extensively studied and are well-known even to non-scholars, but pilgrimage and other non-elite practices have received far less attention. Pilgrimage is one of the most important practices for Tibetan and Himālayan Buddhists, whether traditional scholars, ordinary monks, lay yogis, or Buddhist laypeople. Scholarship on pilgrimage has increased significantly since the 1990s, and has tended to focus on territories within the political boundaries of the Tibetan provinces of the People’s Republic of China. This study looks at a pilgrimage in what was once the far western end of the Tibetan empire, but is now within the political boundaries of India. Being outside of the People’s Republic of China, this pilgrimage escaped the disruption of such practices that occurred within the PRC during the Cultural Revolution and after. Having interviewed people in the region, and performed the pilgrimage myself, this study shows that this pilgrimage possesses features common to Tibetan pilgrimage to sites of tantric power, but also has its own unique qualities. This study provides new data that contributes to the growing body of knowledge of Tibetan pilgrimage and to our understanding of such practices among the Buddhists of Himālayan India. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Society for Tantric Studies Proceedings (2016))
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243 KiB  
Article
Somatic Energies and Emotional Traumas: A Qualitative Study of Practice-Related Challenges Reported by Vajrayāna Buddhists
by Jared R. Lindahl
Religions 2017, 8(8), 153; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel8080153 - 18 Aug 2017
Cited by 19 | Viewed by 17203
Abstract
A qualitative study of Western practitioners of Buddhist meditation investigated unexpected, challenging, difficult, and distressing experiences. This paper reports on a subset of 12 practitioners within Tibetan Vajrayāna lineages who described energy flowing through their body, knots of pain, pressure or tension, and/or [...] Read more.
A qualitative study of Western practitioners of Buddhist meditation investigated unexpected, challenging, difficult, and distressing experiences. This paper reports on a subset of 12 practitioners within Tibetan Vajrayāna lineages who described energy flowing through their body, knots of pain, pressure or tension, and/or concurrent emotional changes. In some cases, somatic changes were appraised as practice-related transient states, and in other cases practitioners were given a Tibetan medical diagnosis of rlung disorder. Releases of tension in the body or subtle body also sometimes coincided with an upwelling of emotionally charged content. Practitioners reported emotional upwelling during subtle body practices as well as during other Vajrayāna practices, such as visualizations. While some practitioners viewed these experiences in relation to a normative Tantric soteriology of purification, almost all practitioners with a trauma history reported traumatic re-experiencing and tended not to adopt a purification framework. These practitioners were also more likely to seek additional psychotherapeutic or medical treatment to help resolve their practice-related challenges. The manner in which somatic and affective experiences manifest, how they are appraised, and how they affect the practitioner’s ability to engage in the Vajrayāna path depends upon many individual, interpersonal, and cultural factors. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Society for Tantric Studies Proceedings (2016))
7730 KiB  
Article
Can Tantra Make a Mātā Middle-Class?: Jogaṇī Mātā, a Uniquely Gujarati Chinnamastā
by Darry Dinnell
Religions 2017, 8(8), 142; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel8080142 - 8 Aug 2017
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 13518
Abstract
The Gujarati mātās, village goddesses traditionally popular among scheduled castes and often worshipped through rites of possession and animal sacrifice, have recently acquired Sanskritic Tantric resonances. The contemporary iconography of the goddess Jogaṇī Mātā, for instance, is virtually identical to that of [...] Read more.
The Gujarati mātās, village goddesses traditionally popular among scheduled castes and often worshipped through rites of possession and animal sacrifice, have recently acquired Sanskritic Tantric resonances. The contemporary iconography of the goddess Jogaṇī Mātā, for instance, is virtually identical to that of the Mahāvidyā Chinnamastā. Yantra and mantra also feature prominently in Jogaṇī worship, which has begun to attract upwardly mobile urban middle-class devotees. Drawing on ethnography from three Jogaṇī sites in and around Ahmedabad, this paper identifies a tendency among worshippers and pūjārīs to acknowledge Jogaṇī’s tantric associations only to the extent that they instantiate a safe, Sanskritic, and Brahmanically-oriented Tantra. The appeal of these temples and shrines nonetheless remains the immediacy with which Jogaṇī can solve problems that are this-worldly, reminiscent of the link identified by Philip Lutgendorf between Tantra and modern Indians’ desire for ‘quick-fix’ religion. This research not only documents a rare regional iteration of Chinnamastā, but also speaks to the cachet that Tantra increasingly wields, consciously or unconsciously, within the burgeoning Gujarati and Indian urban middle-classes. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Society for Tantric Studies Proceedings (2016))
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334 KiB  
Article
Studies on Bhartṛhari and the Pratyabhijñā: The Case of svasaṃvedana
by Marco Ferrante
Religions 2017, 8(8), 145; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel8080145 - 7 Aug 2017
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 5142
Abstract
The article addresses a critical problem in the history of South Asian philosophy, namely the nature of the ‘knowledge of knowledge’ (svasaṃvedana). In particular, it investigates how the Śaiva tantric school of the Pratyabhijñā (10th–11th c. CE) used the notion as an argument [...] Read more.
The article addresses a critical problem in the history of South Asian philosophy, namely the nature of the ‘knowledge of knowledge’ (svasaṃvedana). In particular, it investigates how the Śaiva tantric school of the Pratyabhijñā (10th–11th c. CE) used the notion as an argument against the Buddhists’ ideas on the nature of the self. The paper then considers the possibility that the source of the Śaivas’ discussion was the work of the philosopher/grammarian Bhartṛhari (5th c. CE). Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Society for Tantric Studies Proceedings (2016))
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