Glen A Hayes | Bloomfield College (original) (raw)

Papers by Glen A Hayes

Studies on Tantra in Bengal and Eastern India, 2022

Greater Bengal during the 17th and 18th centuries was a region of great religious diversity, and ... more Greater Bengal during the 17th and 18th centuries was a region of great religious diversity, and witnessed dynamic interactions between different forms of Śāktism, Śaivism, and Vaiṣṇavism. The controversial Tantric movement known as the Vaiṣṇava Sahajiyās, which developed primarily after the time of Caitanya (1486-1534 CE), was especially adept at appropriating beliefs and practices from Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism as well as from earlier Nāth and Siddha schools. As part of a group of monistic Tantric traditions, Sahajiyā gurus such as Prema-dāsa (ca. 1700-1750 CE) reinterpreted the roles of Kṛṣna and Rādhā as the inner essences (svarūpa) of ordinary men and women. He also made Tantric adaptations to the rāgānugā bhakti sādhana developed by the Gosvāmins of Bengal, including the need to realize pure divine love (prema) between the male and female practitioners. Prema-dāsa expressed these teachings in the Ānandabhairava, a Bengali text of some three hundred couplets. This text is distinctive in that it ventures into Śākta traditions involving Ādhyaśakti and Kālī while at the same time arguing that the highest cosmic being is the Sahaja-mānuṣa, the innate androgynous cosmic being. Prema-dāsa expresses this blend between Sahajiyā and Śākta Tantra through a creative interpretation of ontology and cosmology, as well as of dehatattva (subtle-body systems).
Using my own translations of the Ānandabhairava, this paper will consider how Śākta traditions are reimagined by Prema-dāsa in order to embed these concepts in Vaiṣṇava Sahajiyā cosmological and soteriological paradigms, and in their transgressive ritual system. In this way I hope to suggest how the influence of Śākta Tantra may be found in some Vaiṣṇava traditions of Bengal.

Religion: Mental Religion. Part of the Macmillan Interdisciplinary Handbooks series (ed. Niki Kasumi Clements), 2016

Conceptual blending is the basic idea that the human mind and brain interact with the surrounding... more Conceptual blending is the basic idea that the human mind and brain interact with the surrounding world by combining or "blending" different kinds of thoughts and feelings. Much of human history, culture, and imagination since the Upper Paleolithic Age (c. 50,000 to 10,000 years ago) has resulted from the cognitive development of the human brain, language, and conceptual blending. This development allowed humans to interact in creative and productive new ways with their environment and other humans, and this interaction gave them the capacity to have increasingly complex mental experiences. This ongoing process also underlies much of religious thought and experience. The American comic book and cinema superhero Spiderman is an example of conceptual blending. Spiderman is a fictional character that blends together the qualities of a human being, a spider, and the basic superhero concept. As originally written by Stan Lee for the comic book series, a powerful and mysterious spider bites young Peter Parker during a class trip to a museum, and he eventually turns into Spiderman. Although the actual idea of a part-spider, part-human being is odd and biologically impossible, in the mind it makes perfect "sense." The modern theory of conceptual blending has its roots in earlier cognitive-scientific ideas of framing thoughts and feelings and more recently in contemporary metaphor theory. This recent theory considers the deeper aspects of metaphor, especially how it influences people's experiences and perceptions of the world. The term metaphor, derived from an ancient Greek word for "carrying over," means carrying over the meaning of one word or image to another. For example, the metaphor of "Life is a journey" helps to frame the abstract notion of "life" by projecting onto it the more tangible details and qualities of a journey. Related statements might include "

This is an editorial Introduction to a Special Issue of Religions online, co-edited with Dr. Stha... more This is an editorial Introduction to a Special Issue of Religions online, co-edited with Dr. Sthaneshwar Timalsina of San Diego State University. We also co-wrote this Introduction. The essays in this issue examine various uses of concepts and methods from the Cognitive Science of Religion (CSR) and neuroscience in the study of diverse traditions of Yoga and Tantra. The url for the entire issue is: http://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions/special_issues/cognitive-science-yoga-tantra

Here is a quick overview from the Introduction:
The range of disciplines known as the Cognitive Science of Religions (CSR), which has emerged in recent decades, embraces many areas and specializations within the Academy, including cognitive science, linguistics, neuroscience, and religious studies. The results of this exploration, some of which are offered in this Special Issue before you, are intriguing, profound, and yet still preliminary. As will be noted below, this “preliminary” nature of CSR is due to the fact that our scientific knowledge of the neurological system—let alone of how the mind “works”—is still in mostly early phases. Techniques in imaging and scanning the brain, as well as in understanding patterns and processes in perception and cognition, are advancing with every day, yet we are still at some remove from making all but the most general or speculative statements. This does not, of course, mean that we have to stand by and
wait for the technology to improve or to reach some critical point. As with any meaningful discipline in scholarship and science, CSR proceeds in halting but definite steps, and we hope that the essays in this issue demonstrate what some of us in the area of Tantric Studies can provide to the dialogue. None of these essays are by cognitive scientists, so we ask our colleagues in the sciences to consider how the dialogue might be furthered through their own efforts in understanding Tantra.

This article is very much an excursion into methodology and possible new avenues for the study of... more This article is very much an excursion into methodology and possible new avenues for the study of Tantra. It will consider
recent insights from the growing field of the Cognitive Science of Religion (CSR), especially the modern conceptual metaphor theory developed by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson and ‘conceptual blending theory’, a more-recent method crafted by Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner. We will apply their ideas such as ‘conceptual integration networks’, ‘cross-domain
mapping’, ‘emergent structure’, and ‘blended worlds’ to the consideration of Hindu Tantric visualization sequences, generation of the ‘yogic body’, and the ‘remembrance’ of one’s ‘forgotten’ cosmic essence as a type of anamnesis (‘reverse amnesia’). We will examine beliefs, practices, and texts from the
Vaisnava Sahajiya Tantric traditions of 16th to 19th century greater Bengal. I argue that these new CSR methods can help us to illuminate the vivid and imaginative worlds and processes found in the highly esoteric Vaisnava Sahajiya traditions, and may be useful to the study of religion in general.

Figuring Religion: Comparing Ideas, Images, and Activities, 2013

This Afterword reviews the essays in Figuring Religion: Comparing Ideas, Images, and Activities, ... more This Afterword reviews the essays in Figuring Religion: Comparing Ideas, Images, and Activities, edited by Subha Pathak (SUNY Press: 2013). The nine essays in this volume explore the study of metaphors and tropes in religious studies, and cover a range of traditions from ancient Greece, India, and China, premodern Bengal, as well as medieval Spanish Kabbalah and Finnish Lutheran Christianity. The authors make valuable contributions to religious studies, and consider vital dimensions of religious imagination, texts, rituals, and traditions. I conclude the Afterword with a discussion of conceptual blending theory, an extension of metaphor theory developed by Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner in their groundbreaking work The Way we Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind’s Hidden Complexities (Basic Books: 2002).

In this first of two essays on the history of the Society for Tantric Studies (from the Oxford Jo... more In this first of two essays on the history of the Society for Tantric Studies (from the Oxford Journal of Hindu Studies, 2011;4:221-230) I will briefly consider some of the major themes and issues that have been central to Tantric Studies. The formation of the Society for Tantric Studies (STS) in 1984 has very much been a response to addressing these issues. I will then provide an overview of the development of the STS in its earliest years, and conclude with some comments on the four essays in issue 2001;4 of the Oxford Journal of Hindu Studies.

This is a continuation of the history of the Society for Tantric Studies (STS), published in the ... more This is a continuation of the history of the Society for Tantric Studies (STS), published in the Oxford Journal of Hindu Studies (2011;5:137-144). The first part appeared in The Journal of Hindu Studies, Vol. 4, No. 3 (Hayes 2011). In this brief continuation, we will consider the issues, methods, and scholarly collaborations related to the meetings of the STS in Flagstaff, Arizona in 1997, 2002, 2005, and 2010. It will conclude with some comments on the four essays in this second volume of the Oxford Journal of Hindu Studies based on the STS.

Scan of a chapter from Yoga: The Indian Traditions, edited by Ian Whicher and David Carpenter, Lo... more Scan of a chapter from Yoga: The Indian Traditions, edited by Ian Whicher and David Carpenter, London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003, pp. 162-184. This chapter applies "contemporary" or conceptual metaphor theory, developed initially by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, to translated portions of a seventeenth-century Vaisnava Sahajiya Hindu Tantric text, the "Necklace of Immortality." It focuses on issues of embodiment and the subtle yogic body, tantric rituals, visualization,and gender.

This paper examines a central concept in selected Buddhist Tantric and Hindu Tantric traditions o... more This paper examines a central concept in selected Buddhist Tantric and Hindu Tantric traditions of greater Bengal. It focuses on the term Sahaja, showing its roots in earlier Buddhist traditions and continuing into later Hindu Tantric traditions known as the Vaisnava Sahajiyas. From: Sahaja: The Role of Doha and Caryagiti in the Indo-Tibetan Interface, edited by Andrea Loseries, Delhi: Buddhist World Press, 2015, pp. 125-137.

An overview of the Sahajiya tantric traditions of northeastern India. These ranged from Buddhist ... more An overview of the Sahajiya tantric traditions of northeastern India. These ranged from Buddhist traditions during the Pala and Sena eras (8th through 12th centuries), up through Vaisnava Hindu lineages which flourished from the 16th through 19th centuries.

Scan of a chapter from Religions of India in Practice, edited by Donald S. Lopez, Jr., Princeton ... more Scan of a chapter from Religions of India in Practice, edited by Donald S. Lopez, Jr., Princeton Readings in Religions, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995: 333-351. A basic survey of the beliefs and practices of a medieval Bengali Hindu Tantric tradition, the Vaisnava Sahajiyas, who blended tantric yoga and ritual sexual intercourse with devotional bhakti practices appropriated from the orthodox Gaudiya Vaisnava tradition. In this chapter, readers will find translations (from the Bengali) of several short lyrical poems on subtle physiology and inner states of Being, an excerpt from a longer esoteric manual (the Amrtarasavali of Siddha Mukunda Deva) dealing with subtle physiology and yogic cosmology, and an excerpt from an extensive Sahajiya interpretation of the famous Gaudiya Vaisnava hagiography of Krsna Caitanya, the Caitanya-caritamrta. This later text is called the Vivarta-vilasa,and is attributed to Akincana-dasa (ca. 1675-1700 C.E.). The chapter also includes commentary by the author.

Transformations and Transfer of Tantra in Asia and Beyond, 2012

Scan of an essay from Alternative Krishnas: Regional and Vernacular Variations on a Hindu Deity, ... more Scan of an essay from Alternative Krishnas: Regional and Vernacular Variations on a Hindu Deity, edited by Guy L. Beck, Albany, New York: SUNY Press, 2005, pp. 19-32. This essay considers how recent advances in contemporary or conceptual metaphor theory (based on Lakoff and Johnson) can help us to appreciate alternative views of the Hindu god Krsna among the Vaisnava Sahajiya Tantrics of medieval Bengal

Scan of a chapter from Tantra in Practice, edited by David Gordon White, Princeton Readings in Re... more Scan of a chapter from Tantra in Practice, edited by David Gordon White, Princeton Readings in Religion, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000, pp. 308-325. Translated portions of a 17th-century Vaisnava Sahajiya Hindu Tantric manual on the subtle body,visualization sequences, ritual sexual intercourse, and cosmology. With commentary by the author.

Scan of a translation of and commentary on a 17th-century Vaisnava Sahajiya Tantric text. Origin... more Scan of a translation of and commentary on a 17th-century Vaisnava Sahajiya Tantric text. Originally Ch. 12 of Tantra in Practice, edited by David Gordon White, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012, pp. 223-241. Deals with subtle yogic physiology, Tantric rituals, sexuality, and appropriation of Yoga and Gaudiya Vaisnavism.

A consideration of an important concept involving the subtle or yogic body in the Vaisnava Sahaji... more A consideration of an important concept involving the subtle or yogic body in the Vaisnava Sahajiya traditions of Bengal. From Religions and Comparative Thought: Essays in Honour of the Late Ian Kesarcodi-Watson, edited by Purusottama Bilimoria and Peter Fenner. Delhi: Indian Books Centre, 1988, 141-149.

Book Reviews by Glen A Hayes

Reading Religion, 2018

Book review of City of Mirrors: Songs of Lalan Sai, by Carol Salomon. Edited by Saymon Zakaria a... more Book review of City of Mirrors: Songs of Lalan Sai, by Carol Salomon. Edited by Saymon Zakaria and Keith Cantu. Forward by Richard Salomon. Introduction by Jeanne Openshaw. Oxford University Press, 2017.

Journal of The History of Sexuality, 2012

Journal of Religion, 2003