Tantra: A Much-Misunderstood Path to Liberation (Prabuddha Bharata, January 2016) (original) (raw)
Related papers
Kiss of the yogini, 2004
and others, a new serious, critical and academic work on Tantra is always a welcome addition. This is mainly because many previous works on Tantra have tended to be folios that go under the guise of art books with naughty pictures that grace the coffee tables of the well to do. For most people, the very mention of Tantra conjures up images of Khajuraho and perhaps so with good reason. When I was asked to review White's book, I was curious as to know to which category it belonged.
Exploring the Changing Connotation and Unfolding the Historiography of Tantra
2019
Tantra is represented as one of the most mysterious and demonized forms of scared space in Indic religious traditions. This received understanding is often synonymized with words like dark and evil edges of sacred spaces. Tantra has developed as a fascinating theme for exploration in the writings of both Indian and Western scholars. This fascination can be said to have augmented as ‘Tantra’ itself have undergone through a phase of shift and transformation in respect of its meaning and historiography. Meaning of the word ‘Tantra’ had transformed, which gave away different versions with each phase. In the initial phase, it meant knowledge of the objective world, whereas recent phase represents it as an esoteric sect. Likewise, the historiography of Tantra also had transformed from claiming it to be an inevitable part of Vedic tradition to viewing it as a separate entity from it which had an individualistic domain of its own. Both Western and Indian scholars have contributed to enrich ...
A Strand of Contemporary Tantra: Its Discourse and Practice in the FPMT
This paper utilizes the data obtained from fieldwork conducted at Vajrayana Institute, a Buddhist centre affiliated with the worldwide Gelugpa Tibetan Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), to explore the approach to and practice of Tantra in a contemporary Western Buddhist context. In particular, this paper highlights the seriousness with which Tantra is treated in this religious setting, challenging Urban’s statement, largely based on his examination of the Western appropriation of Hindu Tantra, that the West has appropriated Tantra as a form of spiritual hedonism. The paper describes the orientation toward Tantric activity within the FPMT by outlining its relationship to the following aspects of religious activity: to sutra study and practice, ethical training and the Mahayana motivation, the role of taking refuge, and to the purpose of initiation and keeping Tantric commitments.
Journal of the American Oriental Society, 2003
Tantra is an Asian body of beliefs and practices that seeks to channel the divine energy that grounds the universe, in creative and liberating ways. The subsequent chapters reflect the wide geographical and temporal scope of Tantra by examining thirty-six texts from China, India, Japan, Nepal, and Tibet, ranging from the seventh century to the present day, and representing the full range of Tantric experience-Buddhist, Hindu, Jain, and even Islamic. Each text has been chosen and translated, often for the first time, by an international expert in the field who also provides detailed background material. Students of Asian religions and general readers alike will find the book rich and informative. The book includes plays, transcribed interviews, poetry, parodies, inscriptions, instructional texts, scriptures, philosophical conjectures, dreams, and astronomical speculations, each text illustrating one of the diverse traditions and practices of Tantra. Thus, the nineteenth-century Indian Buddhist Garland of Gems, a series of songs, warns against the illusion of appearance by referring to bees, yogurt, and the fire of Malaya Mountain; while fourteenth-century Chinese Buddhist manuscripts detail how to prosper through the Seven Stars of the Northern Dipper by burning incense, making offerings to scriptures, and chanting incantations. In a transcribed conversation, a modern Hindu priest in Bengal candidly explains how he serves the black goddess Kali and feeds temple skulls lentils, wine, or rice. A seventeenth-century Nepalese Hindu praise-poem hammered into the golden doors to the temple of the Goddess Taleju lists a king's faults and begs her forgiveness and grace. An introduction accompanies each text, identifying its period and genre, discussing the history and influence of the work, and identifying points of particular interest or difficulty. vi PRINCETON READINGS IN RELIGIONS The range of works represented here is remarkable, spanning the continent of Asia and the traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Islam over more than a millennium. With the publication of this volume, the long disparaged and neglected Tantric traditions of Asia receive the attention they so rightly deserve. This is a groundbreaking work.
Selected fragments of the book Principles of Tantra
Selected fragments of: Principles of Tantra Volume I and II. Arthur Avalon. The TantraTattva of Shriyukta Shiva Candra Vidyârnava Bhattacârya Mahodaya Published by Virendra N. Tiwari for Shivalik Prakashan, First Edition Delhi 2011
Encountering the Other: Tantra in the Cross-cultural Context
2011
This article focuses on the cultural appropriation of Tantra in India and the West. The term ‘Tantra’ evokes one sentiment in contemporary India, the birthplace of Tantra, and a widely divergent meaning in the West. In these contrasting understandings of Tantra as the black magic or as sex, the sacred of some has been turned into an object for appropriation and commodification for others. This shift relies on identifying Tantra as the ‘other’, in relation to what the mainstream culture defines itself as the ‘self’. Due to secretive nature of Tantric tradition since the classical times, Tantra has never found its own voice, and with the mainstream culture claiming the power over truth, marginal voices repressed within the rubric of Tantra have never been heard. The emergence of religious consumerism has assisted in peeling off this secretive Tantric body, bringing the heart of sacred practices from India to the consumers in the West.