Tantra, Magic, and Vernacular Religions in Monsoon Asia

Texts, Practices, and Practitioners from the Margins
1. Auflage 2022
ISBN: 978-1-032-25128-8
Verlag: Taylor & Francis

Buch, Englisch, 230 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 503 g

Reihe: Routledge Studies in Tantric Traditions

This book explores the cross- and trans-cultural dialectic between Tantra and intersecting ‘magical’ and ‘shamanic’ practices associated with vernacular religions across Monsoon Asia. With a chronological frame going from the mediaeval Indic period up to the present, a wide geographical framework, and through the dialogue between various disciplines, it presents a coherent enquiry shedding light on practices and practitioners that have been frequently alienated in the elitist discourse of mainstream Indic religions and equally overlooked by modern scholarship.

The book addresses three desiderata in the field of Tantric Studies: it fills a gap in the historical modelling of Tantra; it extends the geographical parameters of Tantra to the vast, yet culturally interlinked, socio-geographical construct of Monsoon Asia; it explores Tantra as an interface between the Sanskritic elite and the folk, the vernacular, the magical, and the shamanic, thereby revisiting the intellectual and historically fallacious divide between cosmopolitan Sanskritic and vernacular local.

The book offers a highly innovative contribution to the field of Tantric Studies and, more generally, South and Southeast Asian religions, by breaking traditional disciplinary boundaries. Its variety of disciplinary approaches makes it attractive to both the textual/diachronic and ethnographic/synchronic dimensions. It will be of interest to specialist and non-specialist academic readers, including scholars and students of South Asian religions, mainly Hinduism and Buddhism, Tantric traditions, and Southeast Asian religions, as well as Asian and global folk religion, shamanism, and magic.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate

Autoren/Hrsg.

Acri, Andrea

Rosati, Paolo E

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Mentalitäts- und Sozialgeschichte
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften Interdisziplinär Regionalwissenschaften, Regionalstudien
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Volkskunde
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Stadt- und Regionalsoziologie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgement; Introduction; 1. More Pre-Tantric Sources of Tantrism: Skulls and Skull-Cups; 2. Charnel Ground Items, Smasanikas, and the Question of the Magical Substratum of the Early Tantras; 3. Shamans and Bhuta Tantrikas: A Shared Genealogy?; 4. Female Ganesa or Independent Deity? Tracing the Background of the Elephant-faced Goddess in Mediaeval Saiva Tantric Traditions; 5. Crossing the Boundaries of Sex, Blood, and Magic in the Tantric Cult of Kamakhya; 6. ‘Let us Now Invoke the Three Celestial Lights of Fire, Sun and Moon into Ourselves’: Magic or Everyday Practice? Revising Existentiality for an Emic Understanding of Srividya; 7. Narrative Folklore of Khyah from Tantra to Popular Beliefs: Supernatural Experiences at the Margins among Newar Communities in the Kathmandu Valley; 8. Magical Tantra in Bengal, Bali, and Java: From Pisaca Tantrikas to Balians and Dukuns; 9. Tantrism and the Weretiger Lore of Burma, Thailand, and Cambodia

Über Autor(innen)

Andrea Acri is tenured Assistant Professor in Tantric Studies at the École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE, PSL University) in Paris, France. His publications include the monograph Dharma Patañjala (2011), as well as various edited volumes, including Esoteric Buddhism in Mediaeval Maritime Asia (2016). His main research and teaching interests are Saiva and Buddhist Tantric traditions, Indian philosophy, Yoga studies, Sanskrit and Old Javanese philology, and the comparative religious history of South and Southeast Asia from the premodern to the contemporary period, with special emphasis on connected histories and intra-Asian maritime transfers.

Paolo E. Rosati received his PhD in Asian and African Studies from ‘Sapienza’ University of Rome, Italy. He has published a double special issue on Tantra for Religions of South Asia (14/1–2) in 2020, and several contributions on the yoni cult at Kamakhya. His current research focuses on magic, memory, and cultural identity in postcolonial Tantric contexts.