The Oxford Handbook of Tantric Studies

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The Oxford Handbook of Tantric Studies is designed to explicitly address some of the obstacles to the study of tantra, to facilitate scholarly discourse, to address the problems of category, definition, and origins, and to facilitate collaboration between scholars working on different forms of tantra. For this reason, instead of employing sectarian, regional, or disciplinary categories, this Handbook is organized topically. Thus, rather than viewing tantra as a subset of Saiva, or Sakta, or Vaisnava, Jain or Buddhist traditions, the chapters demonstrate how tantra can be autotelic-located within these traditions in complex symbiotic relations, practitioners pursue their own ends, interacting with the thought and practice of the tradition with which they are affiliated. At the same time, the Handbook views tantra as a religious phenomenon best studied from multiple disciplinary perspectives, using different strategies of interpretation, Crossing the boundaries of language and religious culture, the tantric traditions that extended from South and Southeast Asia, through Central/Inner Asia and East Asia, today constitute part of the global religious culture. The range of academic specializations involved-sectarian, linguistic, textual, and cultural-has required input from scholars working in several different fields of scholarship, and who offer a plurality of perspectives on the shared object of study.

The editors have divided the Handbook into eight sections. The categories and themes that structure the collection emerge directly from the content of the tantric traditions themselves, rather than imposing any of the more typical academic structures, such as regions, historical periods, textual genres, or sectarian categories. In tantric traditions, all the topics discussed in the first seven sections are interconnected with one another. Many traditions are characterized by transformative actions grounded in gendered notions of cosmology, by complex dynamics involving extraordinary beings, or by the efficacy of extraordinary language-often in some combination. These characteristics are in turn creatively expressed through visual and sonic art forms and through a great variety of literature and linguistic devices, supported by-and given legitimacy through-a range of social organizations and institutions. Finally, the eighth section addresses both the historiographies of modern scholar-ship as well as the traditional notions of time sequences based on divine revelation and lineages of great teachers and disciples. More specifically, these sections allow for an expansive and systematic approach to the study of tantric traditions, starting with dialectical reflections on the concept of action (part 1) and the goals of transformation (part 2), which themselves are contextualized by concepts of gender, cosmogony, embodiment, and power (part 3), as well as by beliefs in extraordinary beings (part 4). Next are representations in imagery and architecture (part 5) and language and sound (part 6), followed by considerations of the social order and institutions (part 2) that maintain and perpetuate all of the above. In the last section we consider the complexity of the subject overall by exploring etic and emic understandings of the histories of the traditions (part 3). This structure works to reflect what is important for members of the traditions themselves and places what scholars expect (eg, contextualizing historical location) last, thus highlighting the contrariness of tantra for being understood in Western religious studies.

PART I. ACTION

Engaging in significantly transformative action-broadly conceived is one of the most prominent features of tantra. Action may involve any of myriad possibilities: performing a ritual, practicing meditation, chanting, embarking on a pilgrimage, or re-enacting moments from a sacred text. The goal of any action is not only to confirm the actor's current place in the cosmos, but more importantly to connect and embed that actor within a larger soteriological framework. The practitioner's location in this larger framework has cosmological, epistemological, sociological, psychological, and political ramifications. To explore these topics, the opening section includes chapters on initiation ceremonies, devotional practices at home and in temples, connections be tween thought and practice, and the importance of offertory fire rituals. This section also includes a chapter on how ongoing studies in neuroscience help us to understand the dynamics of tantric practices.

PART II. TRANSFORMATIONS: SOTERIOLOGY, ASTROLOGY, ALCHEMY, AND HEALING

Essential to tantric traditions is some form of transformation, which may also be considered the raison d'etre of many philosophies or religions. The chapters in this section examine the cosmology, esoteric physiology, soteriology, embryology, alchemy, and magical processes of transformation. Tantra offers to transform human experience, consciousness, or existence into transhuman, transcendent, or cosmic forms, as well as having manifest effects in the world. There are almost limitless variations on this foundational tantric process, expressed in diverse systems of thought (philosophical, literary, soteriological, epistemological, cosmological) and action (ritual, yoga). These chapters provide details and examples of these important tantric endeavors.

PART III. GENDER, COSMOGONY, EMBODIMENT, AND POWER

In addition to valorizing the human body, tantra is also notable for its complex and pro found embrace of gender and sexuality and the resultant implications, consequences, and iterations. Cosmic power is both an embodied and gendered power, and there are distinctive expressions of both male and female sexual power, resulting in intriguing ritual, symbolic, conceptual, and textual traditions. The numerous goddess traditions central to much of tantra are perhaps the foremost example of this development. This is also closely integrated with conceptions of esoteric physiology and the various cosmic energies that circulate in the body, connecting it to the wider cosmos. Such gendered Cosmo physiologies are, however, subject to external forces of control and subjugation, and thus techniques are developed to protect the body and consciousness of the practitioner. This often involves powerful protective female divinities, and the help of transgressive female beings such as yoginis and dakinis. Finally, the active domains of consciousness can range well beyond that of humans and other creatures, extending to the liberation of plants and trees. Thus, cosmogony, gender, embodiment, and power constitute a wide range of tantric concerns and practices.

PART IV. EXTRAORDINARY BEINGS: DEITIES AND FOUNDERS

Extraordinary beings of many types play a key role in both tantric cosmology and soteriology: Rather than being dualistically either good or evil, as tends to be the case in monotheistic traditions, the extraordinary beings of the tantric cosmos are polyvalent. These run the gamut from cosmic deities, such as Siva, to local and territorial deities, to humans who attain extraordinary status during life (founders, gurus, thaumaturges, siddhas), to those who become extraordinary after death (spirits), to astrological, calendric, and directional deities, and to guardians and wrathful protectors. Chapters in this section explore the roles of goddesses, founders of lineages, and complex figures who straddle the worlds of the human and divine as they reveal, disseminate, and protect essential tantric teachings.