Tantra, Magic, and Vernacular Religions in Monsoon Asia: Texts, Practices, and Practitioners from the Margins (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. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents List of Figures List of contributor Acknowledgement Introduction Framing the intersection between Tantra, magic, and vernacular religions in Monsoon Asia Summaries of the chapters Notes Chapter 1: More pre-Tantric sources of Tantrism: Skulls and skull-cups 1.1 Introduction 1.2 Is the Śaiva skull-cup use actually sourced in the Dharmaśāstras? 1.3 Bones, skulls, demons, and the dead 1.4 Skulls—Liminal signs of the spirit world 1.5 Conclusion Notes Primary sources Chapter 2: Charnel ground items, śmāśānika s, and the question of the magical substratum of the early Tantras 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Magical recipes, the magical substratum, and animism 2.3 Charnel ground items and the question of the magical substratum 2.3.1 Human flesh ( mahāmāṃsa) 2.3.2 Fire taken from a cremation pyre, from a caṇḍāla, etc . 2.3.3 Crematory shroud (śmaśānakarpaṭa, mṛtakavāsa, etc .) 2.3.4 Flowers from a corpse (śmaśāna-nirmālya) 2.3.5 Throwing the cremation ground ash (bhasman) 2.3.6 Skulls of a man killed by a weapon or impaled on a stake 2.4 The origin of skull-magic: Brahmanical, Tantric, or indigenous? 2.5 Who were the pre-Tantric śmāśānika practitioners? 2.6 Conclusion Notes Primary sources Chapter 3: Shamans and Bhūta Tāntrikas: A shared genealogy? 3.1 Introduction 3.2 The origin of a critical term 3.3 Shamanism before Buddhism 3.4 Who can be referred to as a shaman? 3.5 The origins of Tantric traditions 3.6 Shamans and Tāntrikas: Initial notes on shared practices 3.7 Coming full-circle: śramaṇa s, shamans, and tāntrika s Notes Primary sources Chapter 4: Female Gaṇeśa or independent deity?: Tracing the background of the elephant-faced goddess in mediaeval Śaiva Tantric traditions 4.1 Introduction 1 4.2 Variations on a single elephantine theme 4.3 On Gajalakṣmī and on Jyeṣṭhā-Alakṣmī(-Vināyakī?) 4.4 Possible phases of the religious-historical development of the elephant-faced goddess 4.4.1 Jyeṣṭhā, elephant-faced, ass-riding goddess 4.4.2 One elephant-faced mātṛ among numerous mātṛs 4.4.3 Sometimes included in the group of the Eight Mothers 4.4.4 Included in groups of yoginīs 4.5 (Provisional) conclusions Notes Primary sources Chapter 5: Crossing the boundaries of sex, blood, and magic in the Tantric cult of Kāmākhyā 1 5.1 Introduction 5.2 The intersection of Śākta-Purāṇic and Kaula traditions at Kāmākhyā 5.3 The affirmation of Kaula Tantra at Kāmākhyā 5.4 Sexual fluids, women, and magic 5.5 Sacrificial blood, buffalos, and tribespeople 5.6 Conclusion Notes Primary sources Chapter 6: ‘Let us now invoke the three celestial lights of Fire, Sun and Moon into ourselves’ 1 : Magic or everyday practice? Revising existentiality for an emic understanding of Śrīvidyā 6.1 Introduction: Turning magic inside out 6.2 Is it magic? From politics of marginalization to ethical research 6.3 On beingness, worlding, and ‘fieldwork as dwelling’ in Śaktipur 13 6.4 Śrīvidyā practitioners’ effective identity with Devī 6.4.1 Revising existentiality for an emic approach to Śrīvidyā 6.4.2 The Śrīcakra, ‘genetic code of the cosmos’ 6.5 Conclusion Notes Chapter 7: Narrative folklore of Khyāḥ from Tantra to popular beliefs: Supernatural experiences at the margins among Newar communities in the Kathmandu Valley 7.1 Introduction 7.2 Morphologies of the Khyāḥ from a taxonomic perspective 7.2.1 Multiple types of Khyāḥ s 7.3 Nāsaḥdyaḥ and the genesis of Khyāḥ 7.3.1 Blood and bones in the constitution of Khyāḥ and Kawancha 7.4 Bārhā tayegu : A prepubertal rite among Newar girls 7.4.1 Bārhā Khyāḥ as a deflowering agent 7.5 When rituals fail... Dead girls and Khyāḥ in Newar folklore 7.5.1 Pacifying the harassing Khyāḥ 7.6 Conclusion: Narratives, beliefs, and rites among Newars Notes Chapter 8: Magical Tantra in Bengal, Bali, and Java: From piśāca tāntrika s to balian s and dukun s 8.1 Introduction 8.2 India 8.3 Bali 8.4 Java 8.5 Discussion Interviews cited Notes Chapter 9: Tantrism and the weretiger lore of Burma, Thailand, and Cambodia 9.1 Introduction 9.2 Cambodia: Tiger-transformation and /sməl/ magic 9.3 Thailand: The /sʉ̌a sàmǐŋ/ and other types of weretigers 9.4 Burma: Shan weretigers (/shɤ 1 jen 4 /) 9.5 Burma: Bamar weretigers (/θamá̃ ʤá/) 9.6 Discussion Notes Primary Sources Bibliography Index "This book explores the cross- and trans-cultural dialectic between Tantra and intersecting magical and shamanic phenomena 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 and sheds 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; and it explores Tantra as an interface between the Sanskritic elite and the folk, the vernacular, the magical, 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/syncronic 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, Southeast Asian religions, as well as Asian and global folk religion, shamanism, and magic"-- Provided by publisher