[INDOLOGY] Tantric Teachings of the Kālikā Purāṇa by Karel R. van Kooij

[Jan E.M. Houben]

Publication of *Tantric Teachings of the Kālikā Purāṇa* by Karel R. van
Kooij
Leiden: Brill, 2021

Dear All,
Although it appeared last year, you may be interested in the announcement
of this publication by Karel R. van Kooij, one of my former professors at
the Indology department of Utrecht University (I have not yet seen any
announcement here, may have missed it):
https://nias.knaw.nl/books/tantric-teachings-of-the-kalika-pura%E1%B9%87a/
Together with van Kooij's well-known earlier publications, esp.
*Worship of the Goddess According to the Kālikāpurāṇa*, Part I (Leiden:
Brill, 1972),
this new book contains a monumental introduction to, and presentation of,
the peculiar cultural-religious complex that found expression in this
Purāṇa and the analysis and translation of substantial fragments of the
text.
>From the Preface:
"The learned brāhmin who composed the text is clearly recommending a
‘civilised’ Tantrism conforming to the *dharma*. Tantrism had become part
of correct behaviour. Violence is part of the game – human sacrifice too –
but is mythologised, ritualised, moralised."
As a philologist of the school of Jan Gonda, the author explains
"I wanted to give the floor to the text itself, and to figure out what the
Teachings have to say before anybody else, including myself."
He further explains that
"That is why I am including many fragments in text and translation, thereby
supported by manuscripts, which were at my disposal when I started this
research. At the same time, I wanted to expose the Kālikāpurāṇa, because
the work deserves attention. Even now, after the study of Tantrism took
such an impressive sprint forward, the Kālikā Purāṇa remains relatively
unexplored. What this Purāṇa has to offer in extensively presenting Tantric
knowledge is remarkable and valuable. The text frequently plays its own
guru and explains itself. The Tantric portion certainly does not belong to
the genre of concise, sometimes deliberately obscure, Tantric treatises
meant for the initiated sādhaka, but represent an open Purāṇic Tantrism.
Nevertheless, the Śiva’s teaching is based on a Bhairava Tantra, as the
text itself reveals , but polished and abridged in order to make the
contents suitable to a lay audience, in this case, no doubt, a royal patron
of Kāmarūpa."

---

*Jan E.M. Houben*

Directeur d'Études, Professor of South Asian History and Philology

*Sources et histoire de la tradition sanskrite*

École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE, Paris Sciences et Lettres)

*Sciences historiques et philologiques *

Groupe de recherches en études indiennes (EA 2120)

*johannes.houben [at] ephe.psl.eu <johannes.houben at ephe.psl.eu>*

*https://ephe-sorbonne.academia.edu/JanEMHouben
<https://ephe-sorbonne.academia.edu/JanEMHouben>*

*https://www.classicalindia.info* <https://www.classicalindia.info>

LabEx Hastec OS 2021 -- *L'Inde Classique* augmentée: construction,
transmission

et transformations d'un savoir scientifique
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