Tantric
Studies. Fruits of a Franco-German project on
Early Tantra.
Edited
by Dominic Goodall and Harunaga Isaacson,
Collection Indologie n˚ 131; Early Tantra Series n˚ 4,
Institut Français de Pondichéry / Ecole française
d’Extrême-Orient / Asien-Afrika-Institut,
Universität
Hamburg,
xxx, 305 p.
Language:
English.
800 Rs (35 €).
ISBN:
978-81-8470-211-8 (IFP) / 978-2-85539-220-2 (EFEO).
The
principal
works that have emerged from our stimulating project
on ‘Early Tantra’ are critical editions and
translations of previously unpublished primary
material, which have begun to appear in this new
series. This volume complements those publications by
gathering together some of the fruits, direct and
indirect, of the wide-ranging discussions that took
place during the project’s workshops. By way of
introduction, the volume opens with an attempt by the
editors to draw together our findings about the
“shared ritual syntax” of some of the earliest known
works of the tantric traditions, with a particular
emphasis on the Buddhist Mañjuśriyamūlakalpa
and the Śaiva Niśvāsatattvasaṃhitā.
Seven further contributions, by Dominic Goodall, Peter
Bisschop, Judit Törzsök, Diwakar Acharya, Anna A.
Ślączka, Libbie Mills and Péter-Dániel Szántó, throw
light on a wide range of topics : the Śaivatattvas and
their evolution, yoginī-temples,
alphabet-deities, an early treatise of snake-related
magic, iconographic prescriptions in early pratiṣṭhātantras,
the
implications of the use of the bhūtasaṅkhyā system,
and a fragment of a Buddhist tantric sādhana.
Keywords: Mantramārga,
Tantra, Magic, Iconography, Shaivism, Vajrayāna,
Goddess-worship, Ritual, Cosmography
About
the editors:
After
studies
in Oxford and in Hamburg, Dominic Goodall
passed several years working in Pondicherry, where he
was head of the Pondicherry Centre of the École
française d’Extrême-Orient from 2002 to 2011. He has
published critical editions of Śaiva works and of
classical Sanskrit poetry (most recently, with Csaba
Dezső, the eighth-century Kuṭṭanīmata of
Dāmodaragupta). After four years in Paris, where he
gave lectures on Indian and Cambodian Sanskrit
literature at the École pratique des hautes études
(religious science section), he is now back once again
in Pondicherry.
Harunaga
Isaacson studied in Groningen (MA 1990) and
was awarded a PhD in Sanskrit by the University of
Leiden in 1995. After holding positions for research
and teaching at the Universities of Oxford, Hamburg
and Pennsylvania, he was appointed Professor of
Classical Indology in the Department of Indian and
Tibetan Studies, Asien-Afrika-Institut, Hamburg, in
2006. His main research areas are: tantric traditions
in pre-13th-century South Asia, especially
Vajrayāna Buddhism; classical Sanskrit poetry;
classical Indian philosophy; and Purāṇic literature.
Contents
Preface
/ Préface vii
Dominic
Goodall
and Harunaga Isaacson
Abbreviations
xix
List
of Figures xxi
Notes
on Contributors / À propos des contributeurs xxiii
1
On the Shared ‘Ritual Syntax’ of the Early Tantric
Traditions 1
Dominic
Goodall
and Harunaga Isaacson
2 How the Tattvas
of Tantric Śaivism Came to Be 36: The
Evidence
of
the Niśvāsatattvasaṃhitā 77
Dominic
Goodall
3 A 12th-Century
Vārāṇasīmāhātmya and Its Account of
a
Hypethral
Yoginī-Temple
113
Peter
Bisschop
4 The Emergence
of the Alphabet Goddess Mātṛkā in Early
Śaiva
Tantras
135
Judit
Törzsök
5 Three
Fragmentary Folios of a 9th-Century Manuscript of an
Early
Bhūtatantra
Taught by Mahāmaheśvara 157
Diwakar
Acharya
6
The Two Iconographic Chapters from the Devyāmata
and
the
Art of Bengal 181
Anna
A. Ślączka
7 Bhūtasaṃkhyās as a Dating Tool for Pratiṣṭhā
Literature
247
Libbie
Mills
8 Minor Vajrayāna
Texts I: A Fragment from
Abhayākaragupta’s
Śrīsamvarābhisamayopāyikā
261
Péter-Dániel
Szántó
Index
297
Illustrations
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