Dear All,

I am writing because Dr Margaret Lyngdoh (University of Tartu) and I are planning to publish a book provisionally entitled Folk Magic at the Religious Peripheries of Monsoon Asia: Practices, Tools, and Ecology. 

Short description: This volume takes an academic perspective on alchemical, magic-shamanic, and tantric practices that are performed both on the peripheries of acceptance and within mainstream healing and ritual practices. The focus is ethnographic, philological, and theoretical, with authors from diverse disciplines contributing to a multivalent framework in which these practices manifest. Each chapter focuses on practices that are often labelled as phenomena existing outside or at the margins of mainstream religiosity. Both material and intangible instruments as well as the sacred spaces associated with ritual, magic, alchemical, or shamanic practices since the pre-modern period will be examined to demonstrate a continuity across Monsoon Asia.

South India/Deccan

Sri Lanka

Orissa/Eastern India

Indonesia

Myanmar

Southern China

Mainland Southeast Asia 

Central Asia/Tibet

Bengal 

Western and Northwestern India

Chapters on śākta-tantra, yoga, yantras/maṇḍalas, cremation grounds/cemeteries based on textual studies and/or art history are very welcome. 

If you are interested, please email me a title and an abstract (200-250 words) at paoloe.rosati@gmail.com as soon as possible. I would highly appreciate your sharing this with anyone you feel would be suitable for the book project. 

Sincerely,

Paolo