Routledge Studies in Tantric Traditions is a major new monograph series which has been established to publish scholarship on south, east and southeast Asian tantric traditions. The series aims to promote the serious study of both Hindu and Buddhist tantric traditions through the publication of anthropological and textual studies and will not be limited to any one method. Indeed, the series would hope to promote the view that anthropological studies can be informed by texts and textual studies informed by anthropology. The series will therefore publish contemporary ethnographies from different regions, philological studies, philosophical studies, and historical studies of different periods which contribute to the academic endeavour to understand the role of tantric texts and their meaning in particular cultural contexts. In this way, the series will hope to establish what the continuities and divergencies are between Buddhist and Hindu tantric traditions and between different regions. The series will be a major contribution to the fields of Indology, Sinology, History of Religions, and Anthropology.
Edited
By Andrea Acri, Paolo E. Rosati
November 03, 2022
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, ...
By D.E. Osto
March 11, 2020
This book analyzes the contemporary global revival of Nondual Śaivism, a thousand-year-old medieval Hindu religious philosophy. Providing a historical overview of the seminal people and groups responsible for the revival, the book compares the tradition’s medieval Indian origins to modern forms, ...
By Mans Broo
June 07, 2019
The Rādhā Tantra is an anonymous 17th century tantric text from Bengal. The text offers a lively picture of the meeting of different religious traditions in 17th century Bengal, since it presents a Śākta version of the famous Vaiṣṇava story of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa. This book presents a critically ...
Edited
By Bjarne Wernicke Olesen
March 21, 2018
Hinduism cannot be understood without the Great Goddess and the goddess-orientated Śākta traditions. The Goddess pervades Hinduism at all levels, from aniconic village deities to high-caste pan-Hindu goddesses to esoteric, tantric goddesses. Nevertheless, the highly influential tantric forms of ...
By Sthaneshwar Timalsina
May 25, 2017
Indian culture relies greatly on visual expression, and this book uses both classical Indian and contemporary Western philosophies and current studies on cognitive sciences, and applies them to contextualize Tantric visual culture. The work selects aspects of Tantric language and the practice of ...
By Anthony Tribe
June 01, 2016
Using a commentary on the influential text, the Mañjuśrī-nāmasaṃgīti, ‘The Chanting of the Names of Mañjuśrī’, this book deals with Buddhist tantric meditation practice and its doctrinal context in early-medieval India. The commentary was written by the 8th-9th century Indian tantric scholar ...
By Andre Padoux
July 22, 2015
Providing a systematic and complete overview of the highest scholarly quality on Tantric mantras in Hinduism, this book presents a summary on the nature of Tantric mantras, their phonetic aspect, structure and classifications. Additionally, it explains the metaphysical-theological nature of Tantric...
By Lyne Bansat-Boudon, Kamalesha Datta Tripathi
March 09, 2015
The Paramārthasāra, or ‘Essence of Ultimate Reality’, is a work of the Kashmirian polymath Abhinavagupta (tenth–eleventh centuries). It is a brief treatise in which the author outlines the doctrine of which he is a notable exponent, namely nondualistic Śaivism, which he designates in his works ...
By Martin A. Mills
August 11, 2010
This is a major anthropological study of contemporary Tibetan Buddhist monasticism and tantric ritual in the Ladakh region of North-West India and of the role of tantric ritual in the formation and maintenance of traditional forms of state structure and political consciousness in Tibet. Containing...
By James Mallinson
July 14, 2010
Describing one of the most important practices of hathayoga (khecarimudra), the Khecarividya of Adinatha is presented here to an English-speaking readership for the first time. The author, James Mallinson, draws on thirty Sanskrit works, as well as original fieldwork amongst yogins in India who use...