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Dissertation Submitted to the University of Delhi In Partial Fulfilment of Requirement For the Degree of BY UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY UNIVERSITY OF DELHI DELHI-110007 2018 CERTIFICATE This is to certify that Pranshu Samdarshi, a Ph.D. Scholar in the Department of History, University of Delhi, has satisfactorily prepared his thesis entitled ‘Sacred Feminine Imagery in Tantric Buddhism: Text and Practice’ under my supervision and guidance. The present work incorporates the result of his independent study and embodies his own research. This work to the best of my knowledge and belief is original and the contents of the thesis have not been presented before to form the basis of the award of any previous degree in any university. The present work is up to the mark and is worthy of presentation for examination. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There are many that, without their guidance and support, this research would not have been made possible. First of all, sincere thanks to my Ph.D. research supervisors Dr. Shonaleeka Kaul and Prof. Jaya S. Tyagi. They offered genuine guidance and gave a space, a freedom, and an emotional security to develop and express my difficult ideas that have taken some shape in this research. I am immensely grateful for their insight, wisdom and tutelage. All the teachers and staff of Department of History were always a source of assistance and their moral support has been a blessing. I respectfully offer my deep reverence and gratefulness to them. The strength of presence of friends, Anil Kumar Maurya, Vikram Bhardwaj, Dinesh Singh, Sunil Kumar, Narender, Ven. Tashi Dorje, Pooja Dabral, Karma Rinchen Sonam, Nelja Wangmo and all other friends from various departments of Delhi University and Jawaharlal Nehru University, does not go unnoticed. I am grateful to Thomas Cruijsen, of 84000.co translation project and Dr. Manik Bajracharya of Lotus Research Centre, Kathmandu. Their inputs on Nepalese Buddhist traditions and reading the Buddhist terminologies have benefitted a lot for this research. I am also grateful to Dr. Balaram Shukla of Sanskrit department, University of Delhi, who helped with the English translations of Sanskrit passages used in this research. The informal interactions with Prof. Ram Shankar Tripathi, Geshe Yeshe Thabkhey, Dr. Wangchuk Dorje Negi and other scholars of Central University of Tibetan Studies, Sarnath, have made me aware of the vast and profound textual legacy of Buddhist tantra. Studying the texts of Kashmir Shaivism with Prof. Bettina Baumer and Dr. Aleksandra Wenta and, attending the Sanskrit classes of Prof. V. N. Jha and Dr. Sadananda Das were some of the valuable addendums to my understanding of compositeness of Indic-scholasticism. Finally, I offer my profound gratitude to Geshe Dorji Damdul. I feel fortunate to have the access to his vast knowledge of traditional Buddhist philosophy and his insightful teachings given at Tibet House, Delhi. I acknowledge the financial support of Senior Research Fellowship provided by UGC. ii PREFACE In the process of writing this dissertation, I also produced the following publications. Some contents of this dissertation, therefore, may overlap with these publications: 1. 2019 (Upcoming) ‘Spatial and Architectural Constructs of Tantric Buddhist Mandalas: A Cognitive Approach’, in Eloquent Spaces: Meaning, Monuments and Communities in Early India, Ed. Shonaleeka Kaul, Routledge, London and New York. 2. 2018 ‘Book Review’ in Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, National University of Singapore, Vol. 49. No. 2, (Book Review of Nalanda Srivijaya and Beyond: Re-exploring Buddhist Art in Asia, Edited by Gauri Parimoo Krishnan, Singapore: Asian Civilisation Museum, 2017). 3. 2017 ‘ह िं दी साह त्य पर बौद्ध धर्म-दर्मन का प्रभाव’ (Buddhist Influence on Modern Hindi Literature), Vol. 4, Issue. 26, अपनी र्ाटी ई-पहिका, Web magazine, Chittorgarh, Rajasthan. 4. 2017 ‘Female Buddhas: Sacred Feminine Imagery in Buddhist Tantra’, Rachna Publishers, New Delhi. 5. 2016 ‘Yoginis as Goddesses’ Frontline, Vol. 32, Issue 26, Jan.08, 2016: 86-87. (Book Review of Anamika Roy’s Sixty-Four Yoginis: Cult, Icons and Goddesses, Primus Books, 2015). 6. 2014 ‘Concept of Goddesses in Buddhist Tantra Tradition’, The Delhi University Journal of the Humanities and the Social Sciences, University of Delhi, Vol. 1, Issue 1: 83-96. ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS - Romanization of Sanskrit follows the International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration. - All Sanskrit and Tibetan pre-modern names are given name first followed by the surname. - There is no present consensus concerning the terms: Vajrayana, Mantrayana, Esoteric Buddhism, and Tantric Buddhism. Therefore, these various terms are used interchangeably. iv DESCRIPTION OF DIACRITICS long a ā retroflex d ḍ long A Ā retroflex D Ḍ long i ī retroflex n ṇ long I Ī retroflex N Ṇ long u ū palatal s ś long U Ū palatal S Ś vocalic r ṛ retroflex s ṣ vocalic R Ṛ retroflex S Ṣ long vocalic r ṝ anusvara ṃ vocalic l ḷ visarga ḥ vocalic L Ḷ long e ē long vocalic l ḹ long o ō velar n ṅ l underbar ḻ velar N Ṅ r underbar ṟ palatal n ñ n underbar ṉ palatal N Ñ k underbar ḵ retroflex t ṭ t underbar ṯ retroflex T Ṭ Unless indicated otherwise, accents have been dropped in order to facilitate word search. v SUMMARY IN HINDI स्त्री-रूप र्ें हदव्य-र्क्ति की आराधना हवहभन्न धर्ों का एक अहभन्न अिंग र ा ै . भारतीय उपर् ाद्वीप हवकहसत हवहभन्न धाहर्मक सिंप्रदाय िं तथा ल ग िं के सार्ाहिक िीवन र्ें भी दे वी-पूिा का प्रर्ुख स्थान र ा ै . अन्य भारतीय धर्ों की तर बौद्ध धर्म के हवहभन्न सिंप्रदाय िं र्े प्रज्ञा के रूप र्ें स्त्री-दे वता के उपासना प्रचहलत र ी ै . बौद्ध धर्म र्ें बुद्धत्व सह त उच्चतर् आध्याक्तिक आदर्ों एविं लक्ष् िं की अहभव्यक्ति स्त्रीदे वता के रूप र्े भी हनरूहपत हुई ै . भारत र्ें उद् भूत प्रायः सभी धर्ों र्ें तिंि-साधना की भी अहवहिन्न परिं परा हवद्यर्ान र ी ै . बौद्ध धर्म के परवती काल र्ें िब बौद्ध-तिंि की धारा का िन-सार्ान्य के बीच प्रचार-प्रसार हुआ तब बुद्धत्व की अवधारणा एक व्यक्ति हवर्ेष के रूप र्ें न कर वणम-हलिंग से परे , एक चैतन्य िाग्रत सत्ता के र्ानवकृत स्वरुप र्ें हनरुहपत हुई. इसी क्रर् र्ें हवहभन्न स्त्री-दे वताओिं के साधना परिं परा का हवकास हुआ. पारर्ाहथमक सत्य और प्रज्ञा रूप र्ें अहभव्यि ये तािं हिक दे हवयााँ बौद्ध आदर्ों एविं उच्यतर् धाहर्मक लक्ष् क हनरुहपत करती ैं . ध्यातव्य ै हक र्ाि-र्ैव तिंि और बौद्ध तिंि र्ें सिंवृहतक एविं परर्ाथम-सत्य की अवधारणा एक सार्ान न ीिं ने से बौद्ध तिंि िं की अपनी हवहर्ष्ट परम्परा र ी ै . अनाि एविं र्ून्यता के हसद्धािं त की पृष्ठभूहर् पर आधाररत बौद्ध तिंि र्ें वहणमत बौद्ध दे वीय िं की प्रतीकािकता परर्ाथम और सिंवृहत की एकािकता पर केक्तित ैं तथा बौद्ध तिंि के साधन-हसद्धािं त पराथम-ह त क ी अपना उद्दे श्य लहित करते ैं . इस र् ध र्ें तािं हिक बौद्ध परिं परा के हवहभन्न ग्रिंथ िं र्ें उल्लेक्तखत तािं हिक दे हवय िं की उपासना एविं ध्यान-परिं परा के ऐहत ाहसक हवकास का क्रर्-बद्ध सवेिण हकया गया ै . औपहनवेहर्क-काल के और वतमर्ान इहत ासकार के द्वारा की गयी तिंि-सम्बिंहधत असिंगत व्याख्याओिं की सर्ाल चना की गयी ै , साथ ीिं तथा नेपाल और हतब्बत र्ें प्रचहलत बौद्ध दे वीय िं के तािं हिक परिं पराओिं का साधानर्ाला तथा हनष्पन्नय गावली इत्याहद तिंि ग्रिंथ िं के आधार पर एक र् धपूणम अध्ययन प्रस्तुत हकया गया ै . पररहर्ष्ट के रूप र्ें बौद्ध-तिंि की दे हवय िं से सम्बिंहधत कुि सिंस्कृत श्ल क िं के र्ौहलक अिंग्रेिी अनुवाद भी सिंलग्न ै . vi CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I PREFACE III ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS IV DESCRIPTION OF DIACRITICS V SUMMARY IN HINDI VI INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER 1 9 I. BUDDHIST TANTRA: METHODOLOGICAL, TEXTUAL AND HISTORICAL ISSUES Unargued preference and presumptions Orientalism and Romanticism The prototype of the European concept of Buddhism European scholars and Sanskrit Buddhist texts The colonial project of discovering the ‘original Buddhism’ Presuppositions and academic appropriation of tantric Buddhism Conclusion (I) II. Transcultural Encounters: Western influence on Indian Scholars Tantric Buddhism and the Orientalist tropes Extra-Indian origin theory of Buddhist tantra The portrayal of Buddhist Tantra in Hindi Literature Corrective Voices Conclusion (II) 13 18 21 25 28 29 46 48 50 57 61 65 67 CHAPTER – 2 69 THE CONCEPT OF SACRED FEMININE IN BUDDHIST TANTRA Early tantra traditions Esotericism and misunderstanding of tantra and its practices 72 85 Interpretation of Tantra by Western scholars Feminine deities in the modern feminist framework Research on goddesses of early Buddhism Ḍākinī and Yakṣiṇī in Buddhism Female deities in non-Buddhist tantric systems Divine feminine and Female Buddhas Buddhist ideals and their female personification Goddesses in the historical sources Feminine form of Dhāraṇī Contemplative practices and female tantric deities Conclusion CHAPTER 3 86 91 93 96 98 101 105 106 110 113 118 119 PAÑCARAKṢĀ: THE FIVE-PROTECTION DEITIES OF KRIYĀ-TANTRA Classification of Buddhist tantra Antiquity of Pañcarakṣā practice Pañcarakṣā practice in Kathmandu valley Pañcarakṣā in Central and Southeast Asia Pañcarakṣā tradition in ancient India Pañcarakṣā in texts Pañcarakṣā Mandala Pañcarakṣā-sūtra Pañcarakṣā in Arts Pañcarakṣā Carya-nŗitya Conclusion CHAPTER 4 121 130 130 133 138 145 151 155 160 166 167 169 VAJRAYOGINĪ: SYMBOLISM OF YOGIC PRACTICES IN BUDDHIST-TANTRA Vajrayoginī in tantra texts Portrayal of enlightenment in female form Icon of Trikāya-vajrayoginī and yogic practice Vajravārāhī and Vajrayoginī Visualization practices of Vajrayoginī in texts Vajrayoginī in the popular religion of Tibet and Nepal Vajrayoginī temple at Sankhu Vajrayoginī temple at Pharping Conclusion CONCLUSION 169 173 176 181 186 189 191 197 200 203 APPENDIX 210 BIBLIOGRAPHY 224 INDEX 255 INTRODUCTION The worship of the goddess, the feminine-divine, has been an integral part of all religions that developed in India. Like other religious traditions, there exists a live engagement of Buddhism with feminine divinities. The modern studies on Himalayan and Tibetan Buddhist arts reveal that tantric Buddhist pantheon is incredibly rich with a diverse array of fascinating female figures. A number of studies in recent years have pointed out to a paradigmatic shift in the epistemology of feminine worship in the socio-religious life of the people in the Indian subcontinent. It has been commonly observed that diverse traditions of goddesses, in their many forms and features, pervade the historical development of Indic religions at multiple levels. These figures correspond to multiple levels of divinity. They range from tree spirits to wrathful protectors and compassionate healers to mother figures of liberation. Some of them bestow the mundane accomplishments (sāmānya-siddhi) to their practitioners while others confer the supreme accomplishments (uttama-siddhi) to the supplicants of Buddhahood.1 The ṣṭ 1 canonical Buddhist texts, which mention these goddesses, suggest that peaceful or wrathful appearance of goddesses depend on the particular qualities embodied by these goddesses. From the iconographic perspective, the Buddhist goddesses have key identifiers such as postures, hand gestures, or symbols and colour to tell who they are or what they represent. A deeper understanding of tantric imagery reveals that much of the iconographic aspects of these Buddhist divinities have been derived from pragmatic visualization practices of Buddhist tantra. Such practices are soteriological in their aim but cryptic in their expression and esoteric in nature.2 However, most often, the researchers, as they are unaware of these veiled and esoteric concepts and symbolism of tantric Buddhism, fail to give cognizance to their significance and end up with an improper assessment of tantric iconography. A significant part of this research involves the analysis of the central characteristics of Buddhist tantra. This analysis has a multi-layered approach and involves a variety of sources, considering the two sides of religion, the theory that 2 is presented in canonical texts and in the lineage-teachings of monks, and the praxis, the actual practices and rituals of the lay adherents. This research delineates the process of development of the tradition of goddesses and their practices within Buddhism in general and Buddhist tantra in particular. It is done by examining the canonical texts and ritual compendia of Buddhist tantra tradition for its symbolism, iconography, and visualization rituals. The functional aspects of rituals related to worldly or soteriological goals are also enquired into. The materials and information gathered for research work done for this research have been done through visiting monasteries, staying with lay Buddhist communities in Himalayan Buddhist regions, and conducting a series of formal and informal interactions with lineage-holder Tibetan Buddhist monks, reincarnated Lamas, Newari Vajracharyas, and the ordinary devotees who go on pilgrimage to the shrines of Buddhist deities. A part of this research also contrasts the classical form of esoteric religious practices as prescribed in tantric texts that are preserved mainly by the monastics, with the popular traditions that play in the hearts and minds of the lay adherents of Buddhism. Though this research incorporates the tantric Buddhist tradition in general, it is centred on the tantric traditions and practices of goddesses that have been an integral part of Buddhism that still survives in the Himalayan regions. The area of investigation is positioned on two specific practices of Buddhist goddesses: the Pañcarakṣā and the Vajrayoginī practice. The postulation done in is largely 3 based upon the first-hand information obtained from fieldwork and primary textual sources. This research, although, is more concerned with the philological analysis of Buddhist tantra texts, nevertheless, it has benefitted a lot from extensive travelling and fieldwork around the Himalayan region of India which includes Ladakh, Spiti and Sikkim, where the tantric form of Buddhism is still a vibrant living practice. This research also draws on from my M.Phil. research, which consisted of fieldwork on the shrines of Buddhist Goddesses in Kathmandu valley in Nepal. In the last few decades, the increasing curiosity about Buddhist tantra has resulted in the production of a number of volumes related to goddesses. Some of these books have drawn on feminist ideas related to tantric sources to pursue questions related to the construction of women and women's subjectivity within the South Asian religious culture. Although these books do provide significant insight towards an understanding of feminine aspects of the Indo-Tibetan culture of Buddhism, however as Rita M. Gross points out, ‘...such discussions cannot be 4 done by outsiders, no matter how knowledgeable and sympathetic they may be.’3 An attempt has been made in this research to bring in the insider’s perspective. This research is divided into four chapters. The first chapter critically analyses the historiography of Buddhism in general and Buddhist tantra in particular. The first part involves a critical analysis of the historiography of Buddhism and enquires into the larger contours of issues and the possible motives and reasons behind particular approaches as taken up by Buddhist scholars working under the British rulers of India who were responsible for creating general perceptions about the history of Buddhism that is still prevalent today. The chapter takes up how the colonial interpretation of Buddhist history influenced Indian historians and how they responded towards the conceptual models and narrative forms developed by their Western counterparts. A diverse range of texts produced in the colonial and post-colonial period are analysed in this chapter. The concern is not with the chronological periodization of texts but with the ideological orientations underlying these textual productions. This chapter looks into the details of the conventional mode of looking at Buddhism as it has been developed in the departments of religious and Asian 5 studies of Western universities and how the models that were developed for European studies and Biblical studies have been deployed to interpret Buddhism. Many such models that still dominate the historical imagination of Buddhist studies have been examined in this chapter. This chapter also proposes an alternative approach for Buddhist studies and advocates incorporating the critical study of the tantra texts from the perspective of traditional accounts. The second chapter explores the progression of tantra in the religious sphere of ancient India in general. The focal point of the discussion is the goddess of Buddhist tantra. The interaction and influence of other religious traditions visa-vis Buddhism have been discussed. This chapter explores the placement of goddesses in the Buddhist framework and their symbolic importance. The different strata of goddesses are delineated and the personification in Buddhist ideas and the deifications of protective incantations, which has been an important aspect of Sutra and Tantra literature, are highlighted. The third chapter deals with Pañcarakṣā goddesses. Their practice is classified under Kriyā-tantra of four classes of Buddhist tantra.4 This chapter 6 investigates these goddesses with a two-tiered approach. It enquires into the explanation about the abstractness of their appearance and rituals through a brief overview of esoteric practices explained in some of the ancient tantric texts. The archaeological and textual pieces of evidence found in India, Central, and Southeast Asia have been examined in this chapter. Then the functional aspect of these goddesses found in the contemporary religious sphere of Nepal is also explored. The fourth chapter consists of an explanation about the rationale behind the rituals and practices associated with Anuttarayoga-tantra through the visualizations practices related to a tutelary deity Vajrayoginī. The name Vajrayoginī is a generic name for a set of tantric goddesses who have a prominent presence in the tantric texts and therefore several forms of ritualistic visualization forms and yogic practices have developed around these goddesses. This chapter also explores the popular religious traditions associated with different Vajrayoginī , 7 temples located in the Kathmandu valley, Nepal, which happens to a significant part of this tradition but has been mostly neglected by the researchers.5 The conclusion points to the importance of proper tantric semiotics and hermeneutics for making sense of tantric texts, iconography and associated practices so that they can be interpreted within the context and in emic ways. An English translation of a small text, which is a collection of twenty-five praise-verses (Snk. stuti) of Pañcarakṣā, has been added as an appendix. This is to give an idea of how such arcane practices of Buddhist goddesses, embedded within spiritual and philosophical doctrines, become the expression of popular religion and devotion. 8 CHAPTER 1 BUDDHIST TANTRA: METHODOLOGICAL, TEXTUAL AND HISTORICAL ISSUES श्वा-खरोष्ट्र-गजाद्य-अस्र्क् पित्वा माांसेन भोजनम् पनत्यम् | Drink the blood of dog, donkey, camel, and elephant; thereafter feed on their flesh, regularly. इष्ट्ां सर्वपर्शेष रक्त-पर्पिप्त-महामाांसां समस्त-कुत्सितमाांसां प्राणक-शत-िक्ष-सम्युक्तम्-पिव्यम् | Desired is the very special, smeared with the blood, the human flesh, awful meat of all species, full of millions of maggots, is divine. र्ैरोचनेनापत-िूतम् कीट-शतैह् पसपमपस-मायमानम् श्वान-नर-च्छपिव त-पमश्रम् माांसां र्ज्राम्बुमपजवका-युक्तम् र्ैरोचन-सत्सिश्रम् भोक्तव्यम् योपगनोिाहै: || Meat solidified by rotten excrement, mixed with the dog and human vomit, simmering with hundreds of worms, with a coating of urine mixed with excrement; [it should be] consumed by the yogi with delight. − सिंपुट द्भवस्वर-तिंि-हनदान-र् ाकल्प-राि − Sampuṭodbhava-svara-tantra-nidāna-mahākalpa-rāja 1 , 9 ‘Well, traditionally it would be better not to publish it [tantra scripture] at all; but if it is going to be published inevitably anyway, it is important to explain it clearly and authoritatively so as to avoid damaging misunderstandings.’ - H.H. the 14th Dalai Lama 2 For the readers outside of the tantra tradition, it is not an easy task to shed their dispassion while reading a tantric text. To the scholars of comparative religion, the tantra scriptures and their doctrines have represented the ultimate challenge. The deliberate use of the antinomian in the tantric religious system makes its ritualistic presentations, the language, and its semantics so offensive and repulsive that even if the reader is sympathetic to the tradition, it is not an easy task to get away from the distaste. The distaste, however, has been the creation of cursory and superficial readings of tantric texts.3 Any such reader is bound to be astounded by the characteristics and the discussion of these tantric treatises when they unfold. They have an unconventional tone of language, a different tenor of their expositions, and persuasion for a radical approach towards the practice for achieving the highest state of wisdom, what these texts refer as ‘unsurpassable knowledge’ (anuttara- 10 jñana). The tantra texts present an altogether different category of epistemic place and subjectivization. And they purposely and overwhelmingly urge their readers to be well aware of the technicalities of the inherent cryptic language (sandhyābhāṣā), the hermeneutical renditions (nītārtha-neyārtha), and the appropriations of intention-intended (abhiprāya-icchataḥ), in the prescribed rituals; failing which, the whole tantric liturgy would just remain as an objectionable and nonsensical subject.4 A century ago, when the modern studies on Indology were in their premature stage, many Western explorers, who came across the tantric traditions in general and Buddhist tantra in particular, had to wrestle with the issue of this issue of tantra antinomianism. The normative rendering of Sanskrit textual lexicons, and other philological tools, which were helpful for the understanding of other scriptures in Sanskrit, did not provide any help, and these texts were incomprehensible even to the greatest of Sanskrit scholars of that time, (both Indian as well as Western.) 11 As most of the scholars failed to make much sense out of the unconventional rhetoric presented in the texts; they concluded the tantric form of Buddhism to be a disgusting form of some primitive religion. Nonetheless, it was evidently puzzling for these scholars, to fathom the widespread popularity of the tantric form of Buddhism that was still predominant in the vast range of the Himalayan region of India, Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet, and in the trans-Himalayan regions of Asia such as China, Mongolia, Korea, and Japan. Since late 19th century, we find that protestant Britain, having India and Sri Lanka as its colonies, was putting in effort for promoting Pali based Theravada Buddhism, while Catholic France, having influence over Indo-china, looked for Buddhist scholasticism in the Sanskrit Mahayana Sutras. This resulted in the development of the two European schools of Buddhist studies. The Anglo-German school and the Franco-Belgian school. The Anglo-German school almost exclusively emphasized the Pali literary tradition. Scholars such as Thomas William Rhys Davids and Hermann Oldenburg were amongst the main proponents of this school. The Franco-Belgian school utilized the Sanskrit textual tradition of Buddhism. Many eminent French scholars such as Sylvain Levi, De-la Valle Poussin and Jean Przylusky represented this school. Thus, the texts of two traditions of Buddhism, Theravada and Mahayana, started being translated into the European languages by scholars. However, Western scholars started studying these texts from the point of view of Biblical 12 studies and Christian theology. Initially, the effort of these studies was motivated by the aim of drawing some parallels between Buddhism and Christianity so that European Christian missionaries could have some grounding in the religious systems of Asia so that Christianity could be introduced in the Asian countries. Though these scholars were partially successful in their endeavour of comprehending the literature of Buddhist Sutra, when it came to the Buddhist tantra, the texts did not make any sense to them. Although a tantric form of Buddhism was surviving in Tibet, it was a forbidden land for Europeans, as at the end of 18th century the Tibetan government closed its border to them. Thus, the proper exposure for reading and interpretation of tantra texts was missing, which made it virtually impossible for those scholars to recognize the importance of the tantric Buddhist principles, especially when they compared it with the theology of Judeo-Christian religions. Unargued preference and presumptions When India formally became a British colony in the late 19th century, the reformative agenda of British rulers of India became of utmost importance. In order to justify the exploitation of their colonized subjects, the reinterpretation of Indian customs and the religious traditions was an essential need. British rulers could figure out that in ancient India, Buddhism had enjoyed a distinct identity as an institution. Moreover, as the traditional masters of Buddhism were virtually 13 absent in the mainland of India, there was an opportunity to tweak its doctrine, reinvent it, and use it a means to introduce their own agenda in the disguise of Buddhism to their Indian subjects. This endeavour of British colonizers of India led to interpreting the Pali or Theravada form of Buddhism in a particular way. Primacy was given to Pali and it was propagated as the ‘original’ language of Buddhism and the language of Buddha as well as the language of common masses in ancient India.5 In addition, the Buddha was presented as the supreme reformer of India. This celebration was of a specific form of Buddhism was deliberately done in such a way that all other forms of religious tradition, including the Mahayana and Tantra traditions of Buddhism, could be deprecated. This presentation was an outcome of the European imagination, which presented Buddhism as a religion compatible with rationalistic Western science. It was in stark contrast to Hinduism, which was considered mythological and superstitious religion. The 19th century was the period when the investigation of Buddhism was taken up as a leisure activity by enthusiasts such as Alexander Cunningham (1814- 14 1893). Cunningham, who was trained as a military engineer, somehow managed to combine his military official work with his antiquarian interests in his young age and eventually became archaeological surveyor after his retirement. The unpublished archival materials related to him reveal the fact of the colonial mindset playing its role in distorting the archaeological source materials and presenting it in a decidedly peculiar fashion for which there is no obvious scholarly justification. Cunningham has been criticized for his ‘bias’ and his over fascination for Buddhism. Cunningham’s preference for Buddhism, which was seemingly inoffensive until the recent research shows that the larger part of his writings has conspicuous rhetoric that sought to read Indian history in terms of deteriorating, a progressing decay from a distant but having a glorious past. This rhetoric was purposely created to pave the way for the British to colonize India so that in the disguise of reformist actions, their colonial project was executed. In the writings of Cunningham and his contemporaries, there are various examples of the faulty interpretations of the findings of the early archaeological period. Recent research reveal that there have been many cases of racist attacks on native Indian scholars and they were discredited for their findings.6 A typical 15 example of this case was the dispute between James Fergusson, an indigo merchant turned architect, and Rajendra Lal Mitra. An analysis of James Fergusson’s book in which he responds to Rajendra Lal Mitra provides clear and direct evidence of the political ramifications of architectural debates that happened in 19th century India, which shows that the Indian scholars were univocally denied agency in the field of scholarship.7 This style of ‘cherry-picking’ approach for historiography was evident as the preference for a particular kind of source-materials was shown while neglecting others. The analysis of reports of Cunningham reveals that his descriptions about the motifs of Sanchi do not take the presence of Mahayana Buddhist traditions into consideration. For example, in his report, Cunningham does not give importance to motifs of Yakṣiṇi or Gaja-lakṣmi figures of Sanchi and mentions the Vajrapaṇi capital as a mere decorative figure. Nevertheless, the Vajrapani is amongst the three main Bodhisattva figure in Mahayana Buddhism, symbolic form of power of the Buddha, and the chief compiler of the tantra texts preached by the Buddha.8 . ṣ 16 Similar to the approach of Cunningham, the records of Brain H. Hodgson (1801-1894), a British resident of Kathmandu, tell us about the presence of rich Mahayana Buddhist philosophical traditions along with the systems of tantra and its deities in the Himalayan regions of Nepal. However, like most of English proconsuls of his time, Hodgson rejected the traditional viewpoints of Buddhist philosophy as ‘interminable absurdities of Buddha system.’9 In 1824, when Hodgson began his mission of accumulating the Buddhist Sanskrit manuscripts of Tantra and Mahayana, he also started dispatching them to his friends in India and France. Hodgson in one of the letters to his French scholar E. Burnouf writes, ‘Tantrika [sic] works are very numerous. They are in general disgraced by obscenity and by all sorts of magic and demonology. But they are frequently redeemed by unusually explicit assertions of a supreme Godhead.’10 It is not difficult to recognize there was a deliberate attempt made by Hodgson to correlate tantra to the Western magical tradition and his own imaginative constructs of Buddhist godhead and then projecting it as tantric Buddhism.11 17 Most of these theories that were propagated by scholars such as Cunningham and Hodgson to disparage the Mahayana and Tantric Buddhist tradition were closely intertwined with the history of political relationships between India and the West. These theories suffer from epistemological assumptions of British officers that are highly biased. It is not so difficult to infer that those assumptions and appropriations of archaeological findings were framed according to the concerns of racial superiority and their imperialist vision in colonial India. Through this sort of propagandist scholarship, the theory of ‘decline of Indian wisdom’ was devised and the need of a revival of ‘once-great civilization’ was often necessitated to impose the reformist agenda and in order to justify the British colonial presence in India as a civilizing force. Orientalism and Romanticism Much prior to the endeavours of Cunningham and Hodgson, the interest of Western scholars in Buddhism developed around the 17th century CE. Initially, it was because of their curiosity in the probable influence of Indian thought on Christianity.12 Some of the irrational speculations were presented by the scholars 18 of this era. To scholars such as Engelbert Kaempfer, a German physician and explorer (1651-1716), Buddhism was mere ‘the pagan doctrine of the Brahmanas.’13 By early 18th century CE, most of the European scholars were convinced about the historicity of Buddha and the spread of his doctrine across Asia, however, according to the Western historical principles, it was not sure where he lived or where he was from. The absence of living Buddhism and its practices from the non-Himalayan regions of India led them to the speculation that they had to search for Buddha’s religion elsewhere from India. This resulted in ‘extra Indian origin theory’ of Buddhism. This led to the theory of Buddha having an ‘African origin,’ as he is depicted with the ‘thick Ethiopian lips’ and ‘woolly curls of Negro.’ This theory was initially developed by Edward Moor (1771-1848) and later on supported by Sir William Jones (1746-1794), who supported these theories in ‘The Third Anniversary Discourse’ delivered in Calcutta to the Asiatic Society of Bengal in February 1786. The ‘African origin’ hypothesis continued to hold , 19 sway and evolve into the ‘two Buddha’ hypothesis; the second Buddha was speculated to have come from Scythia. Around the mid of 19th century, when British explorers started discovering Buddha statues in Gandhara region, from that point onwards, ‘the Buddha curls would look Greek rather than African to the European eye.’14 Such imaginative constructs were unjustifiable to the people who were concerned about this misrepresentation and scholars such as Ananda K. Coomaraswamy (1877-1947), who abandoned his scientific career and devoted his life to art as a full-time art historian. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, while ‘The Great Game’ was happening in the trans-Himalayan regions,15 some enthusiastic explorers, who initially had almost no interest in Buddhism, accidentally discovered the great wealth of Buddhist wisdom. One such scholar was Alexander Csoma De-Coros (1784-1842), who is considered as the founding figure of Tibetology. Alexander Csoma hailed from a small village of Coros of Hungary. In his romantic quest to locate the linguistic origins of the Hungarian language and people, Csoma wanted to visit Tibet and search for his ancestral history. As the Tibetan government had 20 closed its border for Europeans at the end of the 18th century, Csoma chose to settle down in the Himalayan regions of Ladakh and Kinnaur. These regions had a close affiliation with the Tibetan language and culture and they were under British control so they were relatively accessible to European scholars. Csoma De-Coros was able to compile and publish the first Tibetan-English dictionary.16 The efforts of scholars such as Csoma De-Coros paved the way for some serious research and textual studies related to tantra texts and iconography through the Tibetan texts. Although, at the beginning, the research work based on Sanskrit textual sources on Buddhism has been ascribed to Hodgson who was on mission to acquire the antiquarian artefacts and manuscripts from Himalayan regions since 1824, it was scholars such as Csoma who immersed himself in an intense study of Tibetan language and Indo-Tibetan Buddhism at the core of its literature. This was the beginning of a serious effort for making tantric Buddhism intelligible for their fellow Europeans. The prototype of the European concept of Buddhism Most research work conducted in this era was intended to make Buddhism more plausible to European audiences, suffered from certain rhetorical tropes. This 21 rhetoric eventually led to creating the European concept of Buddhism. Much responsibility goes to Eugene Burnouf (1774- 1844) for creating this modern Eurocentric understanding of Buddhism. Burnouf was one of the first French to work on the manuscripts brought by Hodgson from Kathmandu to the Societe Asiatique of Kolkata. He was fascinated by Buddhism because of ‘the realistic spirit of this doctrine, its materialism and even its ordinariness.’17 Burnouf, in his monumental text Introduction à l'histoire du Buddhisme (1844), managed to impose the Western notion of rationality on this fresh field of unexamined texts of Buddhism, and constructed an intelligible scheme of ideas in his book, which has been described by Max Muller as ‘the most influential scholarly work on Buddhism in the nineteenth century’.18 In his book, Burnouf devotes a chapter on Buddhist tantra, in which he treats this subject with full disdain. He could not comprehend how scholars such as Alexander Csoma de Kőrös could find ‘some of the tantras beautiful’.19 Burnouf writes: 22 [These] tantras are indeed treatises with a very special character, where the cult of bizarre or terrible gods and goddesses is combined with a monotheistic system and other developments of Northern Buddhism. He further states: It is not my intention to long dwell on this part of the Nepalese collection [of texts on Buddhist tantra], which I am inclined to regard as the most modern of all, and whose importance for the history of human superstitions does not compensate for its mediocrity and vapidity. It is certainly not without interest to see Buddhism, which in its first organization had so little of what makes a religion, end in the most puerile practices and the most exaggerated superstitions. Burnouf’s approach led to the radical reframing of some basic ideas of Buddhist doctrines and presented it as a ‘rational,’ ‘scientific’ and ‘reformative’ tradition. Burnouf did a French translation one of the most popular Mahayana Sutras that is also rich with the contents of tantric elements, the Saddharmapunḍarīka-sūtra, and published it in 1844. The presentation of this text rendered by Burnouf had an overall Western-orientation and although this translation had some flawed 23 understanding, the text had a good reception and big impact on contemporary scholarship on Buddhism.20 Through his later works too, many misunderstandings found their way to the contemporary common knowledge of Mahayana Buddhist texts. A typical example of factual mistake could be found in Burnouf’s description of Mahāvāstu, where Burnouf presented truncated title and erroneously presented the text Mahāvāstu as a non-canonical text.21 In addition, he mistakenly mentions about Suvarṇaprabhasa, a Mahayana Sutra, as a tantra scripture.22 While the Franco–Belgian Pali scholars were editing the Sanskrit Buddhist texts, the scholars of the Anglo-German school of Buddhist studies started paying some attention to the Sanskrit Buddhist texts and propounded their own views. The German Indologist Hermann Oldenburg (1854-1920), declared that the works of Buddhist Sanskrit literature were by-products of the earlier Pali texts. This was a common tendency of scholars of the British-German school to present the Pali 24 canon as the original one, and the Sanskrit Buddhist literature as later fabricated.23 24 European scholars and Sanskrit Buddhist texts In the late 19th century, some foremost European scholars of Franco–Belgian school of European Buddhist Studies focused their research on Buddhist texts in Sanskrit. Paul Pelliot (1878-1945) was one such scholar who worked on the Sanskrit manuscripts of Buddhism and published the La Mission Pelliot en Asie Centrale in 1924. Louse de La Vallee Poussin’s (1869-1938), translations took the Franco–Belgian school to another height. By his comprehensive study, Poussin’s efforts led to the publication of many French translations of Buddhist texts, such as Abhidharmakoṣa of Vasubandhu, (La’ Abhidharmakoṣa de Vasubandhu) published in 1923 and Vijñaptimātrtatā-siddhi of Hiuen-tang (La Siddhi de Hiuentang) in 1928. In his initial works, Louse de La Vallee Poussin did an extensive 25 study of Mahayana Buddhism and the texts on Buddhist tantra. He ventured into challenging the view that considered Theravada Buddhism as ‘original’ and ‘pure’ form of Buddhism. He vouched for the equal importance of the study of Mahayana and Pali Buddhism. He writes: The Indologist must study with equal interest the Hinayana (the vehicle of the rationalist monks of which the Pali canon, itself composite, allows us to know only part of the history and the sects) and the diverse churches of the Mahayana, which covered India and all the Orient with a luxuriant profusion of their theologies and rites. One commonly regards idolatrous and superstitious Tantrism as ‘no longer Buddhism’; one forgets that Buddhism is not separable from Buddhists…’25 However, Poussin was forced to change his position under the pressure of his fellow scholars.26 We find, Louis de la Vale Poussin drastically changed his opinion and discarded tantric Buddhism as religion full of ‘disgusting practices 26 both obscene and criminal, including incest’.27 He later concluded Buddhist tantra to be a form of ‘Hinduism …in Buddhist garb’.28 Such approaches and misevaluations at the beginning of studies on Buddhism in Europe resulted in neglect and discouragement for any further research or attempt to translate the available materials on Buddhist tantra. Austine Waddell (1854–1938), another amateur archaeologist and scholar, dismissed tantric form of Tibetan Buddhism as a degeneration of the ‘original Buddhism’ and coined the term Lamaism. In Buddhism of Tibet or Lamaism (1895) Waddle writes: But the bulk of the Lamaist cults comprise much deep-rooted devil worship and sorcery… For Lamaism is only thinly and imperfectly varnished over with Buddhist symbolism, beneath which the sinister growth of poly-demonist superstitious darkly appears.29 As a son of Protestant clergy and a missionary himself, Waddell was conditioned to see all other non-Christian forms of religion as devil worship. While his posting as a British functionary in Sikkim during 1885 to 1895, without 27 undergoing any training of understanding the metaphors of Vajrayana Buddhism, he just accumulated a vast amount of information on Tibetan Buddhism, especially on ritual practice and popular belief and catalogued it in such a way that his description would only tend to condemn those practices and reinforce the view that Tibetan Buddhism is cultic in nature and obsessed with black magic. The colonial project of discovering the ‘original Buddhism’ The British colonizers strategically encouraged by their administrative servants and scholars, European as well as Indian, to look for the ‘original’ and ‘pure’ gospel of Buddhism. This ‘pure’ form of religion was meant to be the Pali Tripitaka imported from Ceylon. Several efforts were made to establish the ‘pure’ order’ of Buddhism. The editing and English translation of this pure gospel was the next GOAL that led them to establish the Pali Text Society, founded in London in 1881 by Thomas William Rhys Davids (1843-1922), a British Civil Servant in Foreign Service who served in Ceylon prior to his retirement. The selective readings of Pali canonical works were so designed as to affirm its reformative temperament suitable to the Protestant theology. The book of Rhys Davids, Buddhism was published by The Society for Promoting Christian Language in 1877. It contained the very similar historical criticism about the life of historical Buddha, which was developed by scholars of theological departments for European universities for studying the life of Jesus Christ in the New 28 Testament.30 On similar lines, another scholar, Albert Joseph Edmunds, published his ‘Buddhist and Christian Gospels now first compared from the originals: being Gospels Parallels from Pali Texts, in 1908.31 This phase was the beginning of the rhetoric that espoused certain discourses. One such discourse, which got prominence in the field of Buddhist studies, was advocating the Theravada Buddhism as the original one and denouncing the Mahayana and Vajrayana, as a later degraded offshoot of Buddhism. Presuppositions and academic appropriation of tantric Buddhism At the beginning of the nineteenth century, some of the scholars who were well versed in the classical languages of Greek and Latin, endeavoured and self-trained themselves in the classical languages of Asia, especially Sanskrit and Chinese. Thus, they began to read Buddhist texts in the original languages. This was the period when certain stereotypes were developed and deployed to present the East to the West in familiar themes in the European historical and cultural imagination. Nevertheless, the texts of Tantra were seen as a big challenge and for these ā 29 scholars. This was the beginning of the quest for making some sense of Tantric Buddhism. For the sake of appropriating tantric Buddhism in contemporary academic settings, various models have been deployed and developed in the last century. Characteristically, most of these models have postulated the tantric Buddhism to be a disjuncture from what the early research purported as the ‘original Buddhism’. The academic writings that are based on these models give an ‘outcaste’ treatment to Buddhist tantra. Even the adherent scholars cannot get out of the cliché of European-prototype of Buddhism. The scholars are still grappling with the issue of what they call ‘antinomian aspects’ of Buddhist tantra and therefore, cannot make much sense of this form of religion that advocates the ‘dreadful’ practices. Most of the studies on Buddhist tantra presume that Tantric Buddhism is incompatible with its preceding Buddhist doctrines. The adherence to the purported theories of the ‘non-Buddhist origin’ of Buddhist tantra, creates this misconception. These theories still predominate over the fields of Buddhist studies. Some of these ‘origin of Buddhist tantra’ theories, which have become a kind of methodological cliché have been discussed and examined here. Tantra originating from tribal or primitive religious cults 30 Many scholars have purported that Buddhist tantra was borrowed from tribal or primitive societies of India.32 It should be noted that contemporary notions about tribes in India are quite vague and overburdened with European cultural imaginations. The typified categorization of tribal community done by British rulers during the colonial period has largely contributed to the distortion of our ideas about Indian tribes. The notion of social and cultural backwardness of the tribal community, which is inherently attached to the modern political sense, is not quite applicable to the traditional structure of the Indian social system. The textual evidence shows that these so-called tribal people – they are thought to be outside of the Brahmanical community − have not been just some autochthonous people living in the primitive state. They rather carried on their sophisticated cultural and diplomatic intercourse with neighbouring Brahmanical polities. Śārdulakarṇāvadāna, a narrative from Divyāvadāna, which was translated into Chinese by early 2nd century CE, contains a detailed debate between a learned Brāhmaṇa Puṣkarasāriṇī and a tribal Māntanga King named Triśanku. Apart from the scathing criticism of the caste system, the text posits the Māntanga King and his son Śārdulakarṇa, to be well versed in all the Vedas and all other branches of learning. At the end of the story, the tribal king wins the debate, his 31 son marries the daughter of Brāhmaṇa Puṣkarasāriṇī, and Buddha declares that he himself was the tribal king in his previous birth.33 Considering the acquaintances of Buddhist Siddhas with tribal people’s costumes and language, some scholars have postulated the tribal origin theory of Buddhist tantra.34 However, the strong affinity with outcaste groups affirmed by the Buddhist Siddhas was because of their Buddhist anti-caste stand. Their biographical record states that many of them came from the royal families and they composed in vernaculars as well as Sanskrit. Thus based on the spectrum of specifics such as caste, language, affiliation, and other variables, this model cannot be accountable for the origin of Buddhist tantra. Did Buddhist tantra originate in medieval India? This notion is accepted by many contemporary researchers including David Suleiman, Ronald Davidson and others. They extend their line of argument by describing the origin of tantric systems in mediaeval India feudal polity. In their assumptions, these scholars have theorised the tantric practices related to the ṇ 32 sacred Mandala illustrations as a reflection of decentralised medieval Indian polity of Samanta feudalism. In his works, Ronald Davidson ascertains that there are political ramifications in the usage of the Mandala in tantric rituals. He draws parallels between the structures of spatial allocation for the cosmological deities in the tantric Mandala and power allocation in a feudal state. From his perspective, the Tantric Mandala reflects how, in mediaeval India, Buddhism adopted political imperialism and expressed it into the language of ritual through the lexicons of Tantric Mandala empowerments. He posits the tantra deities and their semiology as an indication for the emergence of Buddhist polity in medieval India and Tibet. As it has been pointed out by David Gellner, Davidson conspicuously does not mention Nepalese Buddhism, which also shared the same tantric Buddhist tradition, as it goes against his hypothesis.35 Moreover, as Christian Wedemeyer has noted, in most researches on Indian feudalism it is observed that there is an apparent attempt to find elements which fit a preconceived picture of what should have happened in India because it 33 happened in Europe.’36 Also, Giovanni Verardi has rightly pointed out that the category “feudalism”, which is the object of reconsideration even in Europe, is probably not a structural component of medieval India and thus is not of much help to understand medieval Indian polity.37 The various misconceptions in Davidson’s work are largely due to a lack of awareness of the actual practices, philosophy, and the doctrinal history of Buddhist tantra.38 Moreover, scholars such as Davidson have used tantric textual material extensively. They are well aware of the difficulties of interpreting the religious hagiographical material to a historical fact. However, their hermeneutical biases are clearly visible in their research work. In certain contexts, when the textual material suits their hypothesis, they use them selectively, and when it does not, they playfully discard such materials as fictive and contrived texts.39 Religious animosity/rivalry 34 It is not unusual to encounter such iconographic representations in the Buddhist tantra where Buddhist deities are shown to be trampling over non-Buddhist deities. For example, Sādhanamālā mentions Buddhist goddess Aparājitā tramples Gaṇeśa and we have several such sculptured images of her. Similarly, Heruka or Cakrasamvara can be seen trampling Rudra and Umā in Tibetan thangkas. In some of the texts, such as Udbhaṭṭa Swami’s Viśeṣtava, we do find the proclamation of Buddha to be superior to non-Buddhist divinities, such as Viṣṇu and Shiva, and these mentions apparently support this rivalry hypothesis.40 Based on such evidence, many scholars have interpreted the iconography of some tantric deities as expressions of religious animosity and interpreted these tantric icons to be an outcome of the rivalry of Hinduism and Buddhism in ancient India. It should be remembered that it is in the non-tantric non-canonical literature of Buddhism (mostly Buddhist epics), in which we find the arguments that hold the Buddha superior to the worldly (sāmsāric) deities such as Brahmā, Viṣṇu and Rudra. Such representations have been a common feature of kinds of literature that were meant to build a strong faith amongst the followers of a particular tradition. The approach of tantric texts cannot be regarded as the same. ṣ ṣ 35 In tantric literature, be it Shaiva or Buddhist, we come across several references, where the violent subjugation of the deities of the ‘other’ tradition is mentioned. However, when seen from the insider’s perspective, these allegorical stories of subjugation of the ‘other’ are strategically designed to denote the supremacy of higher tantric concepts or stages. Some tantra scriptures use it as a strategic style to posit their efficacy. In order to show the infallibility of the power of a mantra, the tantra text such as Guhyasamāja and Hevajra often use the portrayal of subjugation of Buddhas or killing of Buddhas. The fourteenth Chapter of Guhyasamāja-tantra states about a mantra recitation that ‘makes the Buddhas faint out of fear’, ‘destroys the Buddha’, and ‘subjugates even the Vajrasattva’. These texts do not do so to denigrate the Buddhas but to posit the supremacy of the methods of tantra.41 Such descriptions indicate that as the practitioners gradually make headway in their practices, they had to step over their previous stage, without which the ṣṭ ṣ ḥ 36 progression is not possible. These progressions are essentially in the internalized mode of some yogic practice or metaphysical principles (Snk. tattvas); they are codified in a hierarchic manner and depicted through these deities. The non-Buddhist tantras also apply a similar strategy. For example in a Shaiva tantra named Svachhanda-tantra, a prominent text of Kashmir Shaivism existing since 7th-8th century CE, Svachhanda Bhairava, who represents a higher form of Shiva, ‘stands upon the prostrated corpse of ‘sadā-śiva’.42 Similarly, the well-known depiction of Kāli trampling over Shiva is another example of the supremacy of higher principles over the lower one. Therefore, from the insider’s perspective, this notion of rivalry or religious animosity has altogether a different dimension. Shaivite origin theory Another major historical narrative that been developed over time presents the Buddhist tantra as a mutated offshoot of Buddhism that developed because of the slavish imitations of competing Shaiva traditions. This purports that tantric Buddhism is ‘Shivaism in the garb of Buddhism.’43 37 Early scholars such as Burnouf have expressed their disappointment at Buddhist tantra. They thought it to be an unfortunate ‘alliance’ of Buddhism with Shaivism 44 He posited the origins of tantric Buddhism to be the ‘obvious borrowings that the Buddhists make from the language and practices of the Shivaites.’45 In contemporary academia, this ostensible notion of ‘Shaiva origin’ of Buddhist tantras has been re-propagated through Alexis Sanderson’s writings. Because of his meticulous philological skills, his commanding scholarship over Shaivaite sources, and his continuous blaming of the Buddhists for ‘piously plagiarising’ the Shaiva-Āgama, many modern-day academicians have fallen into this trap of methodological solipsism. Because of the scholarly repetition of this well-trodden theory, most scholars are conditioned to see the Shaiva and Shakta influence on tantric Buddhist literature and hence this discourse pervades extensively in the secondary literature on Buddhist tantra. Sanderson has developed his hypothesis by quoting some selective passages from Buddhist Tantric literature that appears to be verbatim repetitions 38 of a Shaiva tantra text.46 He also cites some Buddhist legends that point towards the Shaiva influence on Buddhism.47 However, he fails to recognize that such onesided, elusive and exaggerated tales are common features of texts that are written when the motive is to establish a certain religious standpoint. As it has been discussed before, these narratives are frequently found in different Shaiva as well as Buddhist literature in order to proclaim the superiority of one tradition over the other. These narratives reflect the enthusiasm for convincing followers and installing the conviction about the practices. Traditional hermeneutics do not suggest that these tales can be taken as a definitive account.48 It is also interesting to note that scholars such as Swami Vivekananda, P. V. Kane and Binoytosh Bhattacharya, based on the very similar facts, as cited by Sanderson, argued just the opposite of the hypothesis presented by Sanderson. They asserted that ‘defiled and downgraded tantra practices’ have Buddhist origin 39 and it was later borrowed by Shaiva-Shakta tantra practitioners from the Buddhist tradition.49 Largely, Sanderson’s interpretation of Tantra literature is philological in nature and his understanding is devoid of any philosophical precedent of Buddhist tenets, which has been a prerequisite for any traditional monastic tantric systems. When it comes to the interpretation of tantric iconography, like his preceding European scholars, he has ignored the intricacies of symbolism and hermeneutics. According to Sanderson, one can trace the origins of practices and orientations considered quintessentially “Tantric” to early Saivism. To put it in other words, Sanderson's writings account for the hypothesis that Tantric Saivism developed organically from a primitive form of Saivism and this primitive theme that pervades the non-dualist Śaiva traditions caused the development of tantric Buddhism. His works also fail to recognize the theoretical soteriological basis of Buddhist Tantra that is the underlining feature of Buddhism. 40 Sanderson’s hypothesis supports the borrowing theory by assigning an early date for Shaiva tantra. However, as far as Buddhist tantric elements are concerned, they are very much present in the Buddhist Sutra texts as well which have been dated far older than any Shaiva tantra.50 51 Of course, it is not suggested here that one can rule out the interaction between Shiva and Buddhist tantra traditions. There exists substantial evidence to show the reciprocal exchanges between Shaiva and Buddhist communities, but one also cannot neglect the fact that the philosophical world-views posited by Shaiva and Buddhist tantra and are quite different. While the Shaiva tantra system posits the permanent existence of absolute Shiva consciousness, the Buddhist tantra ṛ ṣṭ 41 suggests the impermanence of all composite phenomena and posits emptiness as the ultimate truth. Though the tantra tradition of Buddhism and Shaivism have some similar structural assumptions, and they share a variety of ritual forms, yet both these traditions have a perennial dissimilar basis which has been reflected in their vast amount of scholastic material that was composed in order to debate with the other tradition and to defend one’s own position. The commonalities found are because of sharing of common historical time and socio-cultural space by these two traditions ‒ both were vibrantly alive in ancient India. Therefore, it is not cogent to speak of esoteric Buddhism having originated in esoteric Shaivism. Several Buddhist Sutras have a rich content of Tantric elements and that is already seen in Chinese translations by the 2nd century CE.52 Moreover, in the recent findings from Bamiyan, we have come across some very early forms of Mahayana Sutra literature in Prakrit. These early Sutras frequently mention the uses of incantations (Snk. dhārṇi) and mantra for Buddhist rituals. In opposition to Sanderson’s theory of ‘Pious Plagiarism’, it is pertinent to note that while the Shaiva tantra texts, in most cases, have been placed around the 8th century to 10th ṇ ṇ 42 century, from Vasugupta (CE 800-850), the founding figure of non-dual Shaivism in Kashmir, to the prolific Kashmiri tantric scholar Abhinavagupta (CE 975-1025). Common substratum theory Another popular hypothesis that has been developed to explain the commonalities of the Shaiva and Buddhist tantric icons postulates that the Buddhist tantra figures have been ‘derived from the same cultic stock that produced Shaiva figure’.53 Stephen Beyer, based on his findings in Tibet where the indigenous cultic traditions have been well synchronized with Buddhist traditions, speculated on this concept of the existence of ‘common religious substratum’. He suggested that Buddhism and Shaivism borrowed the tantra tradition from some pre-existing common primitive substratum of ancient India. This theory, which has been further developed by David Seyfort Ruegg, has been derived from the premise that the icons and motifs that Shaivite and Buddhists tantra practitioners have been using are still existent in practice in those tribal parts of India that are not affected by religious and cultural influences.54 This 43 ‘autochthonous’ hypothesis proposed by Ruegg gives a plausible explanation for the appearance of common notions and practices in the Buddhist and Saivite tantra, by proposing them to have their origin in the common substratum of aboriginal and tribal cults of India. The oversight in this argument is rooted in the overemphasized endeavour to find the ‘origins’. It is evident from available biographical narratives of Buddhist Mahasiddhas that because of their altruistic intention (Bodhicitta), these Mahasiddhas choose to renounce the monastic establishments and strived for reaching out to common people in the remotest places, and composed their teachings in vernaculars. They used the motifs and symbols that were familiar to common masses. In their tantric teachings, they successfully articulated the basic doctrinal principles of Buddhism in a non-intricate way, without compromising the nuances and uncommon philosophical worldviews of Buddhism. Therefore their tantric teaching cannot be ascribed to be of ‘primitive’ or having nonBuddhist tribal origin, as they consist of overwhelming doctrinal sophistication of Buddhist philosophy expressed through semiology and poetic metaphors. A typical example of uses of tribal metaphor can be observed in the uses of tantric-yogic practices formulated by Mahasiddhas. In different tantric manuals 44 compiled around 8th to 12th century CE, while naming the bodily Central windchannel, the names used are of low-caste or women, such as Dombī and Chānḍālī.55 The manuals of tantric-yogic practices where these names are used do not use these names in the context of any tribal totem. These Mahasiddhas purposely choose the tribal women names for denoting the highest order of tantric practices. These names reflect the Buddhist doctrine that denies the caste or gender hegemony. Within the non-Buddhist yogic tradition, the term used for Central wind-channel is Suṣumnā and Sarasvati, the names that are more conventional to the Vedic tradition. Therefore, the tribal motifs and semiology appear in the tantric teachings because shared the same time and space with the tribal people, to whom the practitioners of tantric Buddhism were communicating these teachings. They choose motifs and language that was familiar to the tribal people culture but the denotative meaning expressed by these metaphorical teachings had their origin, not in the primitive culture but characteristically connected to the philosophical and doctrinal system of Buddhism. Moreover, as has been discussed earlier, the philosophical exegeses of Shaiva and Buddhist tantra are not common, therefore the same motifs and 45 symbols have different connotations and their function character changes from one tradition to another.56 Conclusion (I) Through the investigative study of different theories, this work seeks to dispel the misconceived notions that exist on Buddhist tantra. The lack of contextualised narrations and assumptions has led to a damaging misunderstanding of tantric Buddhism. In contemporary studies and research on Buddhist tantra, many such theories have been overly repeated without any in-depth analysis of the context in which tantric Buddhist system existed. Many such theories that persist in the current academia have not paid attention to the traditional historical accounts. The tantric Buddhist tradition has its own way narratives about their texts, the way they have been compiled or discovered, preserved, interpreted, and their chronological records of lineagetransmissions. Due to their inherent esotericism and cryptic linguistic expressions, these tantric texts cannot be treated at par of the simple and ordinarily compositions. They have undergone an elaborate process of formation for many centuries, a process which has many nuances, and ignoring this fact has led to the 46 diverse and somewhat absurd conclusions that we have re-examined in this chapter. 47 (Part II) Transcultural Encounters: Western influence on Indian Scholars India was in my blood and there was much in her that instinctively thrilled me. Yet I approached her almost as an alien critic, full of dislike for the present as well as for many of the relics of the past that I saw. To some extent, I came to her via the West, and looked at her as a friendly Westerner might have done. I was eager and anxious to change her outlook and appearance and give her the garb of modernity. Yet doubt arose within me. Did I know India? – I, who presumed to scrap much of her past heritage? - Jawaharlal Nehru, The Discovery of India 57 In the modern planetary situation, Eastern and Western ‘cultures’ can no longer meet one another as equal partners. They meet in a Westernized world, under conditions shaped by Western ways of thinking. - W. Halbfass, India and Europe 58 48 The acknowledgement of Western mindset as confessed by the first prime minister of India, who also happened to be one of the finest scholars and a great supporter of Buddhism reflects that majority of Indian scholars of the 19th and 20th century, came to know their own country and tradition via the West. They inherited the same erroneous theoretical frameworks about their culture and religion that represented the European imaginations. This was a reason why many Indian scholars could hardly be appreciative of their own past heritage. They approached it with the curiosity of an impulsive onlooker − they failed to understand their own culture in terms of revere. When Orientalist discourse was formulated in the 19th century, it was the Western view of Orient. It was the wisdom of European enlightenment, under which the Western explorers were bringing the ‘exotic’ findings to light – finds that belonged to the ‘mysterious’ and ‘endarkened’ Eastern world. The Oriental discourse was designed in such a way that it could only support those sensibilities that were Western in their orientation. Moreover, for the Easterners, the forgetfulness of their self-historicity and acknowledgement of pervasive endarkenment in their own historical time and cultural space was obligatory so that they could partake in this ‘Oriental Renaissance’. 49 Tantric Buddhism and the Orientalist tropes As discussed earlier, within the colonial paradigms, the Buddha and his Dharma were seen from a Western historical perspective. European scholars fashioned the Buddhist doctrines largely in their own image. According to their conceptual frameworks, the idea of objectivity, rationality, scientific temperament, linear progress, and development; all these qualities were shown to be deficient or degraded in the form of Buddhism that was surviving in different parts of the Asian subcontinent. The famous German-Swiss writer, Hermann Hesse (1877-1962) was disgusted with Theravada Buddhism of Sri Lanka, ‘where the beautiful and bright Buddhism has degenerated into a true rarity of idolatry’, and L. Austine Waddell’s Buddhism of Tibet or Lamaism (1895), declared that in Tibet Mahayana has been reduced to a cult of demonical Buddha.59 60 Therefore, the quest of discovering the ‘original’ Buddhism’ was crucial for oriental studies. Indeed, this quest was heavily biased and had its grounding in racial prejudices. In order to establish colonial hegemony, the oriental scholars devised the mechanism of advocacy for 50 ‘scientific truth’ and ‘objectivity’ in their own terms and often deprecated the indigenous traditions and principles. Exasperated with this purported ‘scientific approach’ of European scholars, Coomaraswamy, a foremost scholar of 20th century observed: It has been said “the prostitution of scientific truth may lead to word catastrophe” and that “responsibility for this problem in a peculiar sense lies within the domain of Oriental studies”; but it is a question whether much can be expected from passionless reason of our objective scholarship, which concerns itself so much rather with what men have believed than what should be believed.61 A vast amount of archaeological and textual sources of Buddhism that were newly discovered by the Oriental scholars, generated a new interest in the Indian scholars about their past Buddhist heritage. At the beginning of the 19th century, we see a generation of English educated Indian scholars who were also well equipped with the Western mode of philological training Sanskrit studies. They were inspired by 51 the magnanimity of Buddhism which produced monuments such as Sanchi, Ajanta, Ellora, and the highly righteous Pali texts and the scholastic treatises of Mahayana. These scholars had genuine admiration for Buddhist traditions and texts. It is interesting to note that the in the 19th century, before the Pali sources were brought to India by British, Rajendra Lal Mitra (1824-91) from Kolkata, worked on Sanskrit Buddhist literature of Nepal. Though he faced ‘racist bashings’ from his Western counterparts, his concern for Buddhist studies and its neglected texts led him to collaborate with another Bengali colleague, Haraprasad Shastri. Their pursuit was for Indic and Buddhist studies, a field that was mostly dominated by European scholars. Though these scholars had a sympathetic view towards Buddhism and its philosophy, however, when it came to the tantric tradition of Buddhism, the sources available to them were largely researched and presented from the Western point of view and scarcely represented the traditional perspective. Moreover, these texts were heavily infused with words having multivalent meanings, and in the 52 absence of hermeneutical renderings, as done by the traditional commentaries, these texts were incomprehensible for these Sanskrit scholars.62 Due to the lack of traditional knowledge and understanding, these scholars went for the over-literal interpretation of the texts and failed to apprehend the meaning in practices of Buddhist tantra. Rajendra Lal Mitra was troubled by his findings of ‘most revolting and horrible practices’ in the Guhyasamāja-tantra.63 In his Introduction of Sanskrit Buddhist Literature (1882), he propounded that the tantric practices are, ‘the most revolting and horrible that human depravity could think of…. would doubtless, be best treated as the ravings of a madman.’64 Similarly, P. V. Kane (1880-1927), another foremost Sanskritist, expressed a disapproving outburst against Buddhist tantra. Kane, in his fifth volume of 53 History of Dharmashastra, wrote a full chapter on Buddhism; he writes, ‘It has become a fashion to praise Buddha and his doctrines to the skies’. He adds that ‘as a counterblast to what modern economists often say about Buddhism the present author will quote a strongly-worded (but not unjust) passage from Swami Vivekananda’. Kane approvingly quotes Vivekananda: I smile when I read books written by some modern people who ought to have known better, that the Buddha was the destroyer of Brahmanical idolatry in India….in spite of the preaching of mercy to animals, in spite of the sublime ethical religion and hair-splitting discussions about the existence and non-existence of permanent soul, the whole building of Buddhism tumbled down piecemeal; and the ruin was simply hideous. I have neither the time nor the inclination to describe to you the hideousness that came in the wake of Buddhism. The most hideous ceremonies, the most horrible, the most obscene books that human hands have ever written or the human brain ever conceived, the most bestial forms that ever passed under the name of religion, have all been creation of degraded Buddhism.65 54 Vivekananda has remarked, ‘They [tantric Buddhists] believed in nothing but the enjoyment of the moment, which eventually resulted in the most revolting orgies. That, however, is not the doctrine of Buddha, but a horrible degeneration of it, and honour to the Hindoo nation, who stood up and drove it out.’66 For the Indian scholars, it was not just the case of Buddhist tantra, even the scholastic works of Mahayana philosophy, such as works of Nagarjuna or Dignaga, did not make much sense. Due to their training under the European pedagogy, they often unconsciously shaped their ideas according to the Western thought-process. This negligence was so pervasive that even the scholars from traditional centres of learning were deeply affected. In the middle of the 20th century, scholars such as D. N. Shastri made some unsuccessful attempt to find Indian scholars in Varanasi, who could interpret the nuances of debate between the Buddhists and Naiyāyikas in the philosophical treatises of these traditions. As the traditional Indian scholars could not render the intricacies of the doctrinal differences of Buddhism satisfactorily, he finally had 55 to follow these trails through the works of a well-known Russian Indologist, Stcherbatsky.67 Another scholar, Benoytosh Bhattacharya, who is considered an authority on Buddhist tantra iconography acknowledged his limitation about his ignorance of the practical aspects of Buddhist tantra. He, in his essay published in 1964, writes: Before I describe the process of visualizations of [Buddhist] divinities, I must clearly mention that I am not a tantra practitioner myself and I have no experience of any spiritual realization. Therefore, whatever I am mentioning here is just based on the books that I have consulted.68 56 Extra-Indian origin theory of Buddhist tantra In the 20th-century Indian scholars, under the influence of the West, found tantra texts to be offensive. The interpretive conundrums presented by the European scholars lead them to develop a discourse that advocated for the non-Indian origin of Buddhist tantra. Saint-scholars such as Swami Vivekananda was unable to comprehend tantric antinomianism. He emphasized that tantra came from Mongols and Tibetan.69 He states, ‘Indian Buddhists imitated the Tibetan and other barbarous customs of religion and assimilated their corruption, and then introduced them into India.’70 Harprasad Shastri also proposed the non-Indian origin theory of tantra.71 This extra-Indian-origin theory was later on propounded in a more scholarly manner by P. C. Bagchi. He writes: [A] number of foreign elements were introduced in the tantra, most probably, between the 8th to 12th century, when communication with 57 Tibet, China, and Mongolia became brisk. But these cults lost their exotic character, as they fitted well, in the logical sequence, into a completely integrated system.72 This extra origin theory of Buddhist tantra was continued by Harprasad Shastri’s son, Binoytosh Bhattacharya. His works on Buddhist iconography reflect that he derived his epistemological assumptions from Western scholars such as William A. Foucher.73 In his remarkable compendium on Buddhist tantra iconography, which later became a guiding text for the next generation of scholars, he has treated tantric tradition as ‘magical ritualism’ and ‘sorcery’.74 He unhesitatingly accepted that Tantrism was of foreign origin. In his famous work on the history of Esoteric Buddhism, he declared, ‘the introduction of the Shakti worship in religion [of Buddhism] is so un-Indian that we are constrained to admit it as an external or foreign influence.’75 58 Binoytosh Bhattacharya also ridiculed the possibility of Shaiva influence on Buddhist tantra. He posited that is was Hindus who borrowed the tantra from Buddhists. He remarked, ‘it is idle to say that later Buddhism was an outcome of Shaivism’. He further confirmed, ‘it is also possible to declare without fear of contradiction that it was the Buddhists who were the first to introduce the Tantras into their religion …Hindus borrowed them from the Buddhists in later times.’76 Scholars such as P. C. Bagchi have pointed out to the terminology such as Cīna in Mahācīna-tārā and a sādhana of Ekajaṭā-tārā brought by Nagarjuna from Tibet.77 This is mentioned in the 12th century text Sādhanamālā that quotes āryanāgarjuna-pādair-bhőṭeṣu-uddhŗitam.78 However, as it has been pointed out that this mistaken interpretation of ‘bringing from Tibet’, is due to lack of thoughtful analysis of Case Structure (Śabda-rūpa) of Sanskrit grammar.79 ṣ 59 Likewise, the reductionist approach of N. N. Bhattacharyya posited the Hindu and Buddhist tantra to be a ‘fertility cult’ based on religion which is centred on worship of ‘the Female Principle’ who in turn stood for the oppressed people, symbolizing all the liberating potentialities in the class divided, patriarchal and authoritarian social set up of India.80 He advocated the foreign origin theory and proposed that Buddhist tantra texts were fake creations and were not part of ‘the Original Buddhism’. In his judgmental opinions, he writes, ‘Within their monasteries, they [Buddhists] formed secret societies of their own, composed texts dealing with their ideas and practices and got them sanctioned as Buddha Vacanas.’81 Based on the fourfold divisions of Buddhist tantra classification, he erroneously assumes the same system of classification for Shakta Tantra.82 On the very similar lines, the advocates of modern Hinduism could not conceive the philosophical profundity of surviving Shaiva, Vaishnava and Shakta tantra. They blamed this ’degeneration’ of their ‘pure religion’ to Buddhism. 60 The portrayal of Buddhist Tantra in Hindi Literature It is imperative to note that erroneous views about Buddhism and its tantric traditions had their influences over other disciplines. At the beginning of the 20th century, we find that some prominent scholars of Hindi who were writing on different aspects of Indian culture, religion and literature, started incorporating mistaken interpretations of the Buddhist Tantras. Ramachandra Shukla, a leading scholar of Hindi literature in the early 20th century, in his book, Hindi Sāhitya kā itihās (History of Hindi Literature), commented on the literature of Buddhist Siddhas. These tantric Siddhas have been regarded as the earliest poets of Apabhramsa, an older form of Hindi. Ramachandra Shukla attributed the literature of Siddhas as a perverted and degraded form of Buddhist writings. He criticized these Buddhist Siddhas for ‘taking the left-handed path of Hindu tantra to its extreme’. Shukla states, ‘by writing their poetic works in vernaculars, they [Siddhas] not only fall down in the degraded state themselves but also misled the common mass to fall down in the dirty trench of Tantra.’83 61 Hazari Prasad Dwivedi (1907-1979) was another well-known scholar of Hindi literature who wrote extensively on the Apabhramsa literature of Buddhist Siddhas and Nathas. He considered the tantra texts to be the part of folk and tribal superstitious literature.84 His successors, such as Dharamvir Bharti (1926–1997), and Nagendranath Upadhyaya (1931-1999), in their writings, followed the same pattern. Though, on the issue of antinomianism, these scholars propose the simplistic theory that the Siddhas deliberately invoked such practices in their poetry so that they could mock the rigidity of caste hierarchy and other orthodoxy principles of non-Buddhist systems. Dwivedi admits, ‘these unusual Saints entered into the field of practices with the great courage of rejecting all the external ritualistic traits.’85 However, he fails to recognise the inherent metaphysical principles behind all the tantric ritualistic systems. He speculates that these Buddhist saints had a folkish background and therefore they had no familiarity with the doctrinal and philosophical aspects of Buddhism. He writes, ‘if we start collecting the antinomian verses of these Sahajayānis, Yogis and Tāntrics, it will 62 be a huge amount of literature, however, there is no need of it because it is not an easy task to retain patience after looking at even few verses.’86 Dharamvir Bharti was another scholar of Hindi literature who researched on Tantric Buddhist literature. His research was based on textual sources, mostly the Apbhramsa literature of Siddhas. He writes: The scholars of Hindi who have studied and interpreted these tantric practices have not adequately analysed them in the context of its social background. Either they have interpreted them in a pure spiritual symbolical manner or they have interpreted them as a despicable rebel against suppressed human nature. Some of them also believed that the tantric master adopted such practices in order to gain influence over people of lower strata. Most of the interpreters of Tantric literature have these opinions.87 Like most of his contemporary scholars who wrote on Buddhism, the early writings of Rahul Sankrityayan (1893-1963) disparage the literature of Buddhist 63 tantra.88 However, in his later works, which he wrote after his three visits to Tibet, after coming into direct contact with Tibetan tradition; he shifted his views.89 90 Indian archaeologists were also overburdened with the persuasive Orientalist analysis of Buddhism, which treated it in a monolithic and mono-linear fashion, devoid of any element of popular religion. As these Indian archaeologists inherited the same notions from their British predecessors about a nonheterogeneous aspect of Buddhism, they too were willing to dismiss or make excuses for evidence that did not conform to their preconceived notions. The tantric deities or other folk icons, such as serpent idols, found in the excavation were not acknowledged as a part Buddhist tradition. Archaeologists such as Hiranand Sastri in his report Nalanda and Its Epigraphic Material (1942) 64 wrote, ‘Buddhists would not worship Nagas along with the deities of their own faith.’91 These simplistic and teleological notions were challenged by A. Coomaraswamy, who was in favour of seeing the synthesis between folk religion and Buddhism. He advocated that these two traditions coexisted as siblings. Corrective Voices For centuries, Buddhism was not a living tradition in India and for this reason, the Buddhist tantra texts were often subjected to misapprehensions and misquoted. In the late 20th century, people such as Gopinath Kaviraj (1887-1976) and Thakur Jaideva Singh (1893-1986) were some of the foremost Indian scholars who had some respect for the tantric traditions of India and they endeavoured to work upon some of the obscure tantra texts of Kashmir Shaivism. Gopinath Kaviraj acknowledged that it was a mistake to treat Buddhist tantra as downgraded practice and accepted it as a ‘spiritual tradition of a high order’. He cautioned the scholars not to denounce its doctrine as hideous or immoral.92 Prior to these scholars, Ananda Coomaraswamy considered tantra to be a topic worthy of its own study. 65 Ananda Coomaraswamy wrote in brief, but impressive articles on traditions related to tantra. Despite the important insights that were being provided by scholars like Coomaraswamy, his contemporaries such as Bitoytosh Bhattacharya were not appreciative of those earnest efforts.93 Such attitude of pro-British scholars failed to challenge the problematic assumptions of the 19th century, and thereby our contemporary notions about Buddhist tantra still perpetuates with some of the earlier unsubstantiated suppositions. When the Pradīpodyotanaṭīkā, a Sanskrit commentary of Guhyasamājatantra, brought by Rahul Sankrityayana from Tibet was published in 1983, in its introduction Suniti Kumar Pathak observed: It does not mean that Guhyasmāja-tantra encourages to discard social laws. Benoytosh Bhattacharya could not make sense of [its] verses as he had no opportunity to have Pradipodyotana commentary of the Guhyasamāja-tantra…What to speak of the Guhyasamāja-tantra or the Hevajra-tantra, no tantra, whether Buddhist, Vaishnava, Shaiva, Shakta or Jaina, ever teach any sort of immoral conduct contradictory to the ethics and social laws… The commentary, therefore, warns again 66 and again that any amount of carelessness or failure on the part of a practitioner will put him into utter ruin.94 Conclusion (II) Invariably the traditional expressions of Buddhist tantra have been suppressed and overly dominated by Eurocentric baggage. Most scholars have been preoccupied with their own speculative notions and have ignored the voices in which the tantric tradition has expressed itself, and it is unjust to identify a vibrantly living religion apart from its traditional practitioners. In order to overcome the damaging understanding of Buddhist tantric system, the tantric treatise needs to be studied and analysed with a fresh perspective. The gradual increase in the translations of commentaries of tantric texts and the availability of traditional Tibetan monastic interpreters has opened up new prospects for academicians to incorporate the traditional view in their research. This could be useful for other traditions of tantra as well. Swami Vivekananda has perceptively observed that in the contemporary sphere of Indic religion, it is tantric traditions which is pervasive: ṭ 67 To call ourselves in the sense of following the Karmakānḍa of the Vedas, I do not think, would be proper…In our ordinary lives we are mostly Paurāṇikas or Tāntrikas, and, even where some Vedic texts are used by Brahmins of India, the adjustment of the texts is mostly not according to the Vedas, but according to the Tantras and Purāṇas.95 Any discipline of the scholarship is not just concerned about just collecting the data, but also understanding them in their own context. Besides the question of ‘what’ they represent, the question of ‘why’ and ‘how’ are equally important. As Ananda Coomaraswamy has pointed out, ‘For as long as the work of art appears to us in any way exotic, bizarre, quaint, or arbitrary, we cannot pretend to have understood it.’96 Therefore, unless a discrete and unbiased study of the historicity of Buddhist tantra, encompassing the perspective of tradition is not done, the misconceptions discussed in this chapter are bound to persist in our academia. 68 CONCLUSION Buddhist tantra places some of the female deities at the pinnacle of its pantheon. These deities are female personification of supreme awakening and symbolize the highest spiritual goals including Buddhahood. They are called Buddha-Dākinī or Jina-jananī ‒ the female Buddhas ‒ regarded as an enlightened mind depicted in female form. The word ‘Buddha’ is concerned with the concept of awakening and therefore transcends the notion of gender, however, due to our cultural baggage, it reflects a male figure in our minds. This thesis advocates the necessity of exploring the nuances of visualization of Tantric Buddhist imagery within the context of the texts and practice of tradition. For a comprehensive understanding of the visual forms of goddesses and other tantra deities, attention must be paid to the linguistic expressions in the form of mantra, liturgical expositions, and the details of iconic attributes. They all are equally important as they frame the systematic organization of these visual forms, their specific concepts and the associated emotive expressions. Most of the studies on Buddhist tantra have identified tantric Buddhist goddesses as either an import from the non-Buddhist tradition or the result of aftermath development of primitive or tribal religion. Such scholarly habits are 203 Ph.D. T hesis Sacred Feminine Imagery in T antric Buddhism 2018 difficult to change − they have yielded some plausible interpretative models that we have been used consistently and not subjected to a critical analysis. Ascribing Buddhist tantra to be of tribal origin is one such habit that can be seen within the domain of studies on Indian religion. In order to contextualize tantric traditions in their socio-political, cultural and material milieu, scholars often fixate on this welltrodden ‘tribal-origin’ theory, so that the traditions of Buddhist tantra can be appropriated to justify the scholars’ ideology. Readers of historical literature are familiar with this rhetoric of tribal origin, which has been redeployed and reinforced for those religious traditions, which were esoteric in nature and were not part of mainstream religion. Holding the notion that the origins of a thing determine its fundamental nature, once a religious practice is concluded to have a tribal origin, it can easily be designated as cultic, marginal, and sometimes superstitious. Thus, such religious traditions become exotic, primitive, and therefore rather nonsensical to historians. The historians thereafter just have to construct paradigmatic socio-political context within which associated motifs of deities and rituals can be appropriated. 204 Samdarshi P. Conclusions University of Delhi Some researchers on Buddhist tantra have attempted to contextualize the tantric deities by speculating on their non-Buddhist association.1 The hypothesis built in the research presented here, on the other hand, exemplifies the manner in which Buddhist tantra gradually developed from its Mahayana scholastic tradition in the monastic settings and uses the symbolic visualization practices for achieving pure gnosis or wisdom (prajñā). While wisdom is feminine aspect of the wisdom of Emptiness (śūnyatā), it is also referred as the Ultimate Bodhicitta; the altruistic intention (Upāya) is the male aspect and referred as conventional Bodhicitta.2 The union of two, often depicted through the erotic union of tantric deities, is the fundamental doctrine of Mahayana Buddhism. While Emptiness negates the absolutist or intrinsic nature of material and mental phenomena, altruistic intention provides the basis and guiding principle in accordance with which the material and mental phenomena should be perceived and acted upon. These two principals provide the theoretical bases for rituals and practices for Buddhist tantra system. 1 postulate the in the first chapter of this thesis. 2 Bodhicitta means a mind that possesses enlightenment; however, conventional Bodhicitta connotes to an altruistic mind which aspirs to become Buddha to benefit sentient beings. 205 Ph.D. T hesis Sacred Feminine Imagery in T antric Buddhism 2018 Most of these practices were already part of earlier phases of Buddhism but they remained esoteric and were not compiled and given a systematic form in the early phase of Buddhism. Around 8th century CE, the literature and practices of tantric form of Buddhism was made available for Buddhist monastics to discuss, debate and to write commentarial literature and thus tantra tradition was accorded with a formal institutionalized structure in the Vikramashila and Nalanda monastic universities. These monastic universities were headed by the saint-scholars who got their Buddhist ordination in one of the eighteen Nikāya schools of Buddhism but followed the Mādhyamika or Yogācāra philosophy of Mahayana Buddhism and successfully provided an adequate articulation of the tantric Buddhist tradition. Their articulations not only encompassed the doctrinal and cultural viewpoints but also employed the systematic use of scriptural injunctions and hermeneutics. The philosophical viewpoints in somewhat cryptic language in the tantric texts were elucidated and interpreted in the commentaries authored by these monastic scholars. These commentaries provide an insiders’ perspective and provide rationale for the seemingly antinomian practices of Buddhist tantra. From the analysis of these tantric texts, it can be observed that the symbolism of tantra has a profound pragmatic basis inherent in it. Similar to any scientific research procedure in which experimental facts are correlated with mathematical symbols to work out a mathematical model, tantric masters also 206 Samdarshi P. Conclusions University of Delhi discover the practices by experimenting with their own psyche and the results obtained from their experiments are given a schematic form. This scheme is modelled as an anthropomorphic form and it symbolises some yogic practices in an abstract manner. However, tantric texts are silent on or speak metaphorically about these symbols in order to avoid their trivialization. Whereas in the other Buddhist traditions, feminine imageries are almost absent, or given an lesser position, Buddhist tantra is vibrantly rich with the iconography of Female tantric deities. Their imagery may range from a goddess depicting the emotion of blissful serenity of meditative concentration or an enraged bloodthirsty goddess depicting the emotion of wrath and passion. A deeper understanding of the feminine tantric iconography reveals that much of the symbolic elements of tantra have been derived from an insightful pragmatic basis, which is often esoteric in nature. These female tantric deities symbolize the wisdom aspect of the enlightened mind. The tantric manuals suggest that the figures are not icons of beings, be it God or human, but that they are icons of ideas in a stylized mode. While the depiction of peaceful and wrathful goddesses may have similar features, there always exists some striking difference between the levels of potency in their representations. There are the particular details, such as their colour or the implements held by these deities, which symbolically lead to a deeper understanding of what these 207 Ph.D. T hesis Sacred Feminine Imagery in T antric Buddhism 2018 female deities represent. However, with their literature encoded in symbolism and their practices veiled in secrecy, the tantric iconography has been inappropriately assessed by scholars who were unaware of the nuances and esoteric concepts of the Buddhist tantra. The case study of Buddhist tantra goddesses studied in this research tries to contextualize their associated rituals, imagery, visualizations practices dealt in in the traditional manuals that has evolved over the time. These elements have remarkable religious significance as they propeled some specifics of tantra tradition within the overarching canopy of Buddhism. These deities also present a unique example of the composite culture of Hindu and Buddhist traditions of Himalayan regions of Indian sub-continent. The symbolism and iconographic elements inherent in their imagery have been a vital communicative device for Buddhist practitioners as they convey the abstractness of some profound tantric-yogic practices. Moreover, the proliferation of local narratives and associated with these goddesses and pilgrimage palaces signify the fact that they play an important role within the common masses as well as the monastic practitioners. At present the Buddhist communities in the Himalayan regions of India and across the Asia are experimenting with constructive ritualism and carrying their religious heritage and keeping alive a centuries-old tradition of Buddhism. These 208 Samdarshi P. Conclusions University of Delhi practices related to tantra goddesses can be considered as a potential resource for better understanding Buddhist rituals that might have prevailed in ancient India. Also, one should also keep in mind that in tantric Buddhism, the concept of a goddess appears in the framework of non-theism, which means that there is no external supreme being, and hence all religious symbols of a divinity, rituals, and doctrines have just conventionaliy existence (samvriti-satya) rather than being the ultimate truth (paramārtha-stya). 209 APPENDIX पञ्चरक्षादे वीस्तोत्राणि 1 (PAÑCARAKṢĀDEVĪSTOTRĀNI) (THE HYMNS OF PANCARAKṢĀ GODDESSES) १ महाप्रणिसरास्तोत्रम् 1 mahāpratisarāstotram (Hymn of Mahāpratisarā) नमः श्रीमहाप्रतिसरायै om namah śrīmahāpratisarāyai (Salutation to Śri-mahāpratisarā) िथागिाद्या थिाां ित्त्वमापुममहत्तरम् धारणीधारणाद्य 1 ाः प्रतिसराां नमातम िाम् T he Sanskrit version of these hymns is taken from Bauddha-stötra- of Janardan Shastri Pandey, (J. S. Pandey 1994, 112-114). T his English translation is done by the author. 210 Samdarshi P. Appendix University of Delhi tathāgatādyāstathatām tattvamāpurmahattaram | Dhāraṇīdhāranādyasyāh pratisarām namāmi tām || 1 || (Through possession of her Dhāraṇi, the Tathāgatas attained their tathatā (enlightenment) and [realization of] the tattva (superlative reality), prostrations to that Pratisarā.) रणे शक्रोऽजयद्दै त्यान् धारणीध्वजधृग् बहून् सांग्रामजयदाां भीमाां प्रतिसराां नमातम िाम् rane śakro'jayaddaityān Dhāraṇīdhvajadhrg bahūn | samgrāmajayadām bhīmām pratisarām namāmi tām || 2 || (In the war against various demons, the Dhāraṇi [written] on the flag bestowed the victory upon the king of gods, salutation to that gigantic Pratisarā.) यत्प्रभावाद् ब्र दत्तोऽलभद् राज्यमकण्टकम् सावमभौमप्रदाां दे वीां प्रतिसराां नमातम िाम् yatprabhāvād brahmadatto'labhad rājyamakantakam | sārvabhaumapradām devīm pratisarām namāmi tām || 3 || (The efficacy of which caused the Braḥmadatta to gain his kingdom back, salutations to that Pratisarā, the granter of all kinds of auspiciousness.) 211 Ph.D. T hesis Sacred Feminine Imagery in T antric Buddhism 2018 ब पराधोऽतप यद्भक्तो राज्यातधकारमा वान् श ातदभीतिसांहत्ीां प्रतिसराां नमातम िाम् bahvaparādho'pi yadbhakto rājyādhikāramāptavān | śastrādibhītisamhatrīm pratisarām namāmi tām || 4 || (Salutations to that Pratisarā, whose devotees are freed from the fears of weapons and numerous offences and attain the authority statesmanship.) रत्ना वापुवमतणजो याां ृत्वोदतधतनगमिाः सवमबाधाप्रशमनीां प्रतिसराां नमातम िाम् ratnānyavāpurvanijo yām smrtvodadhinirgatāh | sarvabādhāpraśamanīm pratisarām namāmi tām || 5 || (Recollecting her [Dhāraṇi], the merchant sailors sail [safely] with their jewels through the oceans, the subduer of all the obstacles, salutations to that Pratisarā.) श्रीमहाप्रतिसरारक्षादे वी ोत्ां समा म् śrīmahāpratisarārakshādevīstotram samāptam | (Here ends the hymn of protector goddess Śri-mahāpratisarā.) 212 Samdarshi P. Appendix University of Delhi २ महामन्त्रानुसाररिीस्तोत्रम् 2 mahāmantrānusāriṇīstotram (Hymn of Mahāmantrānusariṇī) नमः श्रीमहाम ानुसाररण्यै om namah śrīmahāmantrānusārinyai Om salutations to Mahāmantrānusariṇī बुद्धातध ानिो बुद्धाभयदाां भयनातशनीम् भवा ुतधतनमग्नानाां नमो म ानुसाररणीम् buddhādhishthānato buddhābhayadām bhayanāśinīm | bhavāmbudhinimagnānām namo mantrānusāriṇīm || 1 || (Salutations to that Mantrānusariṇī, [she is] the abode of enlightenment of Buddhas, granter of fearlessness to the Buddhas, annihilator of frights of those who are sunk into the oceans of samsāra.) य ोच्चारणादे व षडीियः सुदारुणाः नाशां प्रयान्ति वरदाां नमो म ामुसाररणीम् yanmantroccāranādeva shadītayah sudārunāh | nāśam prayānti varadām namo mantrāmusāriṇīm || 2 || 213 Ph.D. T hesis Sacred Feminine Imagery in T antric Buddhism 2018 (By just chanting of the mantra, the six- epidemics 2 are vanquished, salutations to that Mantrānusariṇī who grants the blessing.) म ानुसाररणो लोकान् ना े म ादयो ग्रहाः पीडयन्ति तप्रयाां ातप नमो म ानुसाररणीम् mantrānusārino lokān nānye mantrādayo grahāh | pīdayanti priyāmścāpi namo mantrānusāriṇīm || 3 || (Those who follow the mantra of Mantrānusariṇi, need no other mantras, they are never harmed by the malicious-planets and they become beloved of every one, salutations to that Mantrānusariṇi.) बुद्धोऽ भाषद् गाथा यातभः सवमत् न्त ाय कथनािरम् ा मो म ानुसाररणीम् buddho'bhyabhāshad gāthāstā yanmantrakathanāntaram | yābhih sarvatra svasti syānnamo mantrānusāriṇīm || 4 || 2 T he six (disasters or epidemics) are: 1. Excessive rain; 2. Drought; 3. Locusts; 4. Rats; 5. Parrots; and 6. Foreign invasion. 214 Samdarshi P. Appendix University of Delhi (After the narration of her mantra, the Buddha gives his teaching; it (her mantra) causes everything to become auspicious, salutations to that Mantrānusariṇī.) कलौ बुद्धतवहीनेऽन्त न् लोकानाां तहिमाचरे ि् पापोत्पािप्रशमनीां नमो म ानुसाररणीम् kalau buddhavihīne'smin lokānām hitamācaret | pāpotpātapraśamanīm namo mantrānusāriṇīm || 5 || (In the age of Kali, in the absence of the Buddha, we act for the benefit of the world; the subduer of all the havoc caused by non-virtues, salutations to that Mantrānusariṇī.) श्रीमहाम ानुसाररणी ोत्ां समा म् śrīmahāmantrānusāriṇīstotram samāptam | (This is the end of the hymn of Mahā-mantrānusariṇī.) ३ महामायूरीस्तोत्रम् 3 mahāmāyūrīstotram (The Hymn of Mahāmāyūrī) नमः श्रीमहामायूयै om namah śrīmahāmāyūryai 215 Ph.D. T hesis Sacred Feminine Imagery in T antric Buddhism 2018 (OM Salutations to Śri-mahāmāyūryaī) दु ां कृ य भुजङ्गां च नरः ान्तिकां पालयेि् ा म ानुभावेन मायूरीां प्रणमातम िाम् dushtam krshnabhujangam ca narah svāntikam pālayet | yasyā mantrānubhāvena māyūrīm praṇamāmi tām || 1 || (Through the efficacy of that mantra, the wicked black serpent can be tamed by men and be protected, prostrations to that Māyūrī.) ब्र ादयो लोकपाला यद्धारण्या समा ुवन् ातन ा तधकारातण मायूरीां प्रणमातम िाम् brahmādayo lokapālā yaddhāranyā samāpnuvan | svāni svānyadhikārāni māyūrīm praṇamāmi tām || 2 || (By employment of that Dhāraṇi, the Brahma and the realm-protectors are endowed with their own attainments, prostrations to that Māyūrī.) णाम वभासां तशन्तिनां नालभज्जतपनां कुधीः अमोघेनातप पाशेन मायूरीां प्रणमातम िाम् svarnāvabhāsam śikhinam nālabhajjapinam kudhīh | 216 Samdarshi P. Appendix University of Delhi amoghenāpi pāśena māyūrīm praṇamāmi tām || 3 || (The wicked could not have access to the reciter [as he is protected] by the infallible hook of golden light, prostration to that Māyūrī.) य जपिो जीवाः प्राजीवञ्छु पादपाः मृिसांजीतवनीां दे वीां मायूरीां प्रणमातम िाम् yanmantrajapato jīvāh prājīvañchushkapādapāh | mrtasamjīvinīm devīm māyūrīm praṇamāmi tām || 4 || (Through recitation of that mantra, the sentient beings and dry plants got became alive, the goddess who bestows the elixir of deathlessness, prostrations to that Maha-māyūrī.) य न्त सङ्गाि् पवनो महोपद्रवशान्तिकृि् बुद्धानाां बोतधदाां तनत्यां मायूरीां प्रणमातम िाम् yanmantrisangāt pavano mahopadravaśāntikrt | buddhānām bodhidām nityam māyūrīm praṇamāmi tām || 5 | (The big havoc causing winds, when contacted with that mantra, got satiated, the ever granter of enlightenment to the Buddhas, prostrations to that Māyūrī.) 217 Ph.D. T hesis श्रीमहामायूरीरक्षादे वी Sacred Feminine Imagery in T antric Buddhism 2018 ोत्ां समा म् śrīmahāmāyūrīrakshādevīstotram samāptam | (Here ends the hymn of Śri-mahāmāyūrī protector goddess.) ४ महाशीिविीरक्षादे वीस्तोत्रम् 4 mahāśītavatīrakshādevīstotram (Hymn of Maha-śītavatī) नमो महाशीिवत्यै om namo mahāśītavatyai (OM Salutations to Maha-śītavatī) यद्धारणीमनुजपन् राहुलो भद्रमा वान् तवहे तििो ग्रहै ः सवैः शीिविीां नमा हम् yadDhāraṇīmanujapan rāhulo bhadramāptavān | vihethito grahaih sarvaih śītavatīm namāmyaham || 1 || (Through the recitations of that Dhāraṇi, the Rahula was able to attain honourableness, the demolisher of all the malicious planets, my prostrations to that Śītavatī.) पापिापे शीिकरीां शीिलाद् युपसगमिः 218 Samdarshi P. शीिो Appendix दु ःिशमनीां शीिविीां नमा University of Delhi हम् pāpatāpe śītakarīm śītalādyupasargatah | śītoshnaduhkhaśamanīm śītavatīm namāmyaham || 2 || (The pacifier of the heat of non-virtues and the disease of chickenpox; the annihilator of the sufferings from summers and winters, my prostrations to that Śītavatī.) म ग्रन्त िसूत्ाणाां धारणा क्षयोजनम् पतथकानाां पालतयत्ीां शीिविीां नमा हम् mantragranthitasūtrānām dhāranāllakshayojanam | pathikānām pālayitrīm śītavatīm namāmyaham || 3 || (The mantra knotted in a thread when employed [in amulets] by the travellers, she protects the travellers for millions of miles, my salutations to Śītavatī.) शान थेन मुतनना या समुच्चाररिा पुरा ग्रहोपद्रवशान्त्यथं शीिविीां नमा हम् śmaśānasthena muninā yā samuccāritā purā | grahopadravaśāntyartham śītavatīm namāmyaham || 4 || 219 Ph.D. T hesis Sacred Feminine Imagery in T antric Buddhism 2018 (In the past, the subduers (Muni) residing in the charnel ground recited her [mantra] for the pacification of havoc created by the Graha (evil spirits), my salutations to that Śītavatī.) ग्रहातभभूिवािानाां ग्रन्त पदतवधाररणाम् ग्रहभीतिप्रशमनीां शीिविीां नमा हम् grahābhibhūtavātānām granthipadavidhārinām | grahabhītipraśamanīm śītavatīm namāmyaham || 5 || (Those who are possessed by the Graha (evil spirits), [they should] hold the stanza [of her mantra] in the amulets, the subjugator of fears of Garha, my salutations to that Śītavatī.) श्री महाशीिविीरक्षादे वी ोत्ां समा म् śrī mahāśītavatīrakshādevīstotram samāptam | (Here ends the hymn of Śri-mahā-śītavatī protector goddess.) ५ महासाहस्रप्रमणदि नीस्तोत्रम् 5 mahāsāhasrapramardinīstotram (Hymn of Mahāsāhasrapramardinī) 220 Samdarshi P. Appendix University of Delhi नमः श्रीमहासाहस्रप्रमतदम े om namah śrīmahāsāhasrapramardinye (OM salutations to Śri-mahāsāhasrapramardinī.) महासाहतस्रके लोके साहस्रतहिकाररणाम् सहस्रसत्त्वजननीां नौतम साहस्रमतदम नीम् mahāsāhasrike loke sāhasrahitakārinām | sahasrasattvajananīm naumi sāhasramardinīm || 1 || (In the great thousand world realms, she bestows the thousands of fortunes, prostrations to the Sāhasramardinī, the mother of thousands of sentient beings.) सोपद्रवायाां वैशा ाां महोत्सवो यिः सदा महोपसगमशमनीां नौतम साहस्रमतदम नीम् sopadravāyām vaiśālyām mahotsavo yatah sadā | mahopasargaśamanīm naumi sāhasramardinīm || 2 || (She vanquished the disturbances in the festival of Vaiśāli forever, the pacifier of chronic disease, salutations to that Sāhasramardinī.) यक्षराक्षसभूिानाां दमनीां दु चेिसाम् 221 Ph.D. T hesis Sacred Feminine Imagery in T antric Buddhism 2018 दु ररिोपद्रवहिाां नौतम साहस्रमतदम नीम् Yakṣharākṣhasabhūtānām damanīm dushtacetasām | duritopadravahatām naumi sāhasramardinīm || 3 || (Prostrations to the Sāhasramardinī, who subjugates all wicked minded demigods, demons, ghost and dispels all the troubles.) यद्धारणीपिनिो रतक्षिः शाक्यकेशरी तवषिो तवषतदग्ाां िाां नौतम साहस्रमतदम नीम् yadDhāraṇīpathanato rakshitah śākyakeśarī | vishato vishadigdhām tām naumi sāhasramardinīm || 4 || (By recitation of that dhāraṅī, the lion amongst the Śākyas was protected from the poisons and the damages caused by poisons, salutations to that Sāhasramardinī.) मधुतमतश्रिभैषज्यां सवमरोगतनवारणम् मृिसञ्जीवनां लोके नौतम साहस्रमतदम नीम् madhumiśritabhaishajyam sarvaroganivāranam | mrtasañjīvanam loke naumi sāhasramardinīm || 5 || 222 Samdarshi P. Appendix University of Delhi (The medicines mixed with honey that removes all the disease, the elixir of this realm, prostrations to that Sāhasramardinī.) श्रीमहासाहस्रमतदम नीरक्षादे वी ोत्ां समा म् śrīmahāsāhasramardinīrakshādevīstotram samāptam | (Here ends the hymns of protection goddess Śri-mahā-sāhasrapramardinī.) 223 BIBLIOGRAPHY SANSKRIT AND TIBETAN TEXTS AND TRANSLATIONS Abhidharmakośa. Dev, Narendra, Vol. I. Allahabad: Hindustan Academy, 1973. Abhisamayalamkara with Vrtti and Aloka. Maitreya. Translated by Gareth Sparham. California: Jain Publishing House, 2015. Advayavajrasańgraha. Shastri, Harprasad, ed. Baroda: Oriental Institute, 1927. Āryamanjuṣrīmūlakalpa. Shashtri, M. M. T. Ganapati, ed. Vol. I. III vols. Delhi: Sri Satguru Publishers, 1920. Āṭānāṭiya Sutta. Thera, Piyadassi, ed. 1999. http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/dn/dn.32.0.piya.html (accessed July 20, 2017). Atharva-veda. Sarasvati, Satya Prakash, ed. Translated by Satya Prakash Sarasvati. New Delhi: Veda Pratishthana, 1992. Bauddha Tantra Koṣha. Vol. I. Dwivedi, Varajavallabha, and Thinlay Ram Shashani, ed. Sarnath: Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies, 1990. Bauddha-stotra-sańgraha.Pandey, Janardann Shastri, ed. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1994. 224 Samdarshi P. Bibliography University of Delhi Cakrasamvara-tantra. Grey, David, ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. Chos-‘byung-zis-bris-nor-bu. (Indian Buddhist Pundits). Lobsang Norbu Tsonawa, trans. Dharamshala: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 2005. Dammūka-sūtra. Tripathi, Ram Shankar, ed. Translated by Penpa Dorjee. Leh, Ladakh: Central Institute of Buddhist Studies, 1987. Dharmakoṣa-sańgraha. Amritānanda, Pandit. Translated by S C Mukherji. Kolkata: Punthi Pustak, 2014. Dīgha Nikāya. Walshe, Maurice, trans. Boston: Wisdom Publication, 1995. Divyāvadāna. Neil, Edward Byles Cowell and Robert Alexander, ed. London: Oriental Press, 1886. Dwivedi and Thinlay Ram Shashni, ed. Sarnath: Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies, 1990. Ganḍavyūha-sūtra. Vaidya, P. L, ed. Darbhanga: The Mithila Institute, 1960. Guhyasamāja-tantra or Tathāgataguhyaka. Bagchi, S, ed. Darbhanga: Mithila Institute, 1965. Guhyasamāja-tantra. Nyaupane, Kashinath, ed. Varanasi: Indica Books, 2012. Guhyasamāja-tantra-pradipodyötanaṭīkā-ṣaṭakoṭī-vyākhyā. Chakravarti, Chintaharan, ed. Patna: Kashi Prasad Jayaswal Research Institute, 1984. 225 PhD T hesis Sacred Feminine Imagery in T antric Buddhism 2018 Hevajra-tantram with Muktāvalī-panjikā of Mahāpanḍitācarya Ratnākarśhantī. Tripathi, Ram Shankar, and Thakur, Sain Negi, ed. Sarnath, Varanasi: Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies, 2001. Hevajra-tantram. Nyaupane, Kashinath, ed.Varanasi: Indica Books, 2012. Jaina-Rupa-Mandana. Shah, Umakant P., ed. Vol. 1. New Delhi: Abhinav Publications, 1987. Kurūkullākalpaḥ. Pandey, Janardan Shashtri, ed. Sarnath: Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies, 2001. Lalitavistar. 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New York: Routledge, 2004. 254 INDEX A Alexander Cunningham, 14 Alexis Sanderson, 38 ,1 Amarawati, 103 Abhidharmakoṣa, 25 115 Abhinavagupta, 43 , 11 Abhisamaya- Amoghavajra, 133 , 177 , 202 Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, 20 Advayavajrasangraha, 75 Anglo-German school, 12 Adwaya-tantra, 170 antinomian, 10 antinomianism, 62 Ajanta, 52 anuttara-jñana, 11 Akṣobhya, 149 Anuttara-tantra, 200 Albert Joseph Edmunds, 29 Anuttarayoga-tantra, 88, 170 Alexander Csoma, 20 Apabhramsa, 61 255 PhD T hesis Sacred Feminine Imagery in T antric Buddhism , 85 2018 Barlam, 18 Benoytosh Bhattacharya, 56 - , 99 Bhagavati, 173 ḥiḥ, 188 Bhaisajya- , 147 , 130 Bhaktapur, 190 Asanga, 80 Bharhut, 103, 107 Asia, 19 Bhaviṣya-pur a, 99 Asiatic Society, 19 Bhutan, 12 ṭam trika, 190 , 100 ṣa, 35 biblical studies, 13 Aṭ n ṭiya Sutta, 76 Biblical studies, 6 , 77 , 72 Bodhicitta, 44 , 180 Bodhisattva, 79 Austine Waddell, 27 Boudhanath, 160 , 179 Brahma, 35 B Brain H. Hodgson, 17 Bali, 130 , 127 Bamiyan, 42 , 129 Baṇabhatta, 139 Buddha Vacanas, 60 256 Bibliography Samdarshi P. Buddhacarita, 35 University of Delhi Chakrasamvara, 183 , 186 Changunarayan, 190 Buddhaguhya, 121 Chapagaon, 190 Buddhavacana, 155 Chhinnamun ḍ , 181 Buddhist-renaissance, 87 China, 12 Burnouf, 38 Chinese, 29 Chinese T ripitaka. See Bya rGyup, 127 Chinnamunḍ 184 190, 199 C Chögyam T rungpa, 90 - , 169 Christian missionaries, 13 caitya, 147 Christianity, 13 Cakrasamvara, 35 , 114 Cakrasamvaratantra, 100 Chusya Baha, 160 canonical literature, 35 , 59 - Citta, 124 caste hierarchy, 62 clear-light mind, 170, 173 Catholic, 12 compassion, 115 Catur- , 157 consort, 176 Ceylon, 28 Coomaraswamy, 51, 65 257 PhD T hesis Sacred Feminine Imagery in T antric Buddhism Dharmakoṣasaṇgrah, 152 Csoma De-Coros, 21 Buddhas, 174 - , 76 , 85 D Dignaga, 55 D. N. Shastri, 55 , 31 , 97 91, 96, 186 -Koṣa, 79 Dalai Lama, 10, 86 , 90 Dorje, 177 Dravidian language, 77 David Seyfort Ruegg, 43 Drub T ab Gyatso, 129 David Suleiman, 32 Dunhuang, 134 de La Vallee Poussin, 25 Dus- , 199 , 173 E , 173 Dharamvir Bharti, 62 Edward Conze, 17 , 77 Edward Moor, 19 Ekajaṭ -t r , 59 Ellora, 52 dharmacakra mudra, 149 Ellora Cave no VII, 141 , 188 emptiness, 174 Dharmakoṣa-samgraha, 146 258 2018 Samdarshi P. Bibliography University of Delhi Engelbert Kaempfer, 19 Gñana- epigraphical evidences, 134 Gñana-samuccaya, 122 Eugene Burnouf, 22 Gopinath Kaviraj, 65 European pedagogy, 55 Gospels, 29 graha- , 158 F Great Game, 20 Female Buddhas, 102, 106 Greek, 20, 29 feminine-divine, 1 , 117 feudal state, 33 ṭa hill, 76 four classes of Buddhist tantra, 6 gSang sngags rjes dzin chen mo, 129 Franco-Belgian school, 12 guhyakas, 186 Franco Belgian school, 25 , 84 Franco Belgian school, 25 -tantra, 53 , 66 , 82 G Gurumanḍala p j , 131 Gaja-lakṣmi, 16 Gandhara, 20 H gcan rim pa, 129 Halbfass, 48 generation stage, 189 Haraprasad Shastri, 52 Gilgit Manuscripts, 130 Haraṣadeva, 197 259 PhD T hesis Sacred Feminine Imagery in T antric Buddhism 108, 161 Hindu tantra, 61 historicity, 19 Harivamsa- , 99 Hodgson, 21 Harprasad Shastri, 57 Homa, 158 Harṣacarita, 139 Hungary, 20 Hazari Prasad Dwivedi, 62 I Heart Sutra, 82 icchataḥ, 11 heritage, 48 idolatry, 54 Hermann Hess, 50 imperialism, 33 Hermann Oldenburg, 12 indigenous traditions, 51 hermeneutics, 39 Indo-china, 12 Heruka, 35, 176 Indology, 11 Hevajra T antra, 84 J Hevajra-tantra, 70 hideousness, 54 J .W. de Jong, 119 Himalayan Buddhist arts, 1 Jaideva Singh, 65 Hinayana, 26 Jaina, 66 Hindi, 61 James Fergusson, 16 , 61 Hindoo nation, 55 260 2018 Bibliography Samdarshi P. , 187 University of Delhi Karmakanda, 68 Japan, 12 Kashmir, 43 Java, 130 , 65 Jawaharlal Nehru, 48 Kathmandu, 4 , 124 Jean Przylusky, 12 , 182 jina- Kegon, 138 , 105 Khadga-yogini, 190 Kinnaur, 21 Jñana-samuchchaya, 123 Kolkata, 52 Josaphat, 18 Korea, 12 Judeo-Christian religions, 13 Krama, 102 Kriya aspect of Lakṣmi, 101 K Kriya-samgraha, 145 Kachoma, 183 -tantra, 121, 124 , 197 Kula, 102, 144 , 173 Kuñjara-kar a-dharma-kathana, 134 - , 122 Kane, 53 261 PhD T hesis Sacred Feminine Imagery in T antric Buddhism 2018 L -tara, 192 La Mission Pelliot en Asie Centrale, 25 Ladakh, 4, 21 Lakṣmi, 101 , 179 , 146 , 136 , 99 - lalitasana, 149 , 106 126 Lalitavistar, 85 - Lamaism, 27 - Lamotte, 16 Mahasiddhas, 44 Latin, 29 Nandangarh, 93, 94 , 174 Lhasa, 191 , 158 lineage-teachings, 3, See , 24 M macrocosm-microcosm, 71 ṣin s, 103 Madhyamika, 206 Mahayana, 12 magic, 28 ǹk r, 80 262 , 119 Bibliography Samdarshi P. University of Delhi monastic universities, 78 mandala, 33, 79 Mongolia, 53 manḍala, 115, 124 Mt. Shimen, Dazu, 137 Maṇic ḍa, 191 Muhammadans, 192 , 124 Mandasor inscription, 95 Maṇic da hill, 191 - 97,106 , 109 , 138 , 97 N N. N. Bhattacharyya, 60, 86 mantra, 77 ḍ , 179 Mantrayana, 75 Naga, 65 , 170 Max Muller, 22 Nagarjuna, 55 , 138 Nagendranath Upadhyaya, 62 medieval India, 32 mental phenomena, 205 mGon po, 77 Nalanda, 64 , 78, 80 Milarepa, 96 Naro Khacho, 199 Mitra, 52 Naro-Ḍ kin , 198 modernity, 48 263 PhD T hesis Sacred Feminine Imagery in T antric Buddhism Naro- orthodoxy, 62 Naropa, 96, 198 Osho, 90 2018 P Natha, 62 P. C. Bagchi, 57, 86 neo tantra, 90 P. V. Kane, 39 Nepal- , 191 , 148 New T estament, 29 pagan, 19 Nikaya schools, 206 Pala period, 143 Pali, 14 nirguṇa yajñya, 191 Pali T ext Society, 28 , 188 Pamthingpa brothers, 199 Niṣpannayog wali, 87 Pañcarakṣ - ḍala, 154 , 11 Pañcarakṣ -vidh na, 129 O - , 126 Oldenburg, 24 Oriental Renaissance, 49 Pañcrakṣ -dev -cary -n itya , 166 Oriental studies, 51 Paramitayana, 75 Orientalism, 18 Paritta, 76 Orient, 49 -stya, 209 264 Bibliography Samdarshi P. University of Delhi Pratap Malla, 193 paryañka, 149 primitive, 12, 44 protective deity, 77 pauṣ ṇika, 68 protestant, 12 Protestant theology, 28 ,1 ṇa, 68 Phag-mo gZ-hung-drug, 189 Puṣkarasari i, 31 Pharping, 190, 197 philological, 11 R Piprahwa, 93 Rahul Sankrityayan, 63 pith instructions, 187 , 170 Rajendra Lal Mitra, 16 post-colonial period, 5 Ramachandra Shukla, 61 , 179 -svara, 170 Ratan Sutta, 76 ṭ k , 66 Ratnasambhava, 151 prajña, 82 , 115, 172 Rdo-Rje rnal-byor ma, 190 , 171 , 205 religious substratum, 43 , 176 rhetorical tropes, 21 Rhys Davids, 12, 28 -s tra, 111 265 PhD T hesis Sacred Feminine Imagery in T antric Buddhism ritualism, 58 Saknda- 2018 ṇa, 191 rMa bya chen mo, 129 romanticism, 18 Ronald Davidson, 32 Rudra, 35 samadhi mudra, 149 Ruegg, 44 Samaya, 101 Sambhoga- , 198 S , 176 , 59 , 188 Sampuṭosbhava-svra-tantra, 9 Saddharma-punḍar ka, 77 samvriti, 209 Saddharmapunḍar ka-s tra, 23 Samya- , 123 , 35 , 59, 95 Sanchi, 16, 103, 107 - , 129 Sanderson, 38 - , 174 Sahaja, 84 Sankhu, 191, 195 Sahajayani, 62 Sanskrit, 29 ,1 , 97 , 31 266 Bibliography Samdarshi P. University of Delhi , 129 sarva-buddha- , 186 Societe Asiatique, 22 satvaparyañkasana, 147 Song dynsty, 133 saumya, 110 sorcery, 58 , 100 Southeast Asia, 7 Scythia, 20 Spiti, 4 semantics, 10 Sri Lanka, 12 semiology, 33, 45 -cakrasamvara-tantra, 10 Shankaracharaya, 196 - Shantideva, 111 -nagara, 197 Shingon, 138 Stcherbatsky, 56 Siddha, 61, 76 Stephen Beyer, 43 Siddh , 113 , 129 Stupas, 160 Sikkim, 4, 27 sindura- - subjectivization, 11 , 140 substratum, 43 , 84 , 174 , 85 Siva's consort, 193 - 267 , 16 PhD T hesis Sacred Feminine Imagery in T antric Buddhism 2018 Suvarṇa-prabh s, 77 T ibetan Buddhism, 77 ṣa, 24 T ibetan T ripitaka, 129 Svachhanda Bhairava, 37 T ilopa, 199 Svayambhu, 161 tribal, 62 - - , 123 , 201 - Sylvain Levi, 12 - T tutelary deity, 7 U T antra-samgraha, 172 Udabhaṭṭa Swami, 35 illustration, 112 -kula, 144 Ugra- 192 Ugra- 184, 92, 197 ultimate truth, 209 ., 172 Unexcelled T antra, 170 tattvas, 37 T hangka, 175 , 82 , 115, 171 T heravada, 12, 26 , 29 , 11 , 176 U ṣ i avijay , 109 T ibet, 53 268 , 186 Bibliography Samdarshi P. University of Delhi Utpatti-krama, 189 , 192 uttama-siddhi, 1 varada mudra, 148 , 182 V Vasanta-tilaka, 172 Vaiṣ ava, 60 Vasubandhu, 25 Vasugupta, 43 Vajracharya priest, 158 vernacular, 61 vajra-jñana, 172 - ṅku i, 152 , 134 Vidyeshwari, 190 Vajrapani, 16 , 93 Vajrasphoṭa, 152 -siddhi, 25 vikalpa, 122 Vikramshila, 78, 80 See, See Vinaya, 106 ṣtava, 35 Vajrayana, 29 Viṣṇu, 35 visualization, 70 -stotra, 202 Visualization, 114 , 124 Vivekananda, 39, 54, 57 269 PhD T hesis Sacred Feminine Imagery in T antric Buddhism Yakṣi -s dhana, 97 W Waddell, 50 yidam, 171 West Champaran, 93 Yoga Sutra, 72 Yogacara, 206 William A. Foucher, 58 Yoga-tantra, 170 William Jones, 19 Yogi, 62 wind channels, 83, 179 wisdom, 115 - -tantra, 187 Y -tantra, 73 Yakṣ , 104 Yuan period, 134 Yakṣiṇi, 16, 96 270 2018