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Yakṣiṇīs appear in Brahmanical, Jain, and Buddhist texts and iconography. They inhabit lakes, rivers, forests, and in particular, trees. They are said to be beautiful, but dangerous. Humans can form relationships with them (as sisters, wives, or mothers), but they are jealous lovers, particularly if a man takes a human wife. They often feature in tantric magic as bringers of wealth, power, or secret knowledge.
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Mike Magee, my friend, teacher, and publishing collaborator passed away in the early hours of 11 August 2024.
Continue reading »Continuing my review of Professor Madhu Khanna’s new edited volume of essays, Studies on Tantra in Bengal and Eastern India (Springer 2022). The first part of the review is here.
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New from professor Madhu Khanna is her edited collection Studies on Tantra in Bengal and Eastern India (Springer 2022). This collection brings together both established and emerging scholars in its focus on tantric influences across a region encompassing the states of Assam, Bihar, Bengal, and Nepal. This is a rich field for exploration, as Madhu Khanna points out in her introduction. The diverse religious currents of the region, ranging from Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism to Tantric Śākta streams coexisted and cross-fertilized each other. The essays in this collection demonstrate the myriad ways in which adaptations and dialogue between religious traditions influenced and shaped Śākta tantra in Bengal.
Professor Khanna was one of the first contemporary scholars to produce a comprehensive examination of Srikula with her Ph.D dissertation – The Concept and Liturgy of the Śricakra Based on Śivānanda’s Trilogy (Oxford University, 1986) – and her publications include Yantra: The Tantric Symbol of Cosmic Unity (1994), Rta, The Cosmic Order (2004), and Asian Perspectives on the World’s Religions After September 11 edited with Arvind Sharma (2013). She is a former director of the Centre for the Study of Comparative Religion and Civilizations, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, co-creator of the Centre for Indic and Agamic Studies in Asia (CIASA) and a founding member of the Tantra Foundation, New Delhi. A review of the compendium of tantric ritual manuals she edited in 2014, Śāktapramodaḥ of Deva Nandan Singh can be found here.
Continue reading »I’m very pleased to announce the release of a new edition of my book exploring the early passage of knowledge about chakras into Western Esotericism. This new edition collects the material originally published as a series of 4 chapbooks in 2018, and I’ve added some more information about the early tantric traditions.
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As a spin-off from the last couple of posts outlining tantric ritual procedures, I thought I’d turn to a more complex issue and tackle the concept of the ‘subtle body’ and how it is used in tantric practice. The term ‘subtle body’ is immediately familiar of course – it has a long history of usage in Western esotericism, from Aristotle to Aleister Crowley and beyond. Sanskrit terms such as lingaśarīra, sūkṣmadeha or sūkṣmaśarīra– often used to refer to the subtle body – was popularized in Western esotericism by the writings of H.P. Blavatsky and other Theosophists, drawing heavily on the work of Henry Thomas Colebrooke and Max Muller. André Padoux points out that this conflation of terms is a misnomer, as the sūkṣmadeha or sūkṣmaśarīra, in actuality, refers to that entity that migrates from body to body after death and lacks any shape, visualized components or affective qualities.
Continue reading »Following on from the previous post in this occasional series, here’s a look at an example of bhūtaśuddhiḥ – the purification and divinization of the body. This practice is a core component of tantric daily practice, and examples are found both in scriptures and ritual manuals of the Śaiva and Vaiṣṇava traditions. There are also similar practices in tantric Buddhism.
In bhūtaśuddhiḥ practice, regions of the body are homologized with the five elements, tattvas and kalās. What follows is a condensed description of bhūtaśuddhiḥ compiled from Śaiva texts such as the Kāmikāgama, Īśānaśivaguradeva, and Somaśambhu-paddhati. There are very similar accounts of this rite in both the Jayākha Saṃhitā and the Laksmī Tantra, two texts of the Vaiṣṇava Pāñcarātra.
This essay will appear in my next Twisted Trunk release: Wheels within Wheels: Chakras and Western Esotericism. I’m hoping to have it published before the end of the year.
Continue reading »What does the Śrīcakra mean to me? What part does it play in my own practice? As you might know from reading my Unfoldings newsletter I have been devoting some time to discussing Kenneth Grant’s representation of Tantra. Grant has a great deal to say about the Śrīcakra, and going over Grant’s take on it, plus referring to various tantric scriptures, as well as what scholars have written, prompted this short post. In doing so, I want to get away from scripture or analysis.
Continue reading »In the last two issues of my Unfoldings newsletter, I have been engaging in an in-depth analysis of Kenneth Grant’s representation of Tantric mysteries in his books – using his 1999 book, Beyond the Mauve Zone as the main reference point. In support of this series of essays, I thought it would be helpful for those reading the essays to attempt a general overview of the historical development of the Tripurāsundarī traditions, known nowadays as Śrīvidyā. In this first post, I’m going to focus on the roots of this tradition – the Nityā.
Continue reading »Announcing two new books for 2023 – Queering Occultures and Acts of Magical Resistance.
