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Introduction: Diagnosing the “Disease” of Tantra
- University of California Press
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Introduction Diagnosing the “Disease”of Tantra If at any time in the history of India the mind of the nation as a whole has been diseased, it was in the Tantric age, or the period immediately preceding the Muhammadan conquest of India. . . . The story related in the pages of . . . Tantric works is so repugnant that excepting a few, all respectable scholars have condemned them wholesale. . . . No one should forget that the Hindu population of India as a whole is even today in the grip of this very Tantra in its daily life; . . . and is suffering from the same disease which originated 1300 years ago and consumed its vitality. . . . Someone should take up the study comprising the diagnosis , etiology, pathology and prognosis of the disease so that more capable men may take up its treatment and eradication. Benyotosh Bhattacharyya, An Introduction to Buddhist Esoterism (1932) The category “Tantra” is a basic and familiar one today in the vocabulary of most scholars of religions and generally considered one of the most important and controversial forms of Asian religion. In academic discourse, Tantra usually refers to a specific brand of religious practice common to the Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain traditions since at least the seventh century; above all, it is identified as a particularly radical and dangerous practice that involves activities normally prohibited in mainstream society, such as sexual intercourse with lower-class partners and consumption of meat and wine. Not surprisingly, given the rather racy nature of the subject, interest in Tantra has skyrocketed in the past two decades in both the popular and scholarly imaginations. On the academic level, Tantra has become one of the hottest topics in the field of South 1 Asian studies, generating a large body of provocative (and often controversial ) new scholarship.1 Still more strikingly, Tantra has also become an object of fascination in the popular imagination, where usually it is defined as “sacred sex” and often is confused with Eastern sexual manuals such as the Kàma SÜtra and Western occult traditions such as Aleister Crowley’s “sex magick.” As we can see on the shelves of any bookstore , Tantra pervades Western pop culture, appearing in an endless array of books, videos, and slick web sites. Indeed, the phrase “American Tantra ” is now even a registered trademark, representing a whole line of books, videos, and “ceremonial sensual” merchandise.2 And yet, as André Padoux points out, the category “Tantrism”—as a singular, coherent entity—is itself a relatively recent invention, in large part the product of nineteenth-century scholarship, with a tangled and labyrinthine history.3 When it was first discovered by Orientalist scholars and missionaries in the eighteenth century, Tantra was quickly singled out as the most horrifying and degenerate aspect of the Indian mind. Identified as the extreme example of all the polytheism and licentiousness believed to have corrupted Hinduism, Tantra was something “too abominable to enter the ears of man and impossible to reveal to a Christian public,” or simply “an array of magic rites drawn from the most ignorant and stupid classes.”4 Yet in our own generation, Tantra has been praised as “a cult of ecstasy, focused on a vision of cosmic sexuality,” and as a much needed celebration of the body, sexuality, and material existence.5 This ambivalence has grown even more intense in our own day. On the one hand, the scholarly literature often laments that Tantra has been woefully neglected in the study of Asian religions as “the unwanted stepchild of Hindu studies.”6 On the other, if we peruse the shelves of most popular bookstores or scan the rapidly proliferating web sites on the Internet, it would seem that Tantra is anything but neglected in modern discourse. As we see in endless publications, bearing titles like Tantric Secrets of Sex and Spirit or Ecstatica: HypnoTrance Love Dance, Tantra has become among the most marketable aspects of the “exotic Orient.” Borrowing some insights from Michel Foucault and his work on sexuality in the Victorian era, I will argue that Tantra has by no means been repressed or marginalized; on the contrary, like sex itself, Tantra has become the subject of an endless proliferation of discourse and exploited as “the secret.”7 Indeed, one might say even that Tantra represents the ideal religion for contemporary Western society. A religion that 2 Introduction [3.93.173.205] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 10:51 GMT) seems to combine spirituality with sensuality, and mystical experience...