Metaphor, Rasa, and Dhvani: Suggested Meaning in Tantric Esotericism

As the verse chosen as a title for this article emblematically shows, esoteric movements have consistently used secrecy as a literary topos in their oral and written cultural expressions for a number of purposes. Scholars of South Asian religions, especially those in field of Tantric studies, have been scrutinizing for decades the need for secretive doctrines and a secret code-language (sandhyā bhās .ā), mostly interrogating textual sources and neglecting the contemporary experience and exegetical authority of living lineages. In this paper, I firstly address ethical and epistemological problems in the study of esoteric religious movements in order to propose innovative methodological strategies. Then, I offer numerous examples drawn from extensive fieldwork and in-depth literary study of contemporary esoteric lineages of West Bengal (India) and Bangladesh, in order to discuss the local discourse on secrecy. Finally, I review previously assumed notions on secrecy in South Asian religions, and I suggest to take into serious consideration local perspectives on the accessibility of esoteric knowledge, leading to a more nuanced idea of secrecy, constantly subjected to temporal and situational negotiations between silence and disclosure.

Section: Revisiting "The Double Bind Of Secrecy": Methodological Intementioning

confidence: 99%

“I Am Afraid of Telling You This, Lest You’d Be Scared Shitless!”: The Myth of Secrecy and the Study of the Esoteric Traditions of Bengal

Lorea

2018

“…A comprehensive exploration of Abhinavagupta's aesthetics is beyond the scope of this paper, but there are certain concepts he develops that apply directly to the kinds of religious and aesthetic experience described by the modern practitioners. 4 Timalsina (2007) introduces these concepts in the following way:…”

Section: Tantric Aesthetics: Artistic Experience and Religious Experimentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Acts of profound self-awareness by the perfected religious seeker are ultimately a reflection of that ultimate. (Larson 1976;Timalsina 2007;Lidke 2011Lidke , 2016 Profound self-awareness is proof of and a direct expression of Supreme Consciousness knowing itself through itself, as itself. Larson, in his seminal article (Larson 1976) on aesthetic enjoyment (Rasāsvāda) and religious realization (Brahmāsvāda) expresses the essence of the teaching.…”

Section: Tantric Aesthetics: Artistic Experience and Religious Experimentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For concise introduction to Indian aesthetics in the context of religion, see Schwartz (2004). For Indian aesthetics in general and relative to Abhinavagupta, see Kavi (1934); Masson et al (1969); Larson (1976); Katz and Sharma (1977); Gnoli (1985); Lidke (2011Lidke ( , 2015Lidke ( , 2016; Timalsina (2007Timalsina ( , 2016; Wulff (1984). experience and the ultimate spiritual realization of the disembodied absolute on logical and linguistic grounds.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Modern Transformations of sādhanā as Art, Study, and Awareness: Religious Experience and Hindu Tantric Practice

Ruff

2019

“My first raising of the kuṇḍalinī was hearing Ma [her teacher] speak about art.” The experience of the awakening of śakti within practitioners in contemporary cultures occurs both in traditional religious settings and within novel circumstances. Traditional situations include direct transmission from a guru (śaktipāta), self-awakening through the practice of kuṇḍalinī-yoga or haṭhayoga, and direct acts of grace (anugraha) from the goddess or god. There are also novel expressions in hybrid religious-cultural experiences wherein artists, dancers, and musicians describe their arts explicitly in terms of faith/devotion (śraddhā, bhakti, etc.) and practice (sādhanā). They also describe direct experience of grace from the goddess or describe their ostensibly secular teachers as gurus. In contemporary experience, art becomes sādhanā and sādhanā becomes art. Creativity and artistic expression work as modern transformations of traditional religious experience. This development, while moving away from traditional ritual and practice, does have recognizable grounding within many tantric traditions, especially among the high tantra of the Kashmiri Śaiva exegetes.

“…ha yoga using cognitive science in a useful essay (Goldberg 2005). Finally, the co-editors of this special issue, Glen Hayes (2003Hayes ( , 2005Hayes ( , 2006Hayes ( , 2012cHayes ( , 2014 and Sthaneshwar Timalsina (2007Timalsina ( , 2012Timalsina ( , 2013Timalsina ( , 2015aTimalsina ( , 2015bTimalsina ( , 2016, have also published numerous works in recent years dealing with various aspects of CSR in the study of Tantra and Yoga.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Introduction to “Cognitive Science and the Study of Yoga and Tantra”

Hayes

Timalsina

2017

Self Cite

The range of disciplines known as the Cognitive Science of Religions (CSR), which has emerged in recent decades, embraces many areas and specializations within the Academy, including cognitive science, linguistics, neuroscience, and religious studies. The results of this exploration, some of which are offered in this Special Issue before you, are intriguing, profound, and yet still preliminary. As will be noted below, this "preliminary" nature of CSR is due to the fact that our scientific knowledge of the neurological system-let alone of how the mind "works"-is still in mostly early phases. Techniques in imaging and scanning the brain, as well as in understanding patterns and processes in perception and cognition, are advancing with every day, yet we are still at some remove from making all but the most general or speculative statements. This does not, of course, mean that we have to stand by and wait for the technology to improve or to reach some critical point. As with any meaningful discipline in scholarship and science, CSR proceeds in halting but definite steps, and we hope that the essays in this issue demonstrate what some of us in the area of Tantric Studies can provide to the dialogue. None of these essays are by cognitive scientists, so we ask our colleagues in the sciences to consider how the dialogue might be furthered through their own efforts in understanding Tantra.For those unfamiliar with Tantric Studies (itself a fairly recent interdisciplinary field of academic pursuits), 1 the field is one which examines "Tantra", a broad range of originally pan-Asian religious traditions connected to Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Taoism, and various indigenous communities. As with the ongoing scholarly dispute over basic methodologies, terminology and vocabulary in CSR, there has been lively debate over the key term of "Tantra", as well as how far back it goes in history. 2 Dating from no later than the 4th century CE in South Asia, Tantra is difficult to define, but perhaps best regarded through the lens of a "polythetic" category as proposed by Douglas Renfrew Brooks. 3 Tantra may be regarded as historical systems of ritual practices in which an individual engages with a layered cosmology, utilizing diverse senses, cognitive capacities, and sexuality in order to achieve elevated states of consciousness and embodied liberation. There are innumerable iterations of Tantra, ranging from theistic to nontheistic, although most seek to "reverse" the flow of cosmic process and manifestation in order to lead the individual to some heightened, typically unitive, state. On the history of Tantric Studies and the Society for Tantric Studies (STS), see (Hayes 2011(Hayes , 2012a. As recent scholarship is most prolific, the essays in this Special Issue of Religions only examine small segments of the field. For an excellent introduction to the study of Tantra, including translations of many texts, see White (2000). On selected aspects of the history of scholarship on Hindu Tantra see Brooks (1998), Urban (2003) and Hayes (...