Śaivism and the Tantric Traditions

Abstract

This volume results from a symposium held at the University of Toronto in honour of Alexis G.J.S. Sanderson. The symposium was convened in March 2015 in anticipation of his retirement as the Spalding Professor of Eastern Religions and Ethics at All Souls College, Oxford University. The event was conceived by Srilata Raman, who worked tirelessly and resourcefully to make it a success. In this she was aided by Shaman Hatley, co-convener of the symposium, and a number of graduate students, especially Kalpesh Bhatt, Tamara Cohen, Larissa Fardelos, Nika Kuchuk, and Eric Steinschneider, to whom we offer our sincere thanks. It was immensely satisfying to have so many of Professor Sanderson's former doctoral students assemble from across the world for the occasion, students whose graduate studies at Oxford spanned more than three decades of Alexis Sanderson's teaching career. The volume is based mainly on papers presented in the symposium, with additional contributions by several of his former pupils who had not been able to present their work at that time (Parul Dave-Mukherji, Csaba Dezső, Csaba Kiss, Ryugen Tanemura, and Anthony Tribe), as well as by Diwakar Acharya, his successor to the Spalding Professorship. We would also like to extend our thanks and recognition to those who enriched the symposium with excellent papers, but who for various reasons could not include these in the present volume:

Sindhu Prakrit Unveils the Enigma: Revealing the origins of Ayurveda

“…Hollow on the side of the hip. [3] Ukha: pot, boiler, a cert. part of the upper portion of the thigh.…”

“…[33] Āvaraṇa: Enveloping raw material with same or other material. [3] Avāraṇa: Insufferable, not to be remedied, irremediable. Not warding off or preventing.…”

“…[2] Upāya: Methods, techniques Upāyaḥ: Method and process of drug functionality. [3] Upāya: pertains to the methods employed to overcome challenges posed by both celestial and mortal realms. [4] Upāya: denotes the methods encompassing mantra recitation, meditation, and austerity, as outlined in the Kubjikāmata-tantra, the earliest widely accepted and authoritative Tantra of the Kubjikā tradition.…”

The Siddha with a Thousand Faces: Non-Tantric and Tantric Elements in the Construction of the Buddhist Siddha in *Jñānākara’s Commentary to the Introduction to the [Path of] Mantra

“…It is often found in esoteric Buddhist texts, but rarely in the Śaiva tantras, except for the Niśvāsatattvasam . hitā, where it appears as the most common goal of sādhana (Goodall and Isaacson 2016). In 673 C.E., Chinese monk Yijing, on his sojourn in India, reports the existence of a corpus of Buddhist tantric scriptures referred to as the vidyādharapit .…”