Studies on Tantra in Bengal and Eastern India
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Studies on Tantra in Bengal and Eastern India
Springer, c2022
Available at 3 libraries
Note
Includes bibliographical references and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
This book explores the tantric concept of Shakti, or the principal female cosmic entity and her pilgrimage sites. It offers a first-hand view of the multidimensional ways in which Shakti asserted its supremacy over existing Vaishnava and orthodox Brahmanical traditions in post mediaeval Bengal and India. The interdisciplinary chapters pave the way to understanding the intra-textual relationships between philosophical and conceptual ideas in literary texts and their oral transmission. Divided into three thematic sections: Cult Inclusiveness, Sakti Pithas, and the Sakta Philosophy, the book invites readers to explore a contested area of scholarship from unique perspectives, offering rich insights into the nature of negotiations between diverse religious streams. It also urges readers to examine the many innovative approaches and theoretical models on the goddess culture of East India. The book is of interest to students and scholars of religious textual studies, anthropology, pilgrimage studies, comparative religion, Sanskrit and Bengali languages, regional studies, South Asian cultures, goddess traditions and cultural history of mediaeval Bengal.
Table of Contents
Section I: Cult Inclusiveness: Tantric Sakta and Vaisnava Synthesis
1. The Making of Tantric Radha: A Reading from the Sri-Krsnayamala
Madhu Khanna
2. Prema and Sakti: VaisnavaSahajiya Appropriations of GaudiyaVaisnavism and Saktism in the Anandabhairava of Prema-dasa
Glen Hayes
3. Tantra from Below: Inclusivity, Secrecy and Non-Conceptual Yogas in the Baul-Sahajiya Traditions
Kaustabh Das
Section II: Sakti Pithas
4. Weaving the Body and the Cosmos: Yantric Homologies at a Goddess Temple in Northeastern India
Frederique Appfel Marglin, Julia A. Jean
5. The Metamorphosis of the "Gachh Tar Vali " and the Making of a Sakti-Pitha in Mithila (Pages: 27)
Kamal Mishra
6. Power and Desire in the worship of the Goddess Kamakhya (Pages: 32)
Brenda Dobia
Section III: Sakta Philosophy
7. Gynocentric Cosmogony in the DevibhagavataPurana
Arghya Dipta Kar
8. The Monistic Sakta Philosophy in the Guhyopanisad
Sthaneshvar Timalsina
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