Tantric Studies: Fruits of a Franco-German Project on Early Tantra
Contents: Preface. 1. On the shared ‘ritual syntax’ of the early tantric traditions/Dominic Goodall and Harunaga Isaacson. 2. How the tattvas of tantric saivism came to be 36: the evidence of the nisvasatattvasamhita/Dominic Goodall. 3. A 12th-century varanasimahatmya and its account of a hypethral yogini-temple/Peter Bisschop. 4. The emergence of the alphabet goddess matrka in early saiva tantras/Judit Torzsok. 5. Three fragmentary folios of a 9th-century manuscript of an early bhutatantra taught by mahamahesvara/Diwakar Acharya. 6. The two iconographic chapters from the devyamata and the art of Bengal/Anna A. Slaczka. 7. Bhutasamkhyas as a dating tool for pratistha literature/Libbie Mills. 8. Minor vajrayana texts I: a fragment from abhayakaragupta’s srisamvarabhisamayopayika/Peter-Daniel Szanto. Index.
The principal works that have emerged from our stimulating project on ‘Early Tantra’ are critical editions and translations of previously unpublished primary material, which have begun to appear in this new series. This volume complements those publications by gathering together some of the fruits, direct and indirect, of the wide-ranging discussions that took place during the project’s workshops. By way of introduction, the volume opens with an attempt by the editors to draw together our findings about the ‘shared ritual syntax’ of some of the earliest known works of the tantric traditions, with a particular emphasis on the Buddhist Manjusriyamulakalpa and the Saiva Nisvasatattvasamhita. Seven further contributions, by Dominic Goodall, Peter Bisschop, Judit Torzsok, Diwakar Acharya, Anna A. Slaczka, Libbie Mills and Peter-Daniel Szanto, throw light on a wide range of topics : the Saivatattvas and their evolution, yogini-temples, alphabet-deities, an early treatise of snake-related magic, iconographic prescriptions in early pratisthatantras, the implications of the use of the bhutasankhya system, and a fragment of a Buddhist tantric sadhana.
