Download or read book The Cakrasamvara Tantra The Discourse of Sri Heruka written by David B. Gray and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2019-04-09 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first complete, critical English translation of the Cakrasamvara Tantra, also known as the Sriherukabhidhana and Laghusamvara. This is the first complete, critical English translation of the Cakrasamvara Tantra. Composed in India during the eighth century, it is a foundational scripture of one of the most important Indian Buddhist tantric traditions. The translator’s introductory essay provides an analysis of the historical and intellectual contexts in which the Cakrasamvara Tantra was composed. The heavily annotated translation was made on the basis of the surviving Sanskrit manuscripts of the tantra and its commentaries, parallel passages in related explanatory tantras (vyakhyatantra), two different Tibetan translations of the root text, and several Tibetan commentaries. Includes a trilingual glossary and index. The author has also translated the commentary on this tantra by the great Tibetan scholar Tsong Khapa (1357–1419), Illumination of the Hidden Meaning, now published in two companion volumes. Taken together, these three volumes provide the reader with the first full study in English of this pivotal tantra. Composed in India during the late eighth or early ninth century, the Cakrasamvara Tantra is a foundational scripture of one of the most important Indian Buddhist tantric traditions, as evidenced by the vast number of commentaries and ritual literature associated with it. Along with the Hevajra Tantra, it is one of the earliest and most influential of the yogini tantras, a genre of tantric Buddhist scripture that emphasizes female deities, particularly the often fiercely depicted yoginis and ?akinis.
Download or read book Genesis and Development of Tantra written by Shingo Einoo and published by Рипол Классик. This book was released on with total page 563 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Studies on Tantra in Bengal and Eastern India written by Madhu Khanna and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-02-20 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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, Śakti Pithas, and the Śākta 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.
Download or read book Tantric State written by William J. Long and published by Studies in Comparative Politic. This book was released on 2018 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Today, the majority of sovereign states can be described as 'democracies' in that they possess elected political leadership and some measure of commitment to the protection and promotion of individual rights and equality under law. Likewise, the economies of most democracies revolve around free trade, integrated into wider regional and global markets. Virtually all are organized around Western liberal principles and values. For some, these philosophical commitments are indigenous and longstanding, and for others they were imported later, often through colonization. This book asks how democratic governance and economic development differ when founded on Eastern, Buddhist principles, rather than Western, liberal, and Enlightenment values and beliefs. The small, remote country of Bhutan is the only democratic, market-based state that is rooted constitutionally and culturally in Mahayana Buddhist principles and ethics. In this book, it provides an alternate vision for what democratic states built on Eastern philosophy might look like. William Long argues that the differences in democratic and development systems between Western and Eastern approaches are profound and important. Bhutan's approach to democracy and development is based on the idea of 'Gross National Happiness' and offers a unique approach to the challenges of political polarization, economic inequality, and declining public trust in political institutions"--
Download or read book Tantric Yoga and the Wisdom Goddesses written by David Frawley and published by Lotus Press. This book was released on 2000-11-01 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides an excellent introduction to the essence of Hindu Tantrism, discussing all the major concepts and correcting many existing misconceptions.
Download or read book The Origins of Yoga and Tantra written by Geoffrey Samuel and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2008-03-27 with total page 429 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Yoga, tantra and other forms of Asian meditation are practised in modernized forms throughout the world today, but most introductions to Hinduism or Buddhism tell only part of the story of how they developed. This book is an interpretation of the history of Indic religions up to around 1200 CE, with particular focus on the development of yogic and tantric traditions. It assesses how much we really know about this period, and asks what sense we can make of the evolution of yogic and tantric practices, which were to become such central and important features of the Indic religious scene. Its originality lies in seeking to understand these traditions in terms of the total social and religious context of South Asian society during this period, including the religious practices of the general population with their close engagement with family, gender, economic life and other pragmatic concerns.
Download or read book The Tantric Body written by Gavin Flood and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2005-10-28 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tantra is the Hindu-based religion which links ecstatic sexual practice with meditation and direct spiritual experience. It originated in India some 1200 years ago, when the great sacred erotic temples were built. In the West it is best known for its inspiration of tantric yoga, and its associated ritualistic forms of sex. But is tantra just about esoteric sex or does it amount to something more? This lively and original book contributes to a more complete understanding of tantra's mysteries. Without minimising its sexual dimensions, Gavid Flood argues that within tantra the body is more than just a sexual entity. It is a vehicle for the spirituality that is fundamental to people's minds. "The Tantric Body" makes an important and fascinating contribution to the study of South Asian religion, and will have strong appeal to students of South Asian cultures and societies as well as to those of comparative philosophy.
Download or read book The Roots of Tantra written by Katherine Anne Harper and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Among the many spiritual traditions born and developed in India, Tantra has been the most difficult to define. Almost everything about it—its major characteristics, its sources, its relationships to other religions, even its practices—are debated among scholars. In addition, Tantrism is not confined to any particular religion, but is a set of beliefs and practices that appears in a variety of religions, including Hinduism and Buddhism. This book explores one of the most controversial aspects of Tantra, its sources or roots, specifically in regard to Hinduism. The essays focus on the history and development of Tantra, the art history and archaeology of Tantra, the Vedas and Tantra, and texts and Tantra. Using various disciplinary and methodological approaches, from history to art history and religious studies to textual studies, scholars provide both broad overviews of the beginnings of Tantra and detailed analyses of specific texts, authors, art works, and rituals.
Download or read book Tantric Buddhism in East Asia written by Richard K. Payne and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2006 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although Indian and Tibetan versions of tantric Buddhism are increasingly recognized, the East Asian variations on this practice remain largely overlooked. The only book to present the entire breadth of tantric Buddhism in East Asia, this collection remedies that situation with 12 key essays drawn from rare sources. Organized into four sections--China and Korea, Japan, Deities and Practices, and Influences on Japanese Religion--the book brings together a "critical mass" of scholarship, with the potential to create a sea change in the understanding of this subject
Download or read book Sir John Woodroffe Tantra and Bengal written by Kathleen Taylor and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-10-12 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Working with Bengali mentors, especially his close friend A. B. Ghose, Sir John Woodroffe became the pseudonymous orientalist Arthur Avalon, famous for his tantric studies at the beginning of the twentieth century. Best known for The Serpent Power, the book which introduced 'Kundalini Yoga' to the western world, Avalon turned the image of Tantra around, from that of a despised magical and orgiastic cult into a refined philosophy which greatly enhanced the prestige of Hindu thought to later generations of westerners. This biographical study is in two parts. The first focuses on Woodroffe's social identity in Calcutta against the background of colonialism and nationalism - the context in which he 'was' Arthur Avalon. To a very unusual degree for someone with a high position under the empire, Woodroffe the British High Court Judge absorbed the world of the Bengali intellectuals of his time, among whom his popularity was widely attested. His admirers were attracted by his Indian nationalism, to which his tantric studies and supposed learning formed an important adjunct. Woodroffe's friend Ghose, however, was the chief source of the textual knowledge in which the 'orientalist' scholar appeared to be deeply versed. The second part of this study assesses Woodroffe's own relationship to Sanskrit and to the texts, and highlights his very extensive but gifted use of secondary sources and the knowledge of Ghose and other Indian people. It examines the apologetic themes by which he and his collaborators made Tantra first acceptable, then fashionable. Partly because of his mysterious pseudonym, Woodroffe acquired a near legendary status for a time, and remains a fascinating figure. This book is written in a style that should appeal to the general reader as well as to students of Indian religions and early twentieth century Indian history, while being relevant to the ongoing debate about 'orientalism'.
Download or read book Early Tantric Medicine written by Michael Slouber and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-11-25 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Snakebite may sound like a rare and exotic phenomenon, but in India it is a problem that affects 1.4 million people every year and results in over 45,000 deaths. A traditional medical system that flourished over 1,000 years ago, the Garuda Tantras had a powerful influence on medicine for snakebite, and some of their practices remain popular to this day. In Early Tantric Medicine, Michael Slouber offers a close examination of the Garuda Tantras, which were deemed lost until the author discovered numerous ancient titles surviving in Sanskrit manuscripts written on fragile palm-leaves. The volume brings to life this rich tradition in which knowledge and faith are harnessed in complex visualizations accompanied by secret mantras to an array of gods and goddesses; this religious system is combined with herbal medicine and a fascinating mix of lore on snakes, astrology, and healing. The book's appendices include an accurate yet readable translation of ten chapters of the most significant Tantric medical text to be recovered: the Kriyakalagunottara. Also included is a critical edition based on the surviving Nepalese manuscripts. Tying in to interest in holistic medicine, meditation, and Tantra, this volume sheds light on a nearly forgotten piece of history.
Download or read book A History of Sri Lanka written by K M de Silva and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2005-08-25 with total page 800 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sri Lanka is an ancient civilization, shaped and thrust into the modern globalizing world by its colonial experience. With its own unique problems, many of them historical legacies, it is a nation trying to maintain a democratic, pluralistic state structure while struggling to come to terms with separatist aspirations. This is a complex story, and there is perhaps no better person to present it in reasoned, scholarly terms than K.M. de Silva, Sri Lanka’s most distinguished and prolific historian. A History of Sri Lanka, first published in 1981, has established itself as the standard work on the subject. This fully revised edition, in light of the most recent research, brings the story right up to the early years of the twenty-first century. The book provides comprehensive coverage of all aspects of Sri Lanka’s development—from a classical Buddhist society and irrigation economy, to its emergence as a tropical colony producing some of the world’s most important cash crops, such as cinnamon, tea, rubber and coconut, and finally as an Asian democracy. It is a study of the political vicissitudes of Sri Lanka’s ancient civilization and the successive phases of Portuguese, Dutch and British colonial rule. The unfortunate consequences of becoming a centre of ethnic tension and Sri Lanka’s long-standing relationship with India are also discussed. Exhaustively researched and analytical, this book is an invaluable reference source for students of ancient, colonial and post-colonial societies, ethnic conflict and democratic transitions, as well as for all those who simply want to get a feel of the rich and varied texture of Sri Lanka’s long history.
Download or read book Spirituality and Management written by Sanjeev P. Sahni and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-05-17 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book discusses the importance of integrating spirituality from diverse knowledge backgrounds to be effective in its everyday use. Bringing together global experts in the field, this book provides an extensive overview of the various spirituality and management themes, models, approaches, and complexities. The chapters in the book include deliberations upon wisdom from the Bhagwat Gita; Buddha; the impact of spirituality on good governance, quality of life; integrating ethics, human values, happiness; meditation; and linking of spirituality and management and their effect on leadership, and workplace environment. A thought-provoking read for scholars, students, and policy-makers, this book provides an Indian perspective on managing spirituality at work. This book is even more relevant in the post-COVID-19 scenario as it focuses on the holistic development of people and organizations.
Download or read book Arts Humanities Citation Index written by and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 1596 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A multidisciplinary index covering the journal literature of the arts and humanities. It fully covers 1,144 of the world's leading arts and humanities journals, and it indexes individually selected, relevant items from over 6,800 major science and social science journals.
Download or read book Mathematics in India written by Kim Plofker and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2009-01-18 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on extensive research in Sanskrit sources, Mathematics in India chronicles the development of mathematical techniques and texts in South Asia from antiquity to the early modern period. Kim Plofker reexamines the few facts about Indian mathematics that have become common knowledge--such as the Indian origin of Arabic numerals--and she sets them in a larger textual and cultural framework. The book details aspects of the subject that have been largely passed over in the past, including the relationships between Indian mathematics and astronomy, and their cross-fertilizations with Islamic scientific traditions. Plofker shows that Indian mathematics appears not as a disconnected set of discoveries, but as a lively, diverse, yet strongly unified discipline, intimately linked to other Indian forms of learning. Far more than in other areas of the history of mathematics, the literature on Indian mathematics reveals huge discrepancies between what researchers generally agree on and what general readers pick up from popular ideas. This book explains with candor the chief controversies causing these discrepancies--both the flaws in many popular claims, and the uncertainties underlying many scholarly conclusions. Supplementing the main narrative are biographical resources for dozens of Indian mathematicians; a guide to key features of Sanskrit for the non-Indologist; and illustrations of manuscripts, inscriptions, and artifacts. Mathematics in India provides a rich and complex understanding of the Indian mathematical tradition. **Author's note: The concept of "computational positivism" in Indian mathematical science, mentioned on p. 120, is due to Prof. Roddam Narasimha and is explored in more detail in some of his works, including "The Indian half of Needham's question: some thoughts on axioms, models, algorithms, and computational positivism" (Interdisciplinary Science Reviews 28, 2003, 1-13).
Download or read book Bhakti and Embodiment written by Barbara A. Holdrege and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-08-14 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The historical shift from Vedic traditions to post-Vedic bhakti (devotional) traditions is accompanied by a shift from abstract, translocal notions of divinity to particularized, localized notions of divinity and a corresponding shift from aniconic to iconic traditions and from temporary sacrificial arenas to established temple sites. In Bhakti and Embodiment Barbara Holdrege argues that the various transformations that characterize this historical shift are a direct consequence of newly emerging discourses of the body in bhakti traditions in which constructions of divine embodiment proliferate, celebrating the notion that a deity, while remaining translocal, can appear in manifold corporeal forms in different times and different localities on different planes of existence. Holdrege suggests that an exploration of the connections between bhakti and embodiment is critical not only to illuminating the distinctive transformations that characterize the emergence of bhakti traditions but also to understanding the myriad forms that bhakti has historically assumed up to the present time. This study is concerned more specifically with the multileveled models of embodiment and systems of bodily practices through which divine bodies and devotional bodies are fashioned in Krsna bhakti traditions and focuses in particular on two case studies: the Bhagavata Purana, the consummate textual monument to Vaisnava bhakti, which expresses a distinctive form of passionate and ecstatic bhakti that is distinguished by its embodied nature; and the Gaudiya Vaisnava tradition, an important bhakti tradition inspired by the Bengali leader Caitanya in the sixteenth century, which articulates a robust discourse of embodiment pertaining to the divine bodies of Krsna and the devotional bodies of Krsna bhaktas that is grounded in the canonical authority of the Bhagavata Purana.
Download or read book An Introduction to Tantric Buddhism written by Shashi Bhushan Dasgupta and published by . This book was released on 1974 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An introduction to Tantric Buddhism.
