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Yoga, Bhoga and Ardhanariswara

Individuality, Wellbeing and Gender in Tantra

By (author) Prem Saran
Format: Hardback
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Inc, Bosa Roca, United States
Imprint: CRC Press Inc
Published: 14th Nov 2017
Dimensions: w 138mm h 216mm
Weight: 660g
ISBN-10: 0815380216
ISBN-13: 9780815380214
Barcode No: 9780815380214
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Synopsis
This book offers a social-scientific interpretation of the Hindu and Buddhist traditions of Tantra dating back 15 centuries. It is a self-reflexive study approached with an insider's empathy and the perspective of an Indologist, anthropologist, mystic and practitioner of the cult. The work includes a discussion of non-modern Indic themes: mandala as a trope and its manifestations in South Asian regions such as Nepal; yoga and Indic individuality; the concept of bhoga; disciplined wellbeing; gender; and Indic axiology. Using personal praxis to inform his research, the author examines three core themes within Tantra - a 'holonic'/mandalic individuality that conduces to mystical experience; a positive valorisation of pleasure and play; and cultural attitudes of gender-mutuality and complementarity, as neatly encapsulated in the icon of Shiva as Ardhanariswara. This analysis, as captured by the Tantric mandalas of deities in intimate union, leads to his compelling metathesis that Tantra serves as a permanent counterculture within the Indic civilization. This second edition, with a new Afterword, will greatly interest those in anthropology, South Asian studies, religious studies, gender studies, psychology and philosophy, as also the general reader.

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'In this wonderfully imaginative and ludic study, Prem Saran prescribes Tantra as a synesthetic tonic for a disenchanted world. Read it, and you will wake up re-enchanted.'

David Gordon White, author of Sinister Yogis and Kiss of the Yogini: "Tantric Sex" in its South Asian Contexts

'While there are many poor and misleading books written about Tantra, Prem Saran's is by far one of the best and most reliable. Saran combines the personal, first-hand experience of a practising insider with the scholarship and erudition of a trained academic. His book is not only a masterful study of Tantric symbolism and ritual, but it makes a powerful argument about the key role that Tantra has played in South Asian history and culture.'

Hugh B. Urban, author of Tantra: Sex, Secrecy, Politics and Power in the Study of Religion and The Power of Tantra

'Saran presents here a unique and precious offering: a work on Tantra that is at once personal and erudite, private and scholarly; and encompassing Tantra's Indic past, present and future as a counter-cultural ethos and practice. Indeed, his book adds a balancing perspective on Tantra that avoids both the sensational hedonism of pop-culture appropriations and the puritanism of religious and academic orthodoxies.'

Patricia Dold, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada

'Prem Saran's beautiful book is at once a historical and theological description, a theoretical analysis, and a spiritual transmission of a particular global vision of Tantra. Tantra here becomes a gift to the world capable of re-enchanting a digitally exhausted modernity, a ritual performance of divine erotic play aimed at aesthetic nondual bliss, and an erotic counterculture and esoteric anatomy that, in different but related forms, has flourished throughout Asia (and now Europe and the Americas) for at least fifteen centuries. There are no borders and boundaries here. There are only bodies, all alike, all different, all portals of mystical energies and states of cosmic consciousness we have only begun to fathom and understand.'

Jeffrey J. Kripal, author of Secret Body: Erotic and Esoteric Currents in the History of Religions