‘Tantra’ is an ambiguous discourse rather than an empirical object of research. Dismissed during the colonial period as a set of sinister black magical practices, it has, in recent decades, become a topic of the most elaborate philological research on speculative philosophy and soteriology. It seems that the very definition of tantra has thereby shifted from impure substances, shocking rituals and magical claims to power to philosophical or soteriological speculations in esoteric, classical Sanskrit texts.

From an anthropological perspective however, tantra appears not as something from the past but rather as a range of living traditions in different parts of Asia. Today, many if not most South Asian “Tantriks” are basically practitioners of black magic although they make use of manuscripts. On the other hand, esoteric practitioners on the Indonesian island of Bali combine both black magic and self-liberation, based on an Old Javanese esoteric text tradition which is apparently "tantric". Given this complexity, it seems timely to reconsider tantra as a living transcultural text-tradition with different local interpretations, and to examine in particular the dynamically changing relationships between esoteric texts, script, materials, magical practices, and soteriological body techniques.

This workshop aims to bring scholars with different academic training and expertise into interdisciplinary dialogue. Philologists, historians, and anthropologists specializing in tantra in South, Central and Southeast Asia are invited to engage in an interdisciplinary exchange regarding tantric text practices to cast new light not only on the transcultural history of tantric traditions, but also on the respective reasons for its lasting relevance in different Asian societies.

The conference is organized by the CRC 933 subproject C07 “Sacred and Holy Scripture. On the Materiality and Function of Competing Systems of Writing during the Formation of the Religious Field in Bali”.
 

CONTACT
CRC 933 „Material TextCultures”
Annette Hornbacher
hornbacher@uni-heidelberg.de