Tantric Futures I: Inter-Asian Connections

Panel Convenor(s)

• CL

  Carola Lorea

  Tuebingen University, Germany
• RS

  Rohit Singh

  Denison University, United States

Panel Chair(s)

• CL

  Carola Lorea

  Tuebingen University, Germany

Presenter(s)

• RS

  Rohit Singh

  Denison University, United States
• BB

  Bénédicte Brac de la Perrière

  National Centre for Scientific Research, France
• AD

  Ankana Das

  Indian Institute of Technology, India

As Tantra has been overwhelmingly studied by historians of religion that place its ancient glory in the first millennium, what kinds of futures do we envisage for living Tantric traditions? 

Ethnography – whether immersive, sensory, embodied, digital, dialogical, participative, or experimental – has the potential to reinvigorate Tantric studies through its engagement with everyday lives and situated encounters (see Lorea & Singh 2023), thus recentering contemporary traditions within diverse cultural contexts, while also countering stereotypical portraits of Tantra as an exotic remnant of the past.

Informed by ethnographic fieldwork with humans, nonhumans and the materiality of living traditions, this series of panels will encourage comparative analysis, interdisciplinary collaborations, and cross-pollination among scholars of India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Philippines, Java, Bali, the Himalayan region, and New Spiritualities in Europe. The papers are interested in the complexities of Tantric communities in relation to gender, body, and nature. The panels draw attention to circulation and exchanges of knowledge across and beyond geopolitical Asia in the domains of ritual, meditation, healing, and bodily technologies. The common thread underlying this panel series is its methodological focus on ethnographically grounded research pertaining to Tantra and tantricking (Lorea & Singh 2023).

Research on Tantra has often been compartmentalized in specialized fields (Indology, Sinology, Tibetology, etc.)  focusing on a single religious compartment (Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, NRM and New Spiritualities, etc.) and working within a particular discipline. As a result of this we rarely see meaningful cross-cultural and interdisciplinary dialogues concerning Tantric communities in their diversity. This series of panels aims to blur conventional boundaries by bringing together a new network of scholars (/practitioners) of living Tantric traditions.

Presentations:

• 09:00 – 10:45 (GMT+7)

  Achieving Peace through Timely Violence: Tantric Rituals during Ladakh's Royal New Year
  

  Presenter: Rohit Singh – Denison University
• 09:00 – 10:45 (GMT+7)

  Encountering weikza through a biographical account of a Burmese medaw
  

  Presenter: Bénédicte Brac de la Perrière – National Centre for Scientific Research
• 09:00 – 10:45 (GMT+7)

  The Syncretic Excess in the practice of Bauleyys in Sundarban
  

  Presenter: Ankana Das – Indian Institute of Technology