Project Details
Projekt
Tantric Text-Practices: a comparative ethnography of "tantra" in South and Southeast Asia
Subject Area
Social and Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology
Asian Studies
Asian Studies
Term
from 2018 to 2024
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 400664549
We propose to undertake a comparative ethnography of text practices in two living and historically related tantric traditions that have developed independently for centuries under very different conditions and at considerable geographical distance from each other: in the Western Himalayas of north India, and on the Indonesian island of Bali. Our proposed research complements current work on the links between tantric traditions in the Subcontinent and in the Indic kingdoms of Java, Bali and Cambodia. Although it is usually assumed that practices follow (or are prescribed by) texts, our preliminary research strongly suggests that these tantric text traditions should rather be seen as embedded in (and 'travelling with') specific practices (e.g. ritual, yoga, prognostication etc.). A comparative study focusing on practices instead of texts lends itself to our ethnographic methods, making the proposed research highly innovative, since ethnographies of tantra are almost non-existent. This at least partly because tantric traditions are esoteric, and it is notoriously difficult to conduct research on them. But the two applicants have established personal relations of trust with local practitioners over a period of many years, and it is these relations more than anything else that make our tandem project possible and promising. Our project complements tantric studies in three ways: 1) it extends it by addressing tantra as a transcultural phenomenon linking South and Southeast Asia in early as well as contemporary processes of globalization; 2) it enhances it by including tantric texts in languages (Western Pahari, Kawi and High Balinese) and scripts that have until now been peripheral to tantric studies; and 3) it enriches it through its ethnographic focus on the contemporary uses of these texts.
DFG Programme
Research Grants
