Global Tantra

Abstract

The global prominence of Tantra today owes much to the publications of “Arthur Avalon,” the name under which a team of learned South Asians and the British judge John Woodroffe wrote. In the early twentieth century, the Avalon publications were pivotal to the academic recognition of Tantra as an integral part of (South) Asian culture. The present monograph demonstrates that their project was the outcome of Bengali efforts going back to the second half of the nineteenth century. Engaging with orientalist scholars and representatives of Theosophy, occultism, and Spiritualism, the Bengali Tantrics transformed perceptions of Tantra and yoga, a project whose ramifications are still felt today. Combining perspectives from religious studies, global history, South Asian studies, and the study of esotericism, the book illuminates the exchanges behind these developments. Rather than assuming the diffusion of “Western” perceptions of Tantra and yoga, the book highlights the active role of Indians within global exchanges under colonialism. The book employs sources in Bengali and European languages to contextualize local struggles about “orthodox” versus “reform” Hinduism, anticolonial revolutionaries, and seekers of “Aryan wisdom” in global debates about the meaning of religion, science, esotericism, race, and national identity. It elides boundaries between historical contexts that have hitherto been viewed merely in isolation, tackling issues such as revivalism and reformism, as well as the emergence of comparative religion and religious studies in relation to esotericism—an integrative approach that suggests proposals to resolve scholarly and public controversies about (post)colonialism, cultural appropriation, and contested meanings of modernity.