Ontological Transformations in Hindu Tantric Ritualisms of Kathmandu Valley

Abstract

Rituals of incorporation (utarnu) of numinous ontologies in Himalayan Tantric ritualisms represent an interesting field for developing a reflection on different phenomenologies of the body. From the physical body of the tantrika (Tantric practitioner), the formal remains of an individual atman-Self, I investigate the experiences that make it a receptacle for a numinous Other. This article is an attempt to identify some distinctive Tantric features in a ritual practice of incorporation (chema puja) among the Newar communities of the Kathmandu Valley. Such incorporations are supported by an essential narrative link which describes the figure of Siva-Mahadeva as the transmitter of knowledge of tantra-mantra, generating a direct esoteric filiation with the ritual practitioner. Through these incorporation processes, the tantrika achieves a perpetual alternation of two morphologically stable manifestations where the two natures, human and divine, merge into a single form, versus a fragmentation where the two distinct natures remain visible under two Gestalts. By proposing a neurocognitive anthropological approach, I will address the notions of Self and Alien in Hindu Tantric rituals of incorporation, where tantrikas' physical bodies become the encounter spaces where the Self merges and dissolves into the 'numinous' Other, in a bistable mode. In this way, I will be able to reconstruct the neural foundations of these endogenous experiences, mainly localized in the left temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) of the human brain, representing the fundamental core basis of these ritual practices of visualization and merging with a deity in Newar Tantrism and shamanism.