Hugh B. Urban - The Power of Tantra: Religion, Sexuality, and the Politics of South Asian Studies

Hugh B. Urban is Professor of Comparative Studies at Ohio State University. One of the leading Western scholars of Tantric religion, Professor Urban is the author of several books which include Magia Sexualis: Sex, Magic and Liberation in Modern Western Esotericism (2006), Tantra: Sex, Secrecy, Politics and Power in the Study of Religion (2003), and Songs of Ecstasy: Tantric and Devotional Songs from Bengal (2001).

The Power of Tantra is a major scholarly treatment of a much misconstrued esoteric tradition and a well-written and illustrated guide to a dimension of Hinduism that deserves the careful research Hugh B. Urban has given it. An impressive achievement.

Paul B. Courtright, Professor of Religion and Asian Studies, Emory University

Building on his extraordinary knowledge of the Sanskrit, Bangla, and Assamese sources, Hugh B. Urban flies straight into the heart of the raging controversy over the sex and violence of Tantra: Is this an Orientalist fantasy, or a Hindu nightmare, or a profound religious phenomenon? Drawing richly upon previously untapped texts and new fieldwork, Urban boldly and creatively takes the arguments about Tantra in an entirely new direction, revealing aspects of the worship of the goddess that have deep meaning for Hindus and great potential power even for the heirs of Orientalism.

Wendy Doniger, Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Religions, University of Chicago

Once again, Hugh B. Urban has given us a sophisticated, reflexive, mind-bending study of a specific set of Tantric traditions. In the process, we are taken down what he aptly calls a path of desire and power whose paradoxical energies center on the goddess, flow through the human body and its fluids, the social order, and the body politic (all at once), are unleashed through esoteric ritual practices, experienced as a source of supernatural powers, and put in the service of kingship, political rule, even ultra-modern forms of a new embodied spirituality. Writing against and beyond all the old EastWest dualisms, tired anti-intellectualisms, and easy idealizations, Urban has become one of our most able, artful, and careful guides.

Jeffrey J. Kripal, J. Newton Rayzor Professor of Religious Studies, Rice University

Series ISBN: 978 1 84885 244 0

See www.ibtauris.com/LMR for a full list of titles

1. Returning to Religion: Why a Secular Age is Haunted by Faith
Jonathan Benthall
978 1 84511 718 4

2. Knowing the Unknowable: Science and Religions on God and the Universe
John Bowker (ed.)
978 1 84511 757 3

3. Sufism Today: Heritage and Tradition in the Global Community
Catharina Raudvere and Leif Stenberg (eds)
978 1 84511 762 7

4. Apocalyptic Islam and Iranian Shiism
Abbas Amanat
978 1 84511 124 3

5. Global Pentecostatism: Encounters with Other Religious Traditions
David Westerlund (ed.)
978 1 84511 877 8

6. Dying for Faith: Religiously Motivated Violence in the Contemporary World
Madawi Al-Rasheed and Marat Shterin (eds)
978 1 84511 686 6

7. The Hindu Erotic: Exploring Hinduism and Sexuality
David Smith
978 1 84511 361 2

8. The Power of Tantra: Religion, Sexuality and the Politics of South Asian Studies
Hugh B. Urban
978 1 84511 873 0

9. Jewish Identities in Iran: Resistance and Conversion to Islam and the Eahai Faith
Mehrdad Amanat
978 1 84511 891 4

10. Islamic Reform and Conservatism: Al-Azhar and the Evolution of Modern Sunni Islam
Indira Falk Gesink
978 1 84511 936 2

11. Muslim Womens Rituals: Authority and Gender in the Islamic World
Catharina Raudvere and Margaret Rausch
978 1 84511 643 9

12. Lonesome: The Spiritual Meanings of American Solitude
Kevin Lewis
978 1 84885 075 0

13. A Short History of Atheism
Gavin Hyman
978 1 84885 136 8

Religion, Sexuality, and the Politics of South Asian Studies

H UGH B. U RBAN

Published in 2010 by I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd
6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU
175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010
www.ibtauris.com

Distributed in the United States and Canada Exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan
175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010

Copyright Hugh B. Urban, 2010

The right of Hugh B. Urban to be identified as the author
of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance
with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988.

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Library of Modern Religion, Vol. 8

ISBN: 978 1 84511 873 0 (HB)
ISBN: 978 1 84511 874 7 (PB)
eISBN: 978 0 85773 158 6

A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available

For Nancy

Kmkhy temple today

Possible Yogin, Kmkhy temple grounds, ca. twelfth century

Bala Bhairav, ruins behind the Bhairav temple, ca. twelfth century

Siddha with female consort or disciple, Assam State Museum, twelfth to fourteenth centuries

Contemporary popular poster of Kmkhy

Kmevar, Kmkhy temple

Cmu, Kmkhy temple ruins, ca. twelfth century

Female figure with severed head, Sixty-Four Yogin temple, Hirapur, Orissa

Menstruating figure, Kmkhy temple outer wall

kta Tantric guru, Kmkhy temple

Bhairava, Deopahar ruins, central Assam, tenth to eleventh centuries

Sacrificial post for goats, pigeons, and fish, Kmkhy temple

Sacrificial post for buffaloes, Kmkhy temple

Mahiamardin with severed head, Kalipahara, Guwahati, tenth to eleventh centuries

Buffalo skull, Ugratr temple, Guwahati

Severed buffalo head, Kmkhy temple

Mask worn by sacrificial victims, Jaintia Durg temple

kta priest ladling offerings into the fire, Trph, West Bengal

Couple in viparta-rati, Madana Kmadeva temple, Assam, tenth to twelfth centuries

Female kta, Kmkhy temple

Female aivite, Kmkhy temple

Cover image for Kmkhy Tantrasra

Shree Maa of Kmkhy

The White Sadhu and Shree Maa

Research for this book was conducted in Assam, Bengal, Orissa, Tripura, and Meghalaya between 2000 and 2008 based on generous funding from the Fulbright Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Academy of Religion. The many individuals and groups who deserve thanks here include: Maitreyee Bora, Paul Courtright, Patricia Dold, Wendy Doniger, Susan Huntington, Padma Kaimal, the Kmkhy Temple Trust Board, Jeffrey Kripal, Bruce Lincoln, Rob Linrothe, Rajiv Malhotra, Kimberly Masteller, Prem Saran, Shree Maa of Kmkhy, Swami Satyananda Saraswati, David Gordon White, and Alex Wright.

She is supreme, the primordial power whose nature is eternal, incomparable bliss, the source of all that moves or is motionless