This panel explores Tantric objects and Tantric subjects in varieties of Tantric religious milieux across South Asia, representing novel approaches to materiality in Tantric traditions. Our five panelists bring diverse methodological, philosophical, textual, and theoretical approaches, exploring the development of early esoteric Buddhism via ancient rock-cut caves in the Deccan, ritual objects in Kālīkrama ritual, temple bells in Digambara Jain temples, feminine bodies in Kaula ritual, and a philosophical framework for Tantric ritual objects and subjects using the philosophy of fourteenth century South Indian Tantric luminary, Maheśvarānanda. Together, our panelists ask novel questions, share emerging evidence, and develop useful tools for understanding and theorizing Tantric objects and subjects across their diverse material, historical, philosophical, textual, social, soteriological, and ritual contexts.
Despite wide-ranging scholarship over the last three decades, the development of tantric Buddhism out of fully-developed Mahāyāna contexts in ancient India remains unclear. The very use of the terms “tantric” vs. “esoteric” Buddhism, particularly in reference to this nascent period, also continues to create controversy. It is therefore critical to ask: what characterizes an object as “tantric" in Mahāyāna visual culture? And further, what role should texts play in interpreting “tantric” subjects in visual material? This paper presents a multi-site visual milieu—sculptural programs within the western Deccan rock-cut cave monasteries of Nāsik and Kānherī—as evidence of the emergence of early esotericism in the late fifth to sixth centuries CE. A comparison of tantric ritual manuals of the kriyā and caryā classes to earlier in situ imagery reveals a three-dimensional mandala depicting early mantra families (kulas) together with the reverence of female deities who embodied mantras in on-the-ground practice.
This proposal seeks to explore the key Tantric objects used in the Kālikākrama, a powerful and esoteric Tantric tradition within Śākta practices centered on the worship of the goddess Kali. Known for embodying destruction, transformation, and liberation, Kali is the focal point of transformative rituals that connect practitioners to her energy. The study will focus on the symbolic meanings, functional roles, and deeper spiritual connections of these sacred objects used in Kālikākrama rituals. By analyzing these tools, the research aims to highlight how they facilitate communion with the divine feminine and guide practitioners towards spiritual liberation.
What is the point of ringing a bell at the entrance to a temple? Jains have a unique answer to this question: ringing a bell protects the temple through the sounding of mantras. In many Jain temples, yantras, or tantric diagrams, are inscribed on these bells to send apotropaic messages into the world with each ring. This paper examines this unstudied ritual use of yantras by looking at the history of the Jain deity Ghaṇṭākarṇa Mahāvīra, whose nineteenth-century Śvetāmbara shrine in Mahudi, Gujarat, is one of the most popular temples in India, especially around Diwali. Examining rituals to Ghaṇṭākarṇa in early modern Sanskrit texts and yantras on the bells at the entrances to a few Digambara temples in north India reveals the forgotten history of Ghaṇṭākarṇa. Ghaṇṭākarṇa rose to prominence in Jainism not as a Śvetāmbara boon-giving deity, but as the focus of yantras inscribed on Digambara temple bells.
Objects of worship in Tantric ritual vary, such as iconic or aniconic murtis, or yantras, but they can also be living human bodies. Such bodies most often belong to cisgender woman and girls. While the Tantric body is typically theorized as a philosophical construction beyond gender, this paper argues for an expansion of the concept of Tantric bodies to include the feminine ritual participant who is the object or tool of ritual worship. This paper explores these Tantric objects as Tantric subjects—Tantric bodies that are explicitly gendered, and possess material agency, the power of material objects to enact effects on the world around them. Drawing on numerous Kaula texts from a wide range of periods, traditions, and locations, this paper argues for a new lens for understanding gender, power, and agency in Tantric ritual that also informs our understanding of feminine power dynamics in the broader scope of Hinduism.
Tantric rituals are foundational for understanding Tantric philosophy. Anything we can establish from complex philosophical texts we can also derive from manuals outlining Tantric rituals. Rather than only reading philosophical texts, I begin with ritual practices in Tantras, where the notion of ritual objects crosses the boundary between the sacred and profane, and at the same time, also confronts the polar divide between subject and object, engaging in philosophical reflections on the basis of ritual practices that buttress the same claims. I first focus on ritual objects that are common to any Hindu ritual, revealing the additional Tantric meaning. Then, I highlight objects that are taboo in the common Hindu ritual world. I address the ritual objects that are also subjects, sentient beings, and return the gaze to pure objects that are given subjectivity. Finally, I address objectified subjectivity and the elimination of bipolarity in the conversation on Tantric rituals.