The Yogini's Eye: Comprehensive Introduction to Buddhist Tantra, Volume I: Systemization and Interpretation introduces a new translation series, Classics of the Early Sakya, which will focus on the extensive literature of the Sakya Lamdre lineage of the Hevajra Tantra cycle of revelation. This first volume of introduction is the earliest book of its type and comprehensive treatment of the subject matter to have been written, and initiated the scholarly study of Tibetan Buddhist Tantra. Subsequent studies in all lineages were built on the foundation established by this book. The Yogini's Eye has served as the introductory textbook for the study of Sakya Tantra continuously for over 800 years. Over the centuries, the textbook has been supplemented by a total of fifteen commentaries and study guides written by the most learned scholars of the Sakya tradition, including Lama Dampa Sonam Gyaltsen (1312 1375), Yeshe Gyaltsen (1300's 1406), Ngorchen Kunga Zangpo (1382 1450), Lowo Khenchen Sonam Lhundrup (1456 1532), Ngorchen Konchok Lhundrup (1497 1547), Amezhap Ngawang Kunga Sonam (1597 1659), and Dezhung Chopel Jamyang Kunga Namgyal (1880's mid-1950's). This first English edition contains the translation of thirteen of these study guides, excluding all repetitive sections, inserted into the original book in the appropriate context.

Interpreting Southeast Asia's Past: Monument, Image and Text features 31 papers read at the 10th International Conference of the European Association of Southeast Asian Archaeologists, held in London in September 2004. The volume covers monumental arts, sculpture and painting, epigraphy and heritage management across mainland Southeast Asia and as far south as Indonesia. New research on monumental arts includes chapters on the Bayon of Angkor and the great brick temple sites of Champa. There is an article discussing the purpose of making and erecting sacred sculptures in the ancient world and accounts of research on the sacred art of Burma, Thailand and southern China (including the first study of the few surviving Saiva images in Burma), of a spectacular find of bronze Mahayana Buddhas, and of the sculpted bronzes of the Dian culture. New research on craft goods and crafting techniques deals with ancient Khmer materials, including recently discovered ceramic kiln sites, the sandstone sources of major Khmer sculptures, and the rare remaining traces of paint, plaster and stucco on stone and brick buildings. More widely distributed goods also receive attention, including Southeast Asian glass beads, and there are contributions on Southeast Asian heritage and conservation, including research on Angkor as a living World Heritage site and discussion of a UNESCO project on the stone jars of the Plain of Jars in Laos that combines recording, safeguarding, bomb clearance, and eco-tourism development.

For those who wonder what relation actual Tantric practices bear to the "Tantric sex" currently being marketed so successfully in the West, David Gordon White has a simple answer: there is none. Sweeping away centuries of misunderstandings and misrepresentations, White returns to original texts, images, and ritual practices to reconstruct the history of South Asian Tantra from the medieval period to the present day. Kiss of the Yogini focuses on what White identifies as the sole truly distinctive feature of South Asian Tantra: sexualized ritual practices, especially as expressed in the medieval Kaula rites. Such practices centered on the exchange of powerful, transformative sexual fluids between male practitioners and wild female bird and animal spirits known as Yoginis. It was only by "drinking" the sexual fluids of the Yoginis that men could enter the family of the supreme godhead and thereby obtain supernatural powers and transform themselves into gods. By focusing on sexual rituals, White resituates South Asian Tantra, in its precolonial form, at the center of religious, social, and political life, arguing that Tantra was the mainstream, and that in many ways it continues to influence contemporary Hinduism, even if reformist misunderstandings relegate it to a marginal position. Kiss of the Yogini contains White's own translations from over a dozen Tantras that have never before been translated into any European language. It will prove to be the definitive work for persons seeking to understand Tantra and the crucial role it has played in South Asian history, society, culture, and religion.

In different stages in the history of South Asian religions, the term yoginī has been used in various contexts to designate various things: a female adept of yoga, a female tantric practitioner, a sorceress, a woman dedicated to a deity, or a certain category of female deities. This book brings together recent interdisciplinary perspectives on the medieval South Asian cults of the Yoginis, such as textual-philological, historical, art historical, indological, anthropological, ritual and terminological. The book discusses the medieval yoginī cult, as illustrated in early Śaiva tantric texts, and their representations in South Asian temple iconography. It looks at the roles and hypostases of yoginīs in contemporary religious traditions, as well as the transformations of yoginī-related ritual practices. In addition, this book systematizes the multiple meanings, and proposes definitions of the concept and models for integrating the semantic fields of ‘yoginī.’ Highlighting the importance of research from complementary disciplines for the exploration of complex themes in South Asian studies, this book is of interest to scholars of South Asian Studies and Religious Studies.

Though many practitioners of yoga and meditation are familiar with the Shri Chakra, a sacred diagram, few fully understand the depth of meaning in this representation of the cosmos. The Yoginihrdaya, a Hindu tantric text dating back to the tenth or eleventh century CE, discloses to initiates the secret of the Heart of the Yogini, or the supreme Reality: the divine plane where the Goddess (Tripurasundari, or Consciousness itself) manifests her power and glory, through her yantra, mantra, and worship. André Padoux, with Roger Orphe-Jeanty, offers the first English translation of this seminal text. Padoux demonstrates that the Yoginihrdaya is not a philosophical treatise aimed at expounding particular metaphysical tenets. Rather it aims to show a way towards liberation, or, more precisely, to a tantric form of liberation in this life-jivanmukti, which grants both liberation from the fetters of the world and domination over it.

This is the second volume of the annotated translation of Tsong Khapa’s Illumination of the Hidden Meaning (sbas don kun gsal), a magnificent commentary on the Cakrasamvara Tantra. This is the first English translation of this important work, which marked a milestone in the Tibetan understanding and practice of the Indian Buddhist tantras. It covers the vows, observances, and conduct of the initiated yogi, particularly in relation to the yoginis, whose favor he must cultivate. It describes in great detail the rites of the tradition, including homa fire sacrifice and the uses of the mantras of the mandala’s main deities. The author provides a trilingual English-Tibetan-Sanskrit glossary. Together with the present author’s related publications in this series—including a translation of the Cakrasamvara root tantra (2007) and critical editions of its Sanskrit and Tibetan texts (2012), and the first volume of this master Tibetan commentary (2017)—the reader will have the first full study of this important tantra available in English.

• Shares vivid, experiential descriptions of the author’s sessions with master Lalita Devi wherein she imparted the essential principles of the Mahamudra to him physically, verbally, and energetically • Presents new translations of the most significant sacred books, including the Shiva Sutras, the Pratybhijna Hrdayam Sutra, and the Spandakarika, each presented in language that preserves their spontaneous mystic flow • Pairs the author’s intellectual study of the sacred texts with direct transmissions from his teacher, with each perspective shedding light on the other In 1975, in an isolated Himalayan forest, Daniel Odier met Lalita Devi, a tantric yogini who took him on a mystical journey beyond the limits of sexual experience to transcend the ego, recognize the true self, and rediscover the Divine nature of absolute love. Now, Odier shares the secret teachings and self-realization practices of the Kashmiri Mahamudra (meditation on the mind itself) and the Pratyabhijna (the School of Sudden Recognition). The author offers vivid descriptions of his sessions with Lalita Devi wherein she imparted the essential principles of the Mahamudra and the yoga of emotions to him physically, verbally, and energetically. Lalita Devi knew the principal texts of Kashmiri Shaivism by heart. New translations of the most significant sacred books, including the Shiva Sutras, the Pratyabhijnahrdayam, and the Spandakarika, are provided by Odier along with chants and poems from the yogini tradition. Presented in language that preserves their spontaneous mystic flow and restores their original ancient female origins, Crazy Wisdom of the Yogini offers a profound inside look at authentic tantric teachings.

Focusing on complex entanglements of religion and gender from a diversity of perspectives, this book explores how women enact agencies in transcultural Hindu and Buddhist settings. The chapters draw on original, in-depth empirical research in various contexts in South Asian religious traditions. Today, in an increasing number of such contexts, women are able to undergo monastic and priestly education, receive ordination/initiation as nuns and priestesses, and are accepted as ascetic religious leaders. They are starting to establish new religious communities within conservative traditions, occupying religious leadership positions on par with men. This volume considers the historical background, contemporary trajectories, and potential impact of the emergence of these new and powerful female agencies in conservative South Asian religious traditions. It will be of particular interest to scholars of religion, women’s and gender studies, and South Asian studies.

A richly illustrated tapestry of interwoven studies spanning some six thousand years of history, Dæmons Are Forever is at once a record of archaic contacts and transactions between humans and protean spirit beings—dæmons—and an account of exchanges, among human populations, of the science of spirit beings: dæmonology. Since the time of the Indo-European migrations, and especially following the opening of the Silk Road, a common dæmonological vernacular has been shared among populations ranging from East and South Asia to Northern Europe. In this virtuoso work of historical sleuthing, David Gordon White recovers the trajectories of both the “inner demons” cohabiting the bodies of their human hosts and the “outer dæmons” that those same humans recognized each time they encountered them in their enchanted haunts: sylvan pools, sites of geothermal eruptions, and dark forest groves. Along the way, he invites his readers to reconsider the potential and promise of the historical method in religious studies, suggesting that a “connected histories” approach to Eurasian dæmonology may serve as a model for restoring history to its proper place at the heart of the discipline of the history of religions.