Global TantraPub Date : 2022-02-17DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197627112.003.0010
J. Strube
{"title":"Conclusion","authors":"J. Strube","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780197627112.003.0010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197627112.003.0010","url":null,"abstract":"The conclusion revisits central aspects and discusses them from a theoretical and methodological angle. It surveys the global connections that have shaped the exchanges explored in this study, demonstrating the benefits of eliding both historical contexts that have previously been viewed in isolation and scholarly approaches to them. While it has become evident that the scrutinized understandings of Tantra were not the outcome of unilateral “Western” appropriation but were decisively shaped by Indian agency, the conclusion cautions against common pitfalls of the perspective of global entanglement. It also highlights avenues for future research, including subaltern actors and Hindu-Muslim relationships. While the language of “esotericism” was omnipresent in orientalist scholarship since the eighteenth century and is still in use today, the identification of Tantra with esotericism was not simply an orientalist projection but the outcome of complex developments that have been analyzed through the lens of translingual practice and its consistent contextualization.","PeriodicalId":274200,"journal":{"name":"Global Tantra","volume":"86 11 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126281117","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Global TantraPub Date : 2022-02-17DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197627112.003.0002
J. Strube
{"title":"The Bengali Intervention","authors":"J. Strube","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780197627112.003.0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197627112.003.0002","url":null,"abstract":"Chapter 1 departs from the global exchanges that manifest in the Theosophist debate, circling closer and closer to the regional and local contexts connected to it, before finally contextualizing the emergence of Arthur Avalon against that background. The “Bengali intervention” will allow for introducing three of the main strands that meet in the nodal point of the Theosophist exchange: the emergence of the Theosophical Society and its relocation to India, the regional background of Bengali Tantra, and an outlook on the Avalon project and its implication for Indological and South Asianist scholarship until today.","PeriodicalId":274200,"journal":{"name":"Global Tantra","volume":"61 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116479906","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Global TantraPub Date : 2022-02-17DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197627112.003.0005
J. Strube
{"title":"Reformism and Spiritualist Perspectives on Tantra","authors":"J. Strube","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780197627112.003.0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197627112.003.0005","url":null,"abstract":"The Theosophists and their interlocutors were driven by a wish to “revive” the Aryan wisdom that should form the basis of a new age. Yet they also promoted decidedly “reformist” ideas that highlight the necessity to explore the meanings of reform and revival. In this chapter, the emergence of Spiritualism in Bengal helps to flesh out the role of Tantra in social reformist programs that were characteristic of Bengali Spiritualists, as elsewhere across the globe. The chapter discusses prominent figures such as Pyarichand Mitra and Shishirkumar Ghosh, who extensively and creatively engaged with Theosophy, Spiritualism, New Thought, and Transcendentalism. This serves to demonstrate that Theosophy was indeed a main factor in these exchanges, but that Bengali intellectuals maintained global correspondences beyond Theosophy and engaged with the ideas independently and actively.","PeriodicalId":274200,"journal":{"name":"Global Tantra","volume":"14 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122907316","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Global TantraPub Date : 2022-02-17DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197627112.003.0009
J. Strube
{"title":"Arthur Avalon and Tantrik Occultism","authors":"J. Strube","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780197627112.003.0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197627112.003.0009","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter surveys how the aspects discussed in the previous chapters resurfaced in the writings of Avalon and Woodroffe. The latter’s relationship to Shivachandra and the broader personal network behind Avalon is inspected in detail, also regarding the role of Theosophy and the colonial elite in Calcutta. On that basis, the chapter analyzes the Avalon and Woodroffe writings by first foregrounding the relationship between religion and science and how the notions of occultism and esotericism were employed to transgress what was perceived as the destructive division between them. Second, Woodroffe’s adamant advocacy of national education and an awakening of India’s shakti directly mirrored the ideas of his Bengali associates. Third, these notions were closely linked to universalist approaches to religion, as they presumed the existence of the same esoteric doctrine at the core of every great tradition—a perception that was also linked to Catholicism.","PeriodicalId":274200,"journal":{"name":"Global Tantra","volume":"16 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115139932","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Global TantraPub Date : 2022-02-17DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197627112.003.0006
J. Strube
{"title":"Revivalism and Theosophy","authors":"J. Strube","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780197627112.003.0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197627112.003.0006","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter demonstrates that demarcations between reformism and revivalism are anything but clear, and indeed often are more misleading than helpful. The focus rests on the ambiguous role of Theosophy within “Hindu revivalism,” as contemporaries perceived the Society as part of the “revivalist” camp, while it clearly harbored “typically reformist” ideas. The chapter opens a diachronic perspective on this ambiguity by discussing the Mahānirvāṇa Tantra and its reception since the eighteenth century. This provides insights into why Tantra played such a prominent role in the debates about revival and reform: it was central to the debates about sanātana dharma and related struggles about Hindu identity. So-called orthodox efforts were usually decisively marked by reformist agendas, while reformists often shared the same notions of sanātana dharma and a revival of Aryan civilization. These debates, which had developed since the early colonial period, conditioned the activities of the Theosophical Society.","PeriodicalId":274200,"journal":{"name":"Global Tantra","volume":"107 1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121032531","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Global TantraPub Date : 2022-02-17DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197627112.003.0007
J. Strube
{"title":"Shivachandra Vidyarnava","authors":"J. Strube","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780197627112.003.0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197627112.003.0007","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter zooms in on the local Bengali context and explores the thought and activities of Shivachandra, which were shaped by the intellectual atmosphere of his hometown, Kumarkhali, and the famous Baul circle around Kangal Harinath. Taken out of school by his father because of the supposedly negative influence of English education, Shivachandra was educated at Navadvip, Benares, and Calcutta. His rejection of English education and defense of what he regarded as orthodoxy led him to the foundation of the Sarvamaṅgalā Sabhā. The society proclaimed opposition Western material science (jaṛabijñān), promotion of the “eternal Vedic dharma” (sanātan vaidik dharma), and a struggle against “the propaganda of Western materialist capitalists” (pāścātyer dhanatāntrikˡdiger annadāsˡkuler apapracār). Shivachandra’s Tantratattva was essential to these efforts and is hence examined particularly regarding his understanding of Tantra as sanātana dharma, as well as to the conceptualization of sādhana in relation to science.","PeriodicalId":274200,"journal":{"name":"Global Tantra","volume":"47 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116387280","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Global TantraPub Date : 2022-02-17DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197627112.003.0004
J. Strube
{"title":"The Contested Science of Yoga","authors":"J. Strube","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780197627112.003.0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197627112.003.0004","url":null,"abstract":"Perceptions of yoga as an occult science prepared the setting for the “Bengali intervention” in the 1880s. The Theosophical conceptualization of yoga was significantly shaped by Indian viewpoints, which claimed the superiority of Indian occult science over Western mesmerism. Crucially, the Theosophists’ conceptualization of yoga was not fixed but subject to controversies among learned Indians. It is in that context that the Bengali intervention introduced Tantric elements into Theosophical understandings of yoga, challenging the viewpoints of both Western orientalists and Indians such as Dayananda. The resulting controversies allow for instructive insights into the ambiguous power dynamics between Western Theosophists and their Indian partners, as well as into the problems of translating and comparing notions such as occultism, occult sciences, and yoga.","PeriodicalId":274200,"journal":{"name":"Global Tantra","volume":"48 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117036153","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Global TantraPub Date : 2022-02-17DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197627112.003.0003
J. Strube
{"title":"Theosophy in Bengal","authors":"J. Strube","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780197627112.003.0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197627112.003.0003","url":null,"abstract":"Chapter 2 details the entrance of Theosophy into the Indian intellectual landscape. Core ideas of Theosophists and Bengali reformers were shaped by a shared global background, which structured this exchange. This background was marked by social reformism and the notion of “Aryan” in relation to the search for the origin of religion. Focusing on diverse engagements between Theosophy and members of the Ārya and Brāhma Samaj, the chapter provides examples of disagreement and skepticism but also of the widespread opinion that Theosophists differed from other Westerners because of their self-proclaimed willingness to learn from Indians about “Aryan wisdom.”","PeriodicalId":274200,"journal":{"name":"Global Tantra","volume":"112 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124135037","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Global TantraPub Date : 2022-02-17DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197627112.003.0008
J. Strube
{"title":"Tantra and Nationalism","authors":"J. Strube","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780197627112.003.0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197627112.003.0008","url":null,"abstract":"Nationalist tendencies featured prominently in earlier chapters. Hence, this chapter explores the activities of Shivachandra and his associates in the context of the anticolonial Swadeshi movement and the relationship between science, education, and nationalism more generally. It also turns to the writings of Shashadhar, and his concept of a “spiritual science” (adhyātmabijñān) in particular, in order to demonstrate that Bengali debates about the relationship between religion and science paralleled, and were inherently intertwined with, debates that could also be observed in the Theosophical context as well as in the writings of Avalon. Another direct link to Avalon is explored through one of Woodroffe’s closest partners and another disciple of Shivachandra: Pramathanath Mukhopadhyay, the later Swami Pratyagatmananda Saraswati. Special attention is paid to his concept of “national education” and the role of Tantra for the regeneration and eventual emancipation of India.","PeriodicalId":274200,"journal":{"name":"Global Tantra","volume":"87 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126317969","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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