Conclusion

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.