Table of Contents
List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction: Rethinking Tantra through EthnographyCarola E. Lorea and Rohit SinghPart I: On Materiality and Mediation: Lived Practices of Texts, Objects, and Media1. An Ethnography of Tantra in the Western Himalayas: The Material Substance of Practical Rituals William S. Sax2. Observing Participation, Transgressing Hermeneutics: Bali’s Tantric Script Practices and the Limits of Participant Observation Annette Hornbacher3. The Conch as a Tantric Artifact: Metaphysics of a Number and the Twirled Lives of Text and Practice Sukanya Sarbadhikary4. WhatsApp Bagalāmukhī! Social Life and Experiences of a Tantric Goddess Sravana Borkataky-VarmaPart II: Embodiment, Identity, and Experience: Conversations with Tantric Livelihoods5. Folk Tantra and Healing: An Ethnography of Traditional Healers in the Darjeeling Hills and Sikkim Jarrod Hyam6. Songs for Siddhi: An Ethnographic Analysis of Bāul Fakiri Sādhanā Keith Edward Cantú7. Serving the Divine Element in Humans: Everyday (Tantric) Vaiṣṇavism and What Begging Means to Bāuls Kristin HanssenPart III: Institutions and Individuals in the Making of Tantric Traditions: To Be or Become Tantric8. The Cremation Ground, the Battlefield, and the Path of Compassion; or, What Makes the Fabric of an Individual’s Tantric Encounter? Nike-Ann Schröder9. The Spectrum of Eclecticism and Conservatism within Kerala’s Tantric Traditions: A Case Study of Meppaṭ Sampradāya Maciej Karasinski10. Tantric Lives in Bengal and Bali: Toward a Comparative Ethnography June McDanielAfterword Geoffrey SamuelList of Contributors Index