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This chapter explores the disputed issues in the first controversy, which are: (1) using Chan principle as standard to test students' enlightenment experience, (2) the perfect circle as the origins of five Chan schools, and (3) proper understanding of encounter dialogues.The chapter explores the practice of dharma transmission, esoteric ritual, and encounter dialogue in 17th‐century Chan Buddhism.

This is a study of the Hindu Śākta poet Rāmprasād Sen (ca. 1718–1775), who has long been recognized as the premier Bengali Śākta poet, although very little is actually known about him. The approach adopted is to combine what historical material there is with looking at his poetry and various biographical legends. The largest section of the chapter looks at the available manuscripts on Rāmprasād, and includes quotations from his poetry and various historical illustrations; this is followed by a brief look at Rāmprasād's temple in Halishar. The next part of the chapter tries to create a composite portrait of Rāmprasād by examining the nature of his relationship with the Nadia rajas, the degree to which he should be treated as a Tāntrika, and his place within the Śākta tradition; these topics provide clear examples of the way in which Rāmprasād has been used and interpreted by his descendants and admirers. The last part of the chapter draws inferences on the “real” Rāmprasād.

An assessment is made of Kamalākānta Bhaṭṭācārya's poetic contributions to the Bengali Hindu Śākta literature in the light of the textual precedents examined in Ch. 5. The first part of the chapter looks briefly at the texts, editions, and musical notations. The remainder is devoted to the Kālī‐centered poetry, examining in turn the Śākta padas, and a Tantric meditation manual, Sādhak Rañjan (which is treated more briefly). Many quotations are included. A short conclusion assesses Kamalākānta's role in evolving trends in the goddesses Kālī and Umā.

The phenomena of secrecy and esotericism remain among the most persistent and pervasive, yet poorly studied and misunderstood aspects of the history of religions. The field of South Asian studies is no exception to this trend, although it has generated a growing interest in the role of secrecy in Indian traditions, and specifically in the texts and rituals of Tantrism. However, Tantric studies have hardly made any inquiry into the real historical and social contexts in which Tantra is practised, have not looked at any of the broader comparative issues involved in the study of esoteric traditions, and have yielded little critical reflection on the historical construction of the category of Tantrism. This book aims to address these issues through the study of one specific esoteric and secret sect: that of the Kartābhajās or “Worshippers of the Master,” which spread throughout Calcutta (Bengal, India) in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and still has some living and practising representatives. The first half of this introduction provides a general background on the Kartābhajās and their importance for the scholarly imagining of Tantrism, and the study of esoteric traditions as a whole; the second half engages the larger theoretical snarls inevitably involved in the study of something that is supposed to be secret.

Like the economic field of the late eighteenth century, the religious world of early colonial Bengal was also a vast “bazaar,” a marketplace of spiritual goods, both genuine and fake, in which traders from all lands haggled and bartered; amidst this teeming market, with its host of Hindu, Muslim, Christian, and other competing factions, the Kartābhajā sect would emerge as perhaps the most successful of the various minor sects that spread among the lower classes. It is argued in this chapter that not only did the Kartābhajās emerge at a key locus and critical historical moment but they also represented a profound transformation within the older Sahajiyā tradition, which was especially well suited to this changing social context, and which offered a highly marketable set of spiritual commodities. The primary appeal of the Kartābhajās, and the main reason for their striking growth and success, lay in their remarkable capacity for synthesis; their tradition represents a rich bricolage (a method of borrowing elements from a variety of different “exoteric” traditions, while weaving them into a new esoteric synthesis that transcends them) of diverse elements, operating on at least three levels, which are examined in each of the three sections of this chapter. First, on the religious level, the Kartābhajās skilfully combine elements of esoteric Sahajiyā Tantric teachings, more orthodox Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava theology, a strong element of Sufism, and even a degree of Christian influence; second, on the social level, the Kartābhajās bring together members of all classes and social factions, rejecting caste distinctions and proclaiming the divinity of all human beings; and third, on the gender level, the Kartābhajās offered a new social space in which men and women could mix freely, even providing new opportunities for women in roles of spiritual authority. The result is a rather ingenious religious fusion – or “subversive bricolage,” which skilfully adapts and reconfigures elements from a wide range of sources – a kind of poaching or pilfering by poor lower‐class consumers in a dominated religious market that demanded the subtle use of secrecy, both, as a tactic of appropriation, and as a key social strategy or way of life.

This chapter and the following two delve into the most esoteric and hidden dimensions of the Bengali Kartābhajā sect, as they explore the use of secret discourse and bodily practice. This is perhaps nowhere more apparent than in the cryptic songs of the Kartābhajās and their own unique form of the Tantric sandhābhāṣā(intentional language with elaborate use of imagery, metaphors, and riddles), which they called the “Language of the Mint.” This is examined not so much in terms of its professed hidden content (the usual approach), but rather in terms of form and strategies. After briefly outlining the form and content of the Mint Sayings, the chapter delves into the hermeneutic problems involved in trying to make sense of these cryptic utterances, and offers the author's own reading, based on a modified version of Bourdieu's model of symbolic capital. Finally, it looks at the problem of secrecy as played out in contemporary field research from conversations with Kartābhajā gurus.

This chapter engages the more problematic side of Kartābhajā secrecy as a source of scandal and embarrassment – above all, with regard to Tantric sexual practices, and the corresponding “meta‐strategies” of self‐censorship, concealment, deodorization, and disguise, which esoteric traditions must often employ in order to protect themselves. After a brief summary of the history of the debate surrounding parakīyā love (intercourse with another man's wife) in the Tantric Vaiṣṇava and Sahajiyā traditions, an examination is made of the rise of the Bengali Kartābhajā sect within the context of colonial Bengal, and of their highly enigmatic songs describing the “stinking fruit” of parakīyā love. The chapter concludes by suggesting that this basic ambivalence at the heart of the Kartābhajā tradition opens up a number of larger questions for the study of Tantra in Bengal. First, it demonstrates the ways in which Tantric traditions are deeply rooted in real social, political, and cultural conditions and the ways in which these traditions change historically, creatively adapting in the face of changing circumstances; second, it raises the critical question of censorship – the central ambivalence surrounding Tantra and the constant attempts to mask, suppress, or eradicate any elements smacking of scandal or immorality; and last, and perhaps most important, the Kartābhajās also raise the question of the very definition of Tantra itself – i.e.,, how certain groups come to be identified (or attacked) as “Tantric,” and how the term Tantra has come to be constructed in the popular and scholarly imaginations.

This first chapter summarizes the main arguments of the author's companion volume, The Economics of Ecstasy:‐ Tantra, Secrecy, and Power in Colonial Bengal. In doing this it places the Songs of Ecstasy of the Kartābhajās, a Bengali sect devoted to Tantra in colonial Calcutta, in a historical and literary context. The different sections of the chapter look at the style and structure of the Bhāver Gīta (the main song text, which translates literally as Songs of Ecstasy), the mystical imagery and social ideals found within it, the ambivalent status of Tantra in colonial Bengal, and the decline into obscurity of the songs following a period of scandal, slander, corruption, and disrepute.

A series of select translations is presented from the Bhāver Gīta, the main song text of the Kartābhajās, a Bengali sect devoted to Tantra in colonial Calcutta, Bengal. The author has chosen the songs that he considers most significant and organized them under thematic headings: Company songs, Songs of the marketplace, Songs of mystical belief and esoteric practice, Songs of lust and love, and Other songs of faith and worship. Each set of songs is introduced by explanatory text.

The collection of “Mint Sayings” (Ṭyāṅkśālī) for which translations are presented in this chapter was compiled in 1902 by Manulāl Miśra, a Kartābhajā author who tried to systematize this ortherwise wildly eclectic and confusing esoteric tradition of the Kartābhajās (a Bengali sect devoted to Tantra in colonial Calcutta). The sayings are intentionally obscure, enigmatic, and in a deliberately confusing form, and are clearly designed to mislead and befuddle the uninitiated outsider. They have no written commentary of their own and are intended to be transmitted in the secret oral context of a master‐disciple relationship. The value of the sayings does not appear to lie in their meaning or content; indeed, they often appear quite intentionally meaningless and absurd, but rather in their form and the ways in which they are exchanged. Miśra explains that the sayings are called “mint” sayings precisely because this secret discourse operates much in the same way as a physical mint. Just as a mint transforms ordinary metals into legal currency, so too the Mint language transmutes ordinary words into highly valued commodities, which can be exchanged in the secret marketplace, which is the Kartābhajā sect itself.

In addition to the songs of the Bhāver Gīta (the main song text of the Kartābhajās, a Bengali sect devoted to Tantra in colonial Calcutta), there is also a large body of other Kartābhajā songs scattered over a wide range of sources. Most of these are quite different in form and structure from the songs of the Bhāver Gīta, and many are almost indistinguishable from more popular folk forms like the Bāul songs. These have been gathered together, and translations of them are presented in three groups under the titles: Popular songs of unknown origin; Songs from the works of Manulāl Miśra (the Kartābhajā theologian of the early twentieth century); and Songs of the “Wealthy Gentlemen” (Sāhebdhanī): Other Kartābhajās and related groups. The Sāhebdhanīs are most important of the related groups and are a closely related sister movement to the Kartābhajās; they spawned some of the most important folk songs of rural West Bengal. Each set of songs is introduced by explanatory text.

This last chapter presents a translation of a humorous satirical poem by the famous Bengali poet, Dāśarathī Rāy (1805–57). He was particularly well known as a master of the Pāñcālī form, which are basically songs interspersed with short hymns to various deities. He is also noteworthy for his rather raw and gritty—and very funny—depictions of the lives of the lower orders of Calcutta during the colonial era. Largely conservative in his religious views, Dāśarathī singled out the Kartābhajās (a Bengali sect devoted to Tantra in colonial Calcutta) as the very worst example of all that was wrong with the Hindu society of his day—their sexual licentiousness, idolatry, violation of caste, overturning of traditional laws of purity, chicanery, and fraud. Hence, he provides a window onto the perception of the Kartābhajās in the eyes of the upper class elites of the day.

This chapter emerges from conversations between the author and Aiya, the head priest/guru at an upstate New York temple, in what amounts to a comparison of liberation theologies set against the backdrop of religious orthodoxies. Informed by his largely nondualistic Tantric goddess tradition, Aiya shares with Christian feminist and Latin American liberation theologians a concern for those marginalized by traditional religious authority structures. He also shares with them a rejection of the earth- and body-negating theologies that sequester the sacred to exclusive or transcendent realms and that lay the foundation for social marginalization. While the varieties of discrimination practiced within Hindu and Christian contexts are far from identical, the strategies Aiya and liberation theologians prescribe to combat them, fueled by shared understandings of divine immanence, hold some compelling similarities. In the end, a conundrum faced by all parties is that of an earthly Utopia—a logical aim for idealistic earthbound theologies, the achievement of which is not only impossible but ultimately undesirable.

This chapter, a reprint of the chapter on Kālī in David Kinsley's book Hindu Goddesses: Visions of the Divine Feminine in the Hindu Religious Tradition, provides an introduction to Kālī's basic story for those who are unfamiliar with it. It surveys Kālī's Sanskrit and Bengali textual history, proposes likely reasons for her growing importance in Tantra during the medieval period and in devotionalism in late eighteenth-century Bengal, and concludes by explicating her theological significance as a symbol of unconventionality, death, and the possibility of spiritual awakening. Iconographic representations of Kālī and Śiva nearly always show Kālī as dominant. She is usually standing or dancing on Śiva's prone body, and when the two are depicted in sexual intercourse, she is shown above him. Kālī occupies a central position in Hindu piety and is of central importance in Tantrism, particularly left-handed Tantrism, and in Bengali Śākta devotionalism.

This chapter looks at the “revalorized” place of Tantra—and perhaps even Tantro-centrism—in the work of twentieth-century historians of religions, such as Mircea Eliade, Heinrich Zimmer, and Julius Evola. It shows that there were often many political—and in Evola' case, explicitly fascist—ramifications in their scholarly reconstructions of Tantrism. However, it also examines the role of Tantra in modern Indian scholarship, where it likewise has become a key part of various cultural and political discourses surrounding Indian national identity and even the rise of communism in regions like West Bengal. Zimmer, Evola, and Eliade have had a formative impact on the fields of Indology (in the case of Zimmer), esotericism and right-wing politics (Evola), and comparative religions (Eliade). And all three felt a strong attraction to Tantra, a tradition that they defined as the culmination of all Indian thought: the most radical form of spirituality and the archaic heart of aboriginal India. In what they described as this modern “age of darkness,” they felt an intense sense of dislocation and a longing for an idyllic traditional past.

This chapter provides an introduction to Tantra in hopes of elucidating its very nature, extent, and continuity in time. Tantra is a phenomenon born in India that has spread across almost the whole of Asia: central Asia (Tibet, Mongolia), Southeast Asia (Indochina, Indonesia—Bali down to our days), and even the Far East. It is not easy to explain the appearance and the gradual overall diffusion of practices and notions that, albeit diverse, have enough common traits to permit their being considered as forming a specific, recognizable, perhaps definable socioreligious phenomenon in the Indian religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, even Jainism) in India and in a large portion of Asia. The chapter first discusses the meaning of the term “Tantrism,” or “Tantra,” before explaining when and how the Tantric aspects of Hinduism were discovered and interpreted by Europeans, then how they were seen in ancient India.

Beginning by recognizing that the idea of female divinity in Hinduism has been a mystery from the inception of Hindu theology, this Introduction proceeds to an overview of the contents of this volume. Presenting the chapters, arranged thematically and historically into four related parts, this Introduction shows how Hindu philosophy and worship practices have expounded the idea of the divine feminine by conceptualizing it as a personified goddess at once singular and manifested in multiple forms. Drawing upon a variety of Hindu philosophical traditions, the authors relate the goddess as an abstraction to belief systems that render the goddess as humanized figures. In both formal theology and popular belief, this conception has resulted in an emotional and spiritual closeness to goddesses that continues deeply to influence Hindu social life and its cultural expressions, especially in its impact on the lives of women.