The power of the impure: Transgression,violence and secrecy in Bengali Śākta tantra and modern western magic

Numen

Volumn 50, Issue 3, 2003, Pages 269-308

  Urban, Hugh B ^a  

^a OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 56349132133     PISSN: 00295973     EISSN: 15685276     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/156852703322192419     Document Type: Review

References (141)

1. Krsnananda Agamav agiśa, Br. hat-Tantrasara, ed. Śri Rasikamohana Cat.t. opadhyaya (Calcutta: Navabharata Publishers 1996), 697. This text will hereafter be referred to as BTS.
2. M. Foucault, "A Preface to Transgression," in Religion and Culture, ed. Jeremy R. Carrette, New York: Routledge, 62.
3. For a good overview of the role of transgression in religion, see Michael Taussig, "Transgression, "in Critical Terms for Religious Studies, ed. Mark C. Taylor, Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1998, 349-364.
4. Georges Bataille, The Accursed Share, New York: Zone 1988;
5. Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo London: Routledge 1966;
6. Roger Callois, L'Homme et le sacré, Paris: Gallimard 1950;
7. Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and his World, Bloomington: University of Indiana Press 1984;
8. Max Gluckman, "The License in Ritual," in his Custom and Con ict in Africa, Oxford: Blackwell 1960;
9. Peter Stallybrass and F.J. Gillen, The Politics and Poetics of Transgression, Ithaca: Cornell University Press 1986.
10. M. Monier-Williams, Hinduism, London: SPCK 1894, 122-123.
11. On contemporary Western appropriations of Tantra, see Urban, "The Cult of Ecstasy: Tantrism, the New Age and the Spiritual Logic of Late Capitalism," History of Religions 39 (2000) 268-304.
12. Padoux, "Tantrism, an Overview," in Encyclopedia of Religion, ed. Mircea Eliade, New York: MacMillan 1986, 14:271-272.
13. Urban, "The Extreme Orient: The Construction of 'Tantrism' as a Category in the Orientalist Imagination," Religion 29 (1999) 123-146.
14. This question is the starting point for my new book, Tantra: Sex, Secrecy, Politics and Power in the Study of Religion (Berkeley: University of California Press, forthcoming 2003).
15. see for example Nik Douglas, Spiritual Sex: Secrets of Tantra from the Ice Age to the New Millennium, New York: Pocket Books 1997
16. Kimberly C. Patton and Benjamin C. Ray, A Magic Still Dwells: Comparative Religion in the Postmodern Age (Berkeley: University of California Press 2000);
17. Hugh B. Urban, "Making a Place to Take a Stand: Jonathan Z. Smith and the Politics and Poetics of Comparison," Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 12 (2000) 339-378.
18. Smith, Map is not Territory, Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1978, 240-241).
19. The Implied Spider: Politics & Theology in Myth, New York: Columbia University Press 1998, 59).
20. Drudgery Divine: On the Comparison of Early Christianities and the Religions of Late Antiquity, Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1990, 52).
21. See also Fitz John Porter Poole, "Metaphors and Maps: Towards Comparison in the Anthropology of Religion," Journal of the American Academy of Religion 54 (1986) 411-457;
22. Urban, "Making a Place to Take a Stand," 339-378.
23. Kularn. ava Tantra, ed. Arthur Avalon, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidas 1965, XI.84.
24. J.N. Farquhar, An Outline of the Religious Literature of India, Oxford: Oxford University Press 1920, 200.
25. Philip Rawson, The Art of Tantra, Greenwich: New York Graphics Society 1973, 9;
26. cf. Heinrich Zimmer, Philosophies of India, New York: Meridian Books 1956, 576.
27. (Hindu Religion and Iconology According to the Tantrasara, Los Angeles: Vichitra Press 1981, vi).
28. Douglas Brooks, AuspiciousWisdom: The Texts and Traditions of Śrividya Śakta Tantrism in South India, Albany: SUNY 1992, xix.
29. Hugh B. Urban, "The Path of Power: Impurity. Kingship and Sacrifice in Assamese Tantra," Journal of the American Academy of Religion 69 (2001) 777-816;
30. Alexis Sanderson, "Purity and Power among the Brahmins of Kashmir," in The Category of the Person: Anthropological and Philosophical Perspectives, eds. M. Carrithers, S. Collins, and S. Lukes, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1985.
31. Chintaharan Chakravarti, The Tantras: Studies in their Religion and Inuence, Calcutta: Punthi Pustak 1963, 66-67.
32. S.C. Banerji, Tantra in Bengal: A Study in its Origin, Development and In uence, New Delhi: Monohar 1992, 78-79;
33. Pal, Hindu Religion and Iconology, 3ff.;
34. D.C. Sircar, The Śakta Pit.has, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidas 1973, 74-80;
35. acaryer Kal Nirnaya, Prabasi, Bhadra (1948).
36. The oldest known manuscript of the Tantrasara is dated Śaka 1554 (1632 CE). The text exists in numerous editions, most notably those of P. Tarkaratna (Calcutta 1927);
37. Ramakumara Raya (Varanasi: Pracya Prakaśana 1985);
38. Sadaśiva Ś astri (Varanasi: Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series 1990).
39. For the purposes of this essay, I rely primarily on the Sanskrit and Bengali edition of Śri Rasikamohana Cat.t. opadhyaya (Calcutta: Navabharata Pub. 1982).
40. M.R. Tarafdar, Husain Shahi Bengal, 1494-1583 AD: A Socio-Political Study, Dacca: Asiatic Society of Pakistan 1965, 186.
41. see Edward C. Dimock, The Place of the Hidden Moon: Erotic Mysticism in the Vaisn. ava Sahajiya Cult of Bengal, Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1966, 41ff;
42. S.K. De, Early History of the Vaisn. ava Faith and Movement in Bengal, Calcutta: University of Calcutta Press 1942, 29ff.
43. Pal, Hindu Religion and Iconology, 4-5.
44. Bhabatosh Bhattacharya, "Raghunandana's Indebtedness to His Predecessors," Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 19, no. 2 (1953) 175-176.
45. For good discussion of this sort of "double life" among other important t antrikas, see Brooks, Auspicious Wisdom, and Sanderson, "Purity and Power among the Brahmins of Kashmir."
46. Dimock, The Place of the Hidden Moon, 43.
47. Sanjukta Gupta, Teun Goudriaan, and Dirk Jan Hoens, Hindu Tantrism, Leiden: Brill 1979, 27.
48. Douglas Brooks, The Secret of the Three Cities: An Introduction to Hindu Ś akta Tantra, Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1990
49. Biardeau, "Devi: The Goddess in India," in Asian Mythologies, ed. Yves Bonnefoy, Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1993, 98.
50. Brian K. Smith, Classifying the Universe: The Ancient Indian Varna System and the Origins of Caste, New York: Oxford University Press 1994, 250.
51. Madeleine Biardeau and Charles Malamoud, Le Sacrifice dans l'Inde Ancienne, Paris: Presses universitaires de France 1976, 146-147.
52. Biardeau, "Devi: The Goddess in India," 97).
53. J.C. Heesterman, The Inner Con ict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship and Society, Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1985, 46.
54. (Heesterman, The Inner Con ict, 87.
55. O'Flaherty, The Origins of Evil in Hindu Mythology, Berkeley: University of California Press 1976, 155. "It is forbidden to make offerings of the victim's head" (Heesterman, The Inner Con ict, 46;
56. ic sacri. ce based on violent beheading which was later rationalized and replaced by the non-violent ritual of the brahman. as (The Broken World of Sacrifice: An Essay in Ancient Indian Ritual, Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1993, 73).
57. Ronald B. Inden and Ralph W. Nicholas, Kinship in Bengali Culture, Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1986, 23-47.
58. Ronald B. Inden, Marriage and Rank in Bengali Culture, Berkeley: University of California Press 1976, 52.
59. On this point see David Gordon White, "Tantric Sects and Tantric Sex: The Flow of Secret Tantric Gnosis," in Rending the Veil: Concealment and Secrecy in the History of Religions, ed. Elliot R. Wolfson, New York: Seven Bridges Press 1999, 249-270.
60. Sexual union is also compared to a sacri. cial rite in much earlier texts such as the Br. hadaran. yaka Upanis. ad VI.4.12.
61. Mircea Eliade, Yoga: Immortality and Freedom, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1969, 254-255.
62. David Shulman, Tamil Temple Myths: Sacrifice and Divine Marriage in South Indian Śaiva Tradition, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1980, 347.
63. See Charles Malamoud, Cooking the World: Ritual and Thought in Ancient India, Delhi: Oxford University Press 1996, 7-10.
64. On this point, see Urban, The Economics of Ecstasy: Tantra, Secrecy and Power in Colonial Bengal, New York: Oxford University Press 2001, ch. 2. As Brooks observes, "Women::: are made subordinate to and dependent on males and their ritual role is::: limited to being a partner for male adepts" (AuspiciousWisdom, 25-26).
65. Brooks, AuspiciousWisdom, 188
66. On this point, see also Hugh B. Urban, "Elitism and Esotericim: Strategies of Secrecy and Power in South Indian Tantra and French Freemasonry, "Numen 44 (1997) 1-38.
67. Douglas, Purity and Danger, 190-191.
68. Crowley, The Law is for All: The Authorized Popular Commentary on Liber AL Vel Legis sub. gura CCXX, The Book of the Law, Temple, AZ: New Falcon Publications 1996, 42.
69. For example, Antoine Faivre and Jacob Needleman's volume on Modern Esoteric Spirituality, New York: Crossroad 1992
70. Lawrence Sutin, Do What Thou Wilt: A Life of Aleister Crowley, New York: St. artin's Press 2000.
71. In addition to Crowley's own autobiography (The Confessions of Aleister Crowley: An Autohagiography, ed. John Symonds, New York: Hill and Wang 1969)
72. John Symonds, The Great Beast: The Life of Aleister Crowley, New York: Roy Pub. 1952;
73. and The Magic of Aleister Crowley, London: Frederick Muller, Ltd. 1958;
74. Francis King, The Magical World of AleisterCrowley, London:Weidenfeldand Nicholson 1977;
75. Gerald Suster, The Legacy of the Beast: the Life, Work and Inuence of Aleister Crowley, York Beach, ME:Weiser 1989.
76. Colin Wilson, The Occult, New York: Vintage Books 1973, 362.
77. Crowley, The Confessions, 873, 939. "The company of heaven is Mankind, and its unveiling is the assertion of the::: godhead of every man and every woman!" (The Law is for All, 25).
78. Crowley, The Book of Lies, which is also falsely called Breaks, New York: S. Weiser 1952, 100.
79. Sutin, Do What Thou Wilt, 378.
80. Do What Thou Wilt, 380).
81. Crowley, Confessions, 874-875;
82. cf. The Law is for All, 51.
83. See Crowley, "The Temple of Solomon the King," Equinox I (4) (London 1910), 150.;
84. Urban, "The Omnipotent Oom: Tantra and its Impact on Modern Western Esotericism," Esoterica: The Journal of Esoteric Studies 3 (2001) 218-259;
85. Sutin, Do What Thou Wilt, 92, 127, 141, 188..
86. Randolph, The Ansairetic Mystery: A New Revelation Concerning Sex!, Toledo: Toledo Sun, Liberal PrintingHouse, n.d. [c.1873]), reprinted in John Patrick Deveney, Paschal Beverly Randolph: A Nineteenth Century American Spiritualist, Rosicrucian and Sex Magician, Albany: SUNY 1997, 317.
87. Being the Third Revelation of Soul and Sex, Toledo: Randolph Publishing Co. 1974; Magia Sexualis, Paris: Robert Telin 1931.
88. Symonds, The Magic of Aleister Crowley, 95).
89. "Spermo-Gnostics and the O.T.O.," available online at http://www.cyberlink.ch/»koenig/spermo.htm).
90. On the O.T.O., see Peter-RobertKoenig, "The OTO Phenomenon," Theosophical History 4, no. 3 (1992) 92-98;
91. Frater U.D., Secrets of Western Sex Magic, St. Paul: Llewellyn 2001, 3ff.
92. R. Swinburne Clymer, The Rosicrucian Fraternity in America: Authentic and Spurious Organizations, Quakertown: The Rosicrucian Foundation, n.d., II 541.
93. Crowley, The Confessions, 767.
94. Sutin, Do What Thou Wilt, 234.
95. Crowley, Magick: Liber ABA, Book Four Parts I-IV, York Beach: Samuel Weiser 1997, 267-269
96. Theodor Reuss' translation of Crowley's Gnostic Mass: "Die Gnostische Messe," in P.R. Koenig, Der Grosse Theodor Reuss Reader, Munich 1997.
97. John Symonds and Kenneth Grant, eds. The Diaries of Aleister Crowley: The Magical Record of the Beast 666, London: Duck Editions 2001, 235.
98. Crowley, July 19, 1921 diary entry, O.T.O. archives, quoted in Sutin, Do What Thou Wilt, 293.
99. Patricia Anderson, When Passion Reigned: Sex and the Victorians, New York: Basic Books 1995, 17-18.
100. See also John Maynard, "Victorian Discourses on Sexuality and Religion," University of Hartford Studies in Literature 19 (1987) 61.
101. Symonds, The Magic of Aleister Crowley, 141-142).
102. Crowley, The Book of Lies, 63.
103. Crowley, The Vision and the Voice, London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent 1911, 385-386.
104. On the creation of alchemical androgynes, see Urban, "Birth Done Better: Conceiving the Immortal Fetus in India, China and Renaissance Europe," in Notes on a Mandala: Essays in Honor of Wendy Doniger, ed. Laurie Patton, New York: Seven Bridges Press 2002.
105. On Crowley's views toward homosexuality, see Sutin, Do What Thou Wilt, 183- 184.
106. Konig, "Spermo- Gnostics and the O.T.O.";
107. Frater U.D., Secrets of Western Sex Magic, 138.
108. Crowley, Confessions, 370.
109. Sutin, Do What Thou Wilt, 359, 199, 329-330.
110. Bataille, The Accursed Share, vol. 2, 183-184.
111. Canetti, Crowds and Power, New York: Viking Press 1962, 290.
112. A Ricoeur Reader: Re ection and Imagination, ed. Mario J. Valdes, Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1991, 32).
113. Bataille, Erotism: Death and Sensuality, San Francisco: City Lights 1986, 64.
114. Bataille, The Accursed Share, vol. 2, 89-111;
115. Visions of Excess: Selected Writings, 1927-1939, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 1985
116. The Un. nished System of Nonknowledge, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 2001, 26-75, 133-152, 185-195.
117. Bataille, Erotism, 48.
118. Bataille, Erotism, 1.
119. Taussig, "Transgression," 355.
120. Taussig, "Transgression," 356s
121. see also Georg Simmel, "Secrecy," in The Sociology of Georg Simmel, trans. Kurt Wolff, New York: Free Press 1950.
122. Bataille, The Accursed Share, vol. 2, 57-58.
123. Foucault, Religion and Culture, 57. On the point, see also Bataille, The Accursed Share, vol. 2, 408.
124. There is a vast array of such books;
125. see for example: Douglas, Spiritual Sex; Christopher S. Hyatt, and Lon Milo Duquette, Sex Magic, Tantra and Tarot: The Way of the Secret Lover, New Falcon Pub. 1991;
126. Christopher S. Hyatt and S. Jason Black, Tantra Without Tears, New Falcon Pub. 2000;
127. Donald Michael Kraig, Linda Falorio, Tara Nema, Modern Sex Magick: Secrets of Erotic Spirituality, St. Paul: Llewellyn Pub. 1998.
128. Swami Nostradamus Virato, "Tantric Sex: A spiritual Path to Ecstasy," reprinted on the "Church of Tantra"Website (http//www.tantra.org).
129. http://www.tantra.com/tantra2/index.html. On this point, s
130. see Paul Ramana Das' and Marilena Silbey's web-site "Third Millennium Magic" (http://www.3mm.com).
131. On the concept of late capitalism, see Daniel Bell, The Coming of Post-Industrial Society, New York: Basic Books 1973;
132. Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism: Or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, Durham: Duke University Press 1991;
133. Scott Lash and John Urry, The End of Organized Capitalism, Cambridge: Polity 1987;
134. William Halal, The New Capitalism, New York:Wiley 1986;
135. Ernest Mandel, Late Capitalism, London: NLB 1975;
136. Claus Offe, DisorganizedCapitalism, Oxford: Oxford University Press 1985;
137. David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, London: Blackwell 1989.
138. Featherstone, Consumer Culture and Postmodernism, London: Sage 1990, 114. London: Routledge.
139. Foucault, The History of Sexuality, vol. 1: An Introduction, New York: Vintage 1978, 35.
140. Foucault, Religion and Culture, 69.
141. Shepherd, Introduction to The Diary of a Drug Fiend, Hyde Park: University Books 1970, vii-viii.