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The Ethnography of Tantra: Textures and Contexts of Living Tantric Traditions

Authors:Carola E. Lorea, Rohit Singh (editors)
ISBN:9789395474115
Binding:Hardcover
Year:2026
Pages:380 with 31 b/w illustrations
Size:16 x 24 x 3 cm
Weight:656 grams
Price:INR27952516.00
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About the Book
Presents Tantra from an ethnographic vantage point, through a series of case studies grounded in diverse settings across contemporary Asia.

This is the first collection of essays to approach the topic of Tantric Studies from the vantage point of ethnography and lived religion, moving beyond the centrality of written texts and giving voice to the everyday life and livelihoods of a multitude of Tantric actors. Bringing together a team of international scholars whose contributions range across diverse communities and traditions in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Himalayan region, the book connects distant shores of Tantric scholarship and lived Tantric practices. The contributors unpack Tantra’s relationship to the body, ritual performance, sexuality, secrecy, power hierarchies, death, magic, and healing, while doing so with vigilant sensitivity to decolonization and the ethics of fieldwork. Through diverse ethnographies of Tantra and attention to lived experiences and life stories, the book challenges normative definitions of Tantra and maps the variety of Tantric traditions, providing comparative perspectives on Tantric societies across regions and religious backgrounds. The accessible tone of the ethnographic case studies makes this an ideal book for undergraduate or graduate audiences working on the topic of Tantra.
About the Authors
Carola E. Lorea

Carola E. Lorea is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Faculty of Humanities at the University of Tübingen in Germany. She is the author of Folklore, Religion, and the Songs of a Bengali Madman: A Journey Between Performance and the Politics of Cultural Representation.
Rohit Singh

Rohit Singh is Lecturer and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Religious Studies at UNC Greensboro.
Editorial Reviews



“…an exciting new addition to this body of scholarship … [it] will be of great interest to not just students and scholars of Hindu traditions, but students and scholars of Sanskrit literature, students and scholars of mythology, and students and scholars of gender and religion as well.”
Religious Studies Review
The Literary Life of Yājñavalkya sets new standards in the examination of religious literary figures in South Asian textual traditions and is an exemplar of how philological and literary analysis should evolve to better accommodate the cultural investments of original literary communities. This study comes as a pertinent and much-needed reminder that even as historical facticity may not be a primary concern of literary characterizations, literary characterizations are indeed a historical fact in themselves.”
Religions of South Asia
“…a valuable resource for readers of the Upaniṣads, post-Vedic Brahminical mythology, and Sanskrit literature more broadly … this title will no doubt become a benchmark work within Vedic studies, and will additionally inspire with its example a much wider audience of scholars engaging Hindu mythology.”
Reading Religion
“Lindquist traces the textual references to Yājñavalkya from their pre-Buddhist beginnings to their classical and postclassical contexts, all while avoiding the pitfalls of mostly pointless inquiries into the 'historicity' of Yājñavalkya. As such, the book is unique within the field of Indology because it goes beyond the usual dismissive descriptions of such personalities as mere eponyms or arbitrary placeholders for sagely authority. In contrast, Lindquist shows how coherent features of thought and rhetorical style provided a solid core text-persona called Yājñavalkya, around whom a host of distinctive ideas and styles of debate and expression were carried through several genres of Vedic and classical Hindu sacred writing.”
—Donald R. Davis Jr., University of Texas at Austin
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