Jacob Dalton’s classes in tantric studies
This semester’s Numata Professor, Jacob Dalton, currently visiting from Yale University, is teaching two classes in tantric studies at the University of Hamburg.
In the seminar ‘Tibetan Sādhanas from Dunhuang’, a number of manuscripts connected with the Sarvatathāgata-tattvasaṃgraha are being read: IOL Tib J 417, 447, 448 and others (*Tattvasaṃgraha sādhanopāyikas) and Pelliot tibétain 300, 792, and others.
In the ‘Developments in Early Tantric Ritual’ lectures, Prof. Dalton surveys the historical factors at work in the first formative periods of tantric Buddhism, starting with Brahmanical and proto-tantric liturgy and concluding with the advent of Mahāyoga tantras in the eighth and ninth centuries.
Prof. Dalton’s classes are offered as part of the Asia-Africa Institute’s ongoing teaching in tantric studies.