Centre for Tantric Studies

The inaugural lecture for Trinity term in Oxford’s Numata Distinguished Guest Speaker Series was given by Prof. Harunaga Isaacson (visiting from the Asia-Africa Institute, University of Hamburg):

Words of the Yoginīs:
Reflections on the Textual History of the Buddhist Yoginītantras

• Date: Friday, 25th April 2008, 5 pm
• Venue: Lecture Room 1 (LR1), Oriental Institute (Oxford University Faculty of Oriental Studies), Pusey Lane, Oxford, UK
• Convenor: Dr. Robert Mayer, Oriental Institute, Oxford

A number of classes relating to tantric studies are being taught in the summer semester at the AAI, University of Hamburg:

• Conceptions of bodhi in Indian Tantric Buddhism (Prof. Harunaga Isaacson)
• Besitzer von [magischem und soteriologischem] Wissen (rig ’dzin: vidyādhara) in tibetischen tantrischen Texten (Dr. Dorji Wangchuk)
• Die [durch] Gold [erworbenen] Lehren (gser chos): Tantrische Schriften der Shangs-pa-bka’-brgyud-Schule (Dorji Wangchuk)
• Ausgewähle Passage aus dem Mila rnam mgur (Dr. Klaus-Dieter Mathes)

We will also offer two classes specifically in tantric studies, both to be taught from May by this semester’s Numata Professor, Jacob Dalton, visiting from Yale University:

• Developments in Early Tantric Ritual
• Tibetan Sādhanas from Dunhuang

For further details, please see our full list.

There are three new additions to our collection of e-texts:

• The first two e-texts are a Parājapavidhi and Parāmantravidhi, and a *Bhadrakālī-mantravidhiprakaraṇa, from a Śaiva-influenced Āṅgirasa manuscript originating in Orissa.

These e-texts are derived from the editions published in Prof. Alexis Sanderson’s article “Atharvavedins in Tantric Territory” (2007). This article, conveniently available online, provides critical apparatus and English translations of these texts. We thank Prof. Sanderson for permission to include these e-texts in the CTS collection.

• The third e-text is the Guhyasamājamaṇḍalavidhi of Dīpaṃkarabhadra. Our e-text of this very influential early Buddhist tantric work comprises a completely new transcription by Sabine Klein-Schwind, proofread and revised by Prof. Harunaga Isaacson.

This transcription has not hitherto been published; the text is available only via our website. It offers a number of improvements on the version of this work published in Dhīḥ no.42 (2006).
(Continued »)