Centre for Tantric Studies

An interdisciplinary project, the Manuscript Cultures Research Group at the University of Hamburg, has just been awarded three years’ funding by the DFG. The Group aims to advance the study of the vast manuscript heritage of India, Tibet, Japan, China, Iran, Ethiopia and the Arab world.

Of particular relevance to tantric studies are the projects on the Manuscript Collections of the Ancient Tantras (rNying ma rgyud ‘bum) and Marginal Annotations in Sanskrit Manuscripts, both to be overseen by Prof. Harunaga Isaacson.
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We are pleased to announce that funding for a major project in tantric studies has just been confirmed — ‘Early Tantra: Discovering the Interrelationships and Common Ritual Syntax of the Śaiva, Buddhist, Vaiṣṇava and Saura traditions’.

This project, a collaboration with the École française d’Extrême-Orient, directed on the French side by Dominic Goodall and on the German side by Harunaga Isaacson, and funded by the ANR (Agence Nationale de Recherche) and DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft), aims to uncover connections between tantric systems through the study of a number of early sources. Texts to be edited include the Niśvāsatattvasaṃhitā, Brahmayāmala, the Nepalese Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa manuscript and the Trisamayarājatantra commentary. It will be carried out over the next three years.

• Please visit our Early Tantra project page for further information.

An agreement between the Religion Institute of the China Tibetology Research Centre (CTRC) and the Department of Indian and Tibetan Studies, University of Hamburg, was signed by both parties on August 27, 2007, in Beijing. The agreement inaugurates cooperation on the study of rare Sanskrit and Tibetan literature preserved in China.

The first project to be worked on under the terms of a sub-agreement is an edition of the Buddhakapālatantra and its Abhayapaddhati commentary by Abhayākaragupta. (Continued »)