Description
Book SynopsisTantra is a family of rituals modeled on those of the Vedas and their attendant texts and lineages. These rituals typically involve the visualization of a deity, offerings, and the chanting of his or her mantra. Common variations include visualizing the deity in the act of sexual union with a consort, visualizing oneself as the deity, and transgressive acts such as token consumption of meat or alcohol. Most notoriously, non-standard or ritualized sex is sometimes practiced. This accounts for Tantra''s negative reputation in some quarters and its reception in the West primarily as a collection of sexual practices. Although some today extol Tantra''s liberating qualities, the role of women remains controversial. Traditionally there are two views of women and Tantra. Either the feminine is a metaphor and actual women are altogether absent, or Tantra involves the transgressive use of women''s bodies to serve male interests. Loriliai Biernacki presents an alternative view, in which women a
Trade Review"A rhetorically and poetically beautiful piece of scholarship that incorporates the best of previous work but moves well beyond it into a fundamentally new set of ideas about female agency and speech, the Tantric sex rite, male asceticism, and transcultural encounter. Biernacki's corpus or bodied speech is as blue and as powerful as the Tantric goddesses she writes about." --Jeffrey J. Kripal, author of Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion
Table of ContentsIntroduction 1: The "Kali Practice": Rereading Women's Roles in Tantra 2: Sex Talk and Gender Rites: Women and the Tantric Rite of Sexual Union 3: The Other/Woman: The Role of Wives and Goddesses in a Tantric Rite of Kamakhya 4: To Speak Like a Woman: The Feminine Mantra and Bodied Speech 5: How a Blue Goddess of Speech Turns Blue Appendix 1: Sources, Their Comparison with Other Tantric Texts, and Historical Context Appendix 2: Synopsis of Contents of the Brhannila Tantra Bibliography
