Tantra, magic, and vernacular religions in monsoon Asia : texts, practices, and practitioners from the margins / edited by Andrea Acri, Paolo E. Rosati.

More Pre-Tantric Sources of Tantrism: Skulls and Skull-Cups / Ronald M. Davidson -- Charnel Ground Items, Śmāśānikas, and the Question of the Magical Substratum of the Early Tantras / Aleksandra Wenta and Andrea Acri -- Shamans and Bhūta Tāntrikas: A Shared Genealogy? / Michael Slouber -- Female Gaṇeśa or Independent Deity? Tracing the Background of the Elephant-faced Goddess in Mediaeval Śaiva Tantric Traditions / Chiara Policardi -- Crossing the Boundaries of Sex, Blood, and Magic in the Tantric Cult of Kāmākhyā / Paolo E. Rosati -- 'Let us Now Invoke the Three Celestial Lights of Fire, Sun and Moon into Ourselves': Magic or Everyday Practice? Revising Existentiality for an Emic Understanding of Śrīvidyā / Monika Hirmer -- Narrative Folklore of Khyāḥ from Tantra to Popular Beliefs: Supernatural Experiences at the Margins among Newar Communities in the Kathmandu Valley / Fabio Armand -- Magical Tantra in Bengal, Bali, and Java: From Piśāca Tāntrikas to Balians and Dukuns / June McDaniel -- Tantrism and the Weretiger Lore of Burma, Thailand, and Cambodia / Francesco Brighenti.

"This book explores the cross- and trans-cultural dialectic between Tantra and intersecting magical and shamanic phenomena associated with vernacular religions across Monsoon Asia. With a chronological frame going from the mediaeval Indic period up to the present, a wide geographical framework, and through the dialogue between various disciplines, it presents a coherent enquiry and sheds light on practices and practitioners that have been frequently alienated in the elitist discourse of mainstream Indic religions, and equally overlooked by modern scholarship. The book addresses three desiderata in the field of Tantric Studies: it fills a gap in the historical modelling of Tantra; it extends the geographical parameters of Tantra to the vast, yet culturally interlinked, socio-geographical construct of Monsoon Asia; and it explores Tantra as an interface between the Sanskritic elite and the folk, the vernacular, the magical, the shamanic, thereby revisiting the intellectual and historically fallacious divide between cosmopolitan Sanskritic and vernacular local. The book offers a highly innovative contribution to the field of Tantric Studies and, more generally, South and Southeast Asian religions, by breaking traditional disciplinary boundaries. Its variety of disciplinary approaches makes it attractive to both the textual/diachronic and ethnographic/syncronic dimensions. It will be of interest to specialist and non-specialist academic readers, including scholars and students of South Asian religions, mainly Hinduism and Buddhism, Tantric traditions, Southeast Asian religions, as well as Asian and global folk religion, shamanism, and magic"-- Provided by publisher.