ISBN10: 0226894843, ISBN13: 9780226894843, [publisher: The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL] Softcover Paperback. For those who wonder what relation actual Tantric practices bear to the "Tantric sex" currently being marketed so successfully in the West, David Gordon White has a simple answer: there is none. Sweeping away centuries of misunderstandings and misrepresentations, White returns to original texts, images, and ritual practices to reconstruct the history of South Asian Tantra from the medieval period to the present day.Kiss of the Yogini focuses on what White identifies as the sole truly distinctive feature of South Asian Tantra: sexualized ritual practices, especially as expressed in the medieval Kaula rites. Such practices centered on the exchange of powerful, transformative sexual fluids between male practitioners and wild female bird and animal spirits known as Yoginis. It was only by "drinking" the sexual fluids of the Yoginis that men could enter the family of the supreme godhead and thereby obtain supernatural powers and transform themselves into gods. By focusing on sexual rituals, White resituates South Asian Tantra, in its precolonial form, at the center of religious, social, and political life, arguing that Tantra was the mainstream, and that in many ways it continues to influence contemporary Hinduism, even if reformist misunderstandings relegate it to a marginal position. Kiss of the Yogini contains White's own ...
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ISBN10: 0226894843, ISBN13: 9780226894843, [publisher: University of Chicago Press 2006-08-08, Chicago, [Ill.] |London] Softcover Language: ENG
[London, United Kingdom] [Publication Year: 2006]

Paperback / softback. New. New Book; Fast Shipping from UK; Not signed; Not First Edition; Reconstructs the history of South Asian Tantra from the medieval period. This book contains translations from over a dozen Tantras. It is useful for those seeking to understand Tantra and the crucial role it has played in South Asian hi ISBN 0226894843 9780226894843 [GB]

ISBN10: 0226894843, ISBN13: 9780226894843, [publisher: University of Chicago Press] Softcover pp. 391 Index
[New York, NY, U.S.A.] [Publication Year: 2006]