The Tantric Tradition, by Agehananda Bharati

This book breaks fresh ground; it is the first modern and comprehensive study of the complex field of Hindu and Buddhist esoterism. The highly delicate position of the Tantrics, their literature and their teachings, and particularly their left-handed practices have caused Indian and Western writers to give them a wide berth. The powerful erotic and sensual symbolism, the apparently amoral tendencies of the doctrines and the care with which their proper meaning has been guarded has made their objective study extremely difficult. The author analyses critically and sympathetically, the literary, linguistic, ideological, and anthropological aspects of Tantrism, documenting them with freshly translated passages from Indian and Tibetan texts. He gives special emphasis to mantra, initiation, the male-female polarity symbolism with its ritualistic corollaries, the philosophical potential, and to the history and development of Tantrism in India and Tibet. The book is essential reading for all interested in the East and it's culture in depth, as well as for the more general student of cultural anthropology. Agehananda Bharati is a member of the anthropological faculty at Syracuse University, New York, an ordained member of the Dasanami Order of Hindu monks, and an Austrian by birth.