The Abominable Tachikawa Skull Ritual
1991; Sophia University; Volume: 46; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/2385144
ISSN1880-1390
Autores Tópico(s)Chinese history and philosophy
ResumoA LTHOUGH a crucial category in Western religions, heresy is, for a variety of reasons, of much less concern in most Eastern traditions. Further, to the extent that the concept of heresy can be applied in a Hindu or Buddhist context, it is more likely to refer to issues of behavior (orthopraxy) than to those of doctrine or dogma (orthodoxy). Unusual ideas become critical only when they eventuate in actions too bizarre or too disreputable to be ignored. Within the pale of Hinduism and Buddhism, however, there is, one rich hunting ground for those interested in finding heterodox ideas and practicesnamely, tantrism. 1 Indeed, even in the West the term 'tantra' tends to elicit raised eyebrows and dubious smiles. The usual cause for such a guarded welcome is tantra's claim, common in both Buddhist and Hindu venues, that spiritual enlightenment and sexual bliss are fundamentally of one quality. The explicit stone carvings at Khajuraho and the copulating yab-yum icons of Tibetan Buddhism are well known in the West as examples of just such tantric exotica cum erotica. The further presence of the necromantic and magical themes displayed in not a few tantric texts only adds fuel to already smoldering fires of suspicion. East Asian exegetes, too, can find such materials embarrassing, and often in discussions of both Hindu and Buddhist tantra a distinction is made between disreputable 'left-handed' practices carried out by marginal figures with an unfortunately all too worldly understanding of the esoteric lore, and the contrasting 'right-handed' interpretations of true initiates. For the latter, the tantric texts' tendency to emphasize the biological differentiation of male and female and then move on to the resolution into oneness of this duality in the act of physical intercourse is to be explained not as references to literal sexual congress but as symbolic allusion to the ineffable 'coincidentia oppositorum'
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