Specialist in Things Tantric - STS NEWS # 3
File: News#387
STS NEWS # 3 July, 1987
Registry Update
This edition of the STS Newsletter comes out in conjunction with our updated STS Registry. As you can see the Registry has grown a good deal since our inital version. It has also taken a good while to produce. We have shifted our files from straight word-processing into a database format. Though time consuming at the outset, this will in the long run allow us much better access to and control of our files. Future editions of the entire registry will will be run as the need arises, probably once a year or once every other year. Up-dates of address changes, new publications and research projects for old members, and full data on our new members will be carried in the STS Newsletter (See the enclosed Questionnaire). We also intend to keep the main file in reasonably steady update so each new "printing" will be complete. (Since printing here means xeroxing, this presents very minimal problems.)
Although the registry will continue to carry some bibliographic information its primary purpose is current information on who is working on what. A tantric bibliography is sorely needed and perhaps now on the horizon. Dwight Tkatschow of the University of Toronto has a personal bibliography of some 4000 tantra related items. It is our hope that in the future we can find some way to make this bibliography accessible.
The STS Newsletter should soon be on a more regular production schedule. We hope to produce at least two per year. Newsletters will include current information on membership as well as news items, announcements, and reviews of unusual or out-of-the-way articles or books. By the next issue production should be on the laser printer.
The First STS Conference
In the midst of a lovely North Carolina Spring, the first STS conference was held on a weekend of rain, lightning storms, a light dusting of morning snow at the Quail Roost Conference Center in Rougemont, N.C. In spite of the wretched weather, the meeting itself went well and allowed for a great deal of formal and informal exchange among the assembled participants. The program was varied, rich, and wide-ranging. The sessions went as follows:
Session One:
Paul E. Muller-Ortega, Michigan State University, "Towards a Definition of Tantra? Some Preliminary Observations."
Charles D. Orzech, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, "Tantra in China and Chinese Tantra."
Dwight A. Tkatschow, University of Toronto, "Towards Developing a Tantric Bibliography."
Discussant: William K. Mahony, Davidson College
Session Two:
Baskaran Pillai, University of Pittsburgh, "Divine Males vs. Human Males: The Sexuality of Indian Women Saints."
Glen A. Hayes, Bloomfield College, "Cakras, Ponds, and Damsels: Identifying the 'Sahajiya' in the Vaisnava-sahajiya Tradition of Bengal."
Phillip Zarrilli, New York University, "Toward Accomplishment: Process, Practice, and Praxis in the Kalarippayattu Martial Tradition of Kerala."
Discussant: Tony Stewart, North Carolina State University.
Session Three:
Donald S. Lopez, Jr., Middlebury College, "On the Heart Sutra Mantra."
Janet Gyatso, IASWR and State University of New York at Stony Brook, "Mantra as Memory in the Buddhist Tantras: What is Being Remembered?"
Discussant: Charles Orzech, University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
Session Four:
Roxanne Gupta, Syracuse University, "Indian Classical Dance as Tantric Art." (Lecture/Demonstration/Discussion)
Session Five:
James H. Sanford, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, "A Field Guide to Shingon Buddhism."
Concluding Discussion: Where are We? Where Should We Go? How Should We Get There?"
Perhaps the most gratifying session of all for those who were involved in the initial organization of the society was the Concluding discussion- business meeting which ended up being held mostly on Saturday evening. We were wonderfully pleased to find the that the gathered group quickly took all pretenses of leadership right out of our hands, demonstrating quite rightly that the society is the property not simply of its founders or of its steering committee, but of its members.
Future Meetings
In the ensuing discussion several things were decided. We agreed first of all to make the STS Conferences annual for at least the short term, but to move them to an early autumn time slot. The latter choice means an 18-month gap between Conference One and Conference Two, but the fall term clearly seem to fit the academic and bugetary constraints of most members best. It is likely, though not yet certain as this is being written, that the second conference (Fall 1988) will be held at Syracuse University. The 1989 meeting is less clear, though Pittsburgh seems a possibilty at this point. In 1990 Toronto seems likely, though that meeting would quite possibly be held in late August so as to tie into the International Congress of Asian and African Studies to be held there August 19-25. We would hope before too many seasons go by to meet in more westernly US and Canadian venues, and indeed even outside of North America altogether.
Notices
- (a) The 16th Annual Conference on South Asia will be held November 6, 7, and 8, 1987, at the University of Wisconsin--Madison. For program and lodging information contact: Conference Coordinator, South Asian Center, 1236 Van Hise Hall, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisc. 53706 or call (608) 262-3384.
- (b) The RISA (Religion in South Asia) section program for the December meeting of the American Academy of Religion in Boston includes a number of panels and papers of interest to our members. In particular, on Sunday December 6 from 1-3:30 "Definitions and Uses of the Indian Abhiseka," and from 3:45-6:15 "Hindu and Buddhist Interactions: The Body as Cosmos, the Cosmos as Body." Also, be sure not to miss the panel on Tuesday December 8, 9-11:30 "Other Bodies, Other Worlds: visualization in Late-medieval Bhakti."
- (c) Navrang Booksellers of RB-7, Inderpuri, New Delhi-110012, India has asked us to inform our membership of their willingness to supply books that deal with tantra.
- (d) On a more down home note, it is a pleasure to announce that Joanne Waghorne will be joining the staff of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the Fall of 1987. Though this will clearly push us to regularizing and utilizing election proceedures for the society, it will be a great joy to have five persons with fairly direct interests in Tantrism within a range of sixty miles of each other. And for Sanford and Waghorne the distance will be but forty feet down the hall.
Items Accumulated
Three books and two articles have been sent your editor/secretary since the last newsletter.
- (a) Significance of the Tantric Tradition by Kamalakar Mishra. Arddhanarisvara Publications, 27 Dindayalnagar Colony, Nababganj, Varanasi- 10, India. 25Rs. 200pp. Arranged in 30 brief chapters, and Indexed. It discusses Indian tantra in terms of history, culture, and most especially, philosophical categories.
- (b) Aghor Tradition and an Aughar in India by K. Krishna Verma. For information on availability contact the author (see Registry for address). 142 pp., including a glossary and brief bibliography. Provides a basic outline of Aghor philosophy and sadhana. Much of the book is framed in question and answer format.
- (c) A Handlist of the Sanskrit and Prakrit Manuscripts in the Library of the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, Vol. 1 by D. Wujastyk. The Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, London, 1985. 317pp. Describes 1003 mss. Entries are ordered by subject. "Tantra" occupies pp. 144-162 and treats 64 mss. Pp. 247-307 are comprised by a number of indices.This book came by the kindness of Joanne Waghorne. If anyone wants a list of the mss covered in the tantra section I will be glad to provide same.
- (d) Mr. Prem Saran sent me copies of two short papers, "The Tantric Tradition of Assam and Its Cultural Implications: A Qualitative Assessment" (5pp) and "Tantra: A Hedonistic Quest for Personal Autonomy" (4pp). The first of these has been scheduled for publication in the Proceedings of the Joint Annual Conference of the Indian Archeological Society, the Indian Society for Pre-historic and Quatenary Studies, and the Indian History and Culture Society and the second in the Bulletin of the Assam State Museum.
Reviews of Fugitive, Wackey, or Unusual Items
The STS Newsletter will accept brief reviews (no more than 200 words) of unusual, hard to find or otherwise out-of-the-way articles and books on tantric topics.
Obituaries
Harvey P. Alper, a specialist on Shaivite tantrism at Southern Methodist University, died suddenly on April 4th. Harvey's work was well known to all. He was to have been a respondent at the first STS conference. He recently edited a work on Mantra.
Chogyam Trungpa Rimpoche, the well know Tibetanist, psychologist of Religion, and founder of the Naropa Center also died on April 4th. The Rimpoche, through his wide-ranging writings and promulgation of Tibetan Buddhism has been instrumental in the spread and study of the tradition in Europe and America.
