Reinscribing the Goddess into the Culturally Relative Minutiae of Tantric Texts and Practices: A Perennialist Response to Tantric Visual Culture
A celebration and critical evaluation of Sthaneshwar Timalsina's brilliant book, Tantric Visual Culture: A Cognitive Approach. In this groundbreaking work, Timalsina utilizes the lens of cognitive studies to shed interpretive light on the Tantric visualization practices that he knows both as a...
Main Author: | |
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Format: | Electronic Article |
Language: | English |
Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
Journals Online & Print: | |
Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
Published: |
MDPI
[2017]
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In: |
Religions
Year: 2017, Volume: 8, Issue: 10, Pages: 1-7 |
Further subjects: | B
Cognitive Science
B Perennialism B Tantra B J. Z. Smith B hologram B Mircea Eliade B Cultural Relativism B visualization practice B metonymy B sādhanā |
Online Access: |
Presumably Free Access Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (doi) |
Summary: | A celebration and critical evaluation of Sthaneshwar Timalsina's brilliant book, Tantric Visual Culture: A Cognitive Approach. In this groundbreaking work, Timalsina utilizes the lens of cognitive studies to shed interpretive light on the Tantric visualization practices that he knows both as a scholar and lifetime practitioner. Timalsina argues that mastery of Tantric practice requires immersion in the culturally relative metonymic and holographic logic framed by the Tantric ritual texts. The conclusion that arises from his analysis is that Tantric truths are bound to the linguistic and cultural systems that frame them. In response, I herewith offer a perennialist critique and argument for a more nuanced consideration of the transcendent truth or being that is the stated aim of Tantric practice. |
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ISSN: | 2077-1444 |
Contains: | Enthalten in: Religions
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Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.3390/rel8100217 |