Making Sense of Tantric Buddhism

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This work fundamentally rethinks the transgressive theories and practices of Buddhist Tantric traditions, challenging the view that the Tantras were "marginal" or primitive. Instead, it situates them within broader trends in mainstream Buddhist and Indian culture. By critically surveying prior scholarship, the author exposes fallacies in attributing Tantric transgression to lusty monks, primitive tribal rites, or imitation of Saiva traditions. Through comparative analysis of historical narratives that depict Tantrism as a degenerate form of Buddhism or medieval ritualism, he reveals these as patterns in the European historical imagination. Close analysis of primary sources uncovers the lived world of Tantric Buddhism as largely continuous with the Indian religious mainstream. Utilizing contemporary semiotic and structural analysis, the author interprets seemingly repellent and immoral injunctions. Innovative readings of the Guhyasamaja Tantra highlight its concerns with purity, pollution, and transcendent insight—issues common across Indic religions. A quantitative study of Tantric literature shows its radical antinomianism as a managed ritual observance limited to a sacerdotal elite. These insights clarify the connections between South Asian Tantrism and broader currents in Indian religion, illustrating how these "radical" communities were integrated into the intellectual, institutional, and social structures of South Asian B