Consecration of Images and Stupas in Indo-Tibetan Tantric Buddhism.

• Author: Guenther, Herbert
• Position: Brief Reviews of Books

Consecration of Images and Stupas in Indo-Tibetan Tantric Buddhism. By YAEL BENTOR. Brill's Indological Library, vol. 11. Leiden: BRILL, 1996. Pp. xxii + 415.

This work is an in-depth investigation of the ritual of consecrating images, books, stupas, and temple complexes on the basis of relevant textual material, the observation of the performance itself and interviews with persons participating in the ritual. After a relatively short introduction (pp. 1-89) in which the major technical terms with their multiple meanings are lucidly explicated, the main part is devoted to a careful and illumining translation and analysis of a consecration manual that begins with a discussion of the preparatory rituals, an account of the actual consecration, and the concluding...