A Dictionary of Technical Terms from Hindu Tantric Literature.

• Author: White, David Gordon

Tantrikabhidanakosa, vol. I: A Dictionary of Technical Terms from Hindu Tantric Literature. Edited by HELENE BRUNNER, GERARD OBERHAMMER, and ANDRE PADOUX. Beitrage zur Kultur- und Geistesgeschichte Asiens, no. 35. Vienna: VERLAG DER OSTERREICHISCHEN AKADEMIE DER WIS-SENSCHAFTEN, 2000. Pp. 260. [euro] 41.93.

Tantrikabhidanakosa, vol. II: A Dictionary of Technical Terms from Hindu Tantric Literature. Edited by HELENE BRUNNER, GERARD OBERHAMMER, and ANDRE PADOUX. Beitrage zur Kultur- und Geistesgeschichte Asiens, no. 44. Vienna: VERLAG DER OSTERREICHISCHEN AKADEMIE DER WISSENSCHAFTEN, 2004. Pp. 305. [euro] 55.40.

Nearly without exception, the pioneers of the textual study of Hindu tantra have been European scholars. These, the first two volumes of what is projected to be a five-volume encyclopedic dictionary of terms from Hindu tantric scriptures, are the work of a number of those pioneers, together with certain of their students and other collaborators. The editors of these two volumes formed the original core of a Franco-Austrian research team, which began a series of annual meetings in 1994; however, over the years, several other European tantra specialist were brought into the lexicographical project. In addition to the principal editors (Andre Padoux [Paris], the late Helene Brunner [Paris], and Gerhard Oberhammer [Vienna]), Teun Goudriaan (Utrecht), Raffaele Torella (Rome), Sylvia Raghunathan Stark (Vienna), Marion Rastelli (Vienna), Marzenna Czerniak-Drozdzowicz (Crakow), Gavin Flood (Oxford), Alexis Sanderson (Oxford), Gerard Colas (Paris), Christian Bouy (Paris), Dominic Goodall (Pondicherry), Judit Torzsok (Lille), Somadeva Vasudeva (Oxford), and Harunaga Isaacson (Hamburg) also contributed entries to one or both of the two volumes.

As its title indicates, this is a dictionary of technical terms found in the Sanskrit-language textual traditions of Hindu tantra. The present volumes comprise the vowels (vol. 1) and consonants ka through da (vol. 2) of the Sanskrit alphabet, for a total of approximately 1200 out of a projected 3000 entries for the entire five volumes (the publication of vol. 3 is projected for 2009). As is to be expected in a specialized dictionary on this subject, this is predominantly a vocabulary of ritual procedures, doctrinal and metaphysical categories, the nomenclature of deities, pantheons, and worship paraphernalia, and the language of tantric encoding and encryption. Each entry is introduced by a...