Tantrikabhidhanakosa, vol. 1: A-AU [vowels].

• Author: Gerow, Edwin
• Position: Book Review

Tantrikabhidhanakosa, vol. 1: A-AU [vowels]. By HELENE BRUNNER, GERHARD OBERHAMMER, ANDRE PADOUX, et al. Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, phil.-hist. Kl., Sitzungsberichte, vol. 681, Vienna: VERLAG DER OSTERREICHISCHEN AKADEMIE DER WISSENSCHAFTEN, 1999. Pp. 260.

This modestly titled first volume of a promised many-volume (the quantity is not specified--p. 36) dictionary will certainly put "Tantric" studies on a much firmer footing. Signalons, at the outset, Andre Padoux's judicious delimitation of the work's parameters--terms are here selected from various Hindu (but not Buddhist) "tantric" (both Saiva and Vaisnava, but not mainline "Hindu") texts, whose listing occupies some twenty pages (pp. 44-65). Terminological niceties are finessed, as well: the commonplace distinction between saiva and sakta has been ignored--"il nous est apparu qu'il etait impossible de l'appliquer rigoreusement" (p. 12)--texts of the latter sort being equally and evidently "saiva." The distinction is probably of greater import to Western (especially recent Western) readers anyhow--as is the term "Tantrism" itself, also studiously avoided here (Herbert Guenther is cited: "...probably one of the haziest notions and misconceptions the Western mind has evolved" [p. 12]). This leaves us with the adjective tantrika, which, pace Avalon, has a long Indian pedigree, and serves the compilers of this dictionary as their touchstone.

Padoux's introductory essay is itself an enlightening introduction to this murky field of study. He points (pp. 17-21) to several "characteristic" marks (one is tempted to read laksanani) that have served as points de repere for the collaborators: "le ritualisme" (comprising the necessary diksa and, frequently, overtly sexual practices) of tantrika texts; their "cosmogonies" (again, often overtly sexualized); and their "aspect doctrinal," which both places them on a par with sruti and links them directly to Vedic revelation.

Within this ambit, the selection is comprehensive and the results--perhaps paradoxically--definitive: whether the authors like it or not, "Tantrism" achieves here a finality that will placate many Western readers.

The lexicon itself is a marvel of international cooperation--first, between the College de France and the Austrian Academy of Sciences, but also between ten scholars of various nationalities (p. 37 for the complete list), whose individual "articles" are reproduced in the language in which they were...