Sarkar''s Tantra:A Comparative and Historical Review of Transcendental Praxis

• Main Authors: Justin Hewitson, 程曉杰
• Other Authors: Kirill Ole Thompson
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2014
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/htwk4e

博士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 外國語文學研究所 === 103 === This study has two main sections; Part One is an etic historiography of Tantra contrasted with the Tantric Sadguru Shrii Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar’s (Shrii Shrii Anandamurti) emic chronology. Contemporary exegeses of Tantric ideology are contextualized by Sarkar’s formal definition of Shiva Tantra as a 5500 BCE transcendental praxis leading to the liberation of anthropical consciousness. The introduction of standardized nomenclature facilitates researching duality, monism, consciousness, and infinity in the macro-environment of material and transcendental cosmology. Part One compares the commonly accepted definition, history, and aims of Classical Tantra with Sarkar’s exegesis of Shiva Tantra. Part Two is an emic hodology of transcendental praxes. Sarkar’s cosmology and causal theory of mind are ontologically differentiated from materialism. Finally, Sarkar’s Tantric sādhanā (meditation) and bhakti (devotion) are, respectively, compared with Husserl’s Transcendental Reduction and Socratic eros. The gestalt of this study has a single aim: to elucidate how meditation’s objective, liberation or ‘moks̟a’ is profoundly impacted by cessative or numinous objects of meditation. Sarkar’s discourses on Tantric philosophy are public; however, instruction in Tantric meditation requires initiation ‘Tántrikii diikśá.’ Sarkar defines Tantra in Discourses on Tantra Volume 2: “Tan means “to expand” and tra means “liberator”; so the science that frees the aspirant from the fetters of bondages by expansion — by expanding the mind, by expanding the existence – is Tantra” (22). This study’s major theme, complementing its elucidation of Tantric meditation, is the convergence of Sarkar’s theory and praxis in, what Gerald Larson states are “two of the most puzzling yet important terms in South Asian studies, . . . ‘yoga’ and ‘tantra’” whose nexus is “the study of the self (ātman) or mind (citta)” (487). The introduction overviews Tantra and discusses the critical need for both emic and etic Indological studies on Tantra-Yoga. The importance of practitioner-researchers in cognitive studies disciplined in meditation and analytic research is explored. Sarkar’s causal model of mind establishes the terminology of this work. A new term introduced by this study, Metaseity, unites interdisciplinary concepts of true infinity, absolute void, nirguńa, śūnyatā, and Tao. Chapter 2 introduces Sarkar’s explication of Tantra as ascesis to counter its typical misconstruction as antinomian hedonism. Chapter 3 vexes the polemical histories of Vedanta and Tantra-Yoga, arguing a terminus a quo for Shiva Tantra in approximately 5500 BCE. The evidence of the Rg̟ Veda and Sarkar’s analysis is juxtaposed against the widely accepted 300 BCE date. Chapters 4 and 5 present Sarkar’s Shivology, divulging Sarkar’s unique knowledge of Tantra and its first preceptor, Shiva. Shiva Tantra’s transformation into Vajrayana Buddhism and other sects vis-a-vis its adoption, integration, and distortion is grounded by Sarkar’s historiography of Tantric festivals and deities. Part Two of this dissertation focuses on Sarkar’s Tantra and meditative praxis as compared to Western transcendentalism. Chapter 6 compares Cartesian duality with transcendental monism, contrasting physicists’ notions of material infinity with transcendental infinity. Chapter 7 investigates the object and objective of meditation, followed by Tantric and Buddhist accounts of savikalpa and nirvikalpa samādhi. Chapter 8 discusses the significance of Sarkar’s pratyāhāra to Husserl’s Phenomenology and his little understood Transcendental Reduction. This informs a Tantric analysis of ipseity — the transcendental self. Chapter 9 correlates Plato’s Symposium and the eros of the seer Diotima with the Iatromantis, Parmenides. The latter’s monism and Socratic eros is adduced to Tantric bhakti (devotion). Chapter 10 summarizes the major findings of this comparative study of Sarkar’s Tantra.