This presentation in the Śākta Traditions Seminar will ask and consider the question if there, in the early and medieval Śākta tantric traditions, existed a distinctive Śākta anthropology that differed from other contemporary traditions, and if so, how this model was distinctive from other competing systems from that period. The focus will mainly be placed on the practices and texts of the Kulamarga and the early haṭha- and layayoga corpus, in which the latter describes a more Śākta-oriented system that differs from the bindudhārana system of early haṭhayoga.
Gitte Poulsen is a MA student in Sanskrit and Religious Studies from Aarhus University, and a visiting student at the OCHS. Her field of interests are mainly early- and medieval Śākta tantric traditions, demonology, phenomenology and hermeneutics.