9.30–10.30: Keynote: The Rise of Goddess Worship in Early Medieval India

Alexis G. J. S. Sanderson is Spalding Professor of Eastern Religions and Ethics, All Souls College, University of Oxford. He is a renowned expert on the history of Saivism and on tantric traditions. After taking undergraduate degrees in Classics and Sanskrit at Balliol College, Oxford, he spent six years in Kashmir studying with the celebrated scholar and Saiva guru Swami Lakshman Joo. From 1977 to 1992 he was Lecturer in Sanskrit in the University of Oxford, and Fellow of Wolfson College. Since 1992 he has held the Spalding Chair of Eastern Religions and Ethics in the University of Oxford, and is a Fellow of All Souls College.

11.00–12.00: On Goddesses and the Category Śakti in Early Tantric Śaivism: the case of the Niśvāsatattvasaṃhitā

This presentation explores the nature and historical development of goddesses and the category of Śiva’s “power(s)” (śakti) in the archaic Niśvāsatattvasaṃhitā. It is observed that while female deities have limited cultic importance, their significance increases in the later strata of the text, especially the Guhyasūtra. A shift from apotheoses of feminine-gendered cosmological categories to embodied goddesses appears evident, as are early developments in characteristic Śaiva doctrines concerning the roles of śakti in cosmogony and grace. The presentation also highlights some of the ways in which ritual forms and concerns of the Niśvāsatattvasaṃhitā presage those of early śākta-oriented tantric systems.

Shaman Hatley (Concordia University, Montréal), researches the literature, ritual, and social history of Tantric Śaivism in medieval India, and religion in premodern Bengal. Hatley’s dissertation, “The Brahmayāmalatantra and Early Saiva Cult of Yoginīs,” analyses the history of the Śaiva cult of yoginīs and provides a partial critical edition of one of its earliest scriptural sources, the Brahmayāmala. Hatley is a contributor to the Tāntrikābhidhānakośa (‘A Dictionary of Technical Terms from Hindu Tantric Literature’), and has authored several articles and book chapters concerning tantric practices and goddess cults. His current research focuses on the ritual roles and divinization of women in early Tantric Śaivism and Buddhism. He completed his Ph.D. in Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania in 2007, under the direction of Harunaga Isaacson.

12.00–1.00: The (un)dreadful goddess: Aghorī in early śākta tantras

This paper proposes to examine the figure and role of the goddess Aghorī (lit. ‘undreadful’) in early śākta tantras from about the seventh to ninth centuries CE, particularly in the Brahmayāmala and the Siddhayogeśvarīmata. In addition to being Bhairava’s consort (and identical with Bhairavī, the Frightening One), Aghorī appears in various sets of eight goddesses, who may represent the eight Mother goddesses (mātṛ). She is also said to be at the origin of all yoginīs. First, I shall try to explore the relation between Aghorī and her vedic counterpart, Aghora, and then to see how she attains the status of the supreme goddess in some contexts. The question of her presence or absence on different maṇḍalas will also be raised, and the consequences such details of the cult may entail will be analysed. Finally, I shall discuss her role in the creation of a specifically śākta pantheon.

Judit Törzsök studied English and Indian Studies at ELTE University, Budapest (MA, 1992), and completed her DPhil under Prof. Alexis Sanderson’s supervision at Merton College, Oxford (2000). After a Junior Research Fellowship at Emmanuel College, Cambridge and a post-doctoral year at the University of Groningen, she was appointed Assistant Professor (maître de conférences), at the University of Lille III, where she still teaches Sanskrit and classical Indian religions and literature. In the past four years, she also lectured at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris, where she obtained her habilitation in 2010, supervised by Lyne Bansat-Boudon. Her main research areas are pre-twelfth century śaiva tantrism (especially the early phase of goddess cults), classical Sanskrit literature (particularly drama), and purāṇic śaivism, with occasional incursions into classical Tamil devotional literature. She has published articles on various aspects of śaivism and tantrism, contributed to the Clay Sanskrit Library with two volumes, and participates in the Skandapurāṇa Project (Groningen) and the Tāntrikābhidhānakośa (Hindu Tantric Dictionary Project, Vienna).

2.30–3.30: The Śākta Co-option of Haṭhayoga

Text-critical study of the earliest texts to teach haṭhayoga (c.11th-13th centuries) shows that in its first formulations it was closely associated with traditional ascetic practice and that the aim of its techniques, which were physical, was to boost the beneficial effects of celibacy (or, at least, continence). Śākta traditions dating to a similar period had developed a system of yoga in which the yogin visualised the rising of Kuṇḍalinī from the base of the spine up through a series of cakras. This Kuṇḍalinī yoga, together with some other techniques developed in a Śākta milieu, was overlaid onto the techniques of haṭhayoga in texts such as the Vivekamārtaṇḍa, Gorakṣaśataka and Haṭhapradīpikā. The haṭhayoga taught in the latter text in particular became definitive and since its composition (c. 1450) Kuṇḍalinī-based haṭhayoga has been the dominant form of haṭhayoga, and indeed yoga more broadly conceived.

The co-option of haṭhayoga by a Śākta tradition is representative of both the development within Śāktism of a less exclusive, more universal yoga and of the formation of the Nāth saṃpradāya. The first gurus associated with the Nāth order, Matsyendra and Gorakṣa, were part of a non-celibate Śākta tradition which developed in the Deccan. Out of this tradition there developed the celibate order of Nāth ascetics whose influence ranged, and ranges, over all but the southeast of the subcontinent.

James Mallinson has a BA in Sanskrit from Oxford and an MA with a major in ethnography from SOAS. His DPhil. thesis at Oxford was a critical edition of the Khecarīvidyā, a Kaula work on khecarīmudrā, an important technique of haṭhayoga. After his DPhil. he translated Sanskrit poetry for the Clay Sanskrit Library for six years. He then spent a year teaching Sanskrit at SOAS and is now helping to set up an institute of Indian classical studies at Lavasa in India while continuing his research into yoga and yogis.

3.30–4.30: Varieties of melaka in the Jayadrathayāmala 

The encounters with yoginīs, called melaka or melāpa, constitute the core of the post-initiation tantric practice in the Vidyāpīṭha texts, and priya- and haṭha- varieties were well known to the pre-Abhinavagupta śaiva tantric literature. This presentation will explore the nature of the haṭhamelaka as it is described in the Jayadrathayāmala, including its relation to the practice of provoked possession (āveśa), as well as of some other rare varieties of melaka that can be found in this text only.

Olga Serbaeva Saraogi, Post-doc. researcher (Habilitation) at the faculty of Philosophy, Indogermanisches Seminar, Abteilung für Indologie, University of Zurich.

5.00–6.00: The Śakti of the Caṇḍālī

The 11th century Tantric text, the Yonitantra, evokes a Yantra representing the Yoni in which the central divinity is presented as Caṇḍālī, a woman belonging to what Dumont has labelled “the old prototype of the Untouchable”. Other Tantric texts ascribe the same significance to the Caṇḍāla woman or to women belonging to other low castes, most prominently the Ḍombī, the washer woman. What are the reasons behind this antinomian tribute to the lowest of low-caste women in Tantric texts? An answer to this question can be approached by a study of the representations of these castes in other literary genres. This paper will present an analysis of these literary images and on that basis address their use in Tantric texts.

Mikael Aktor is Associate Professor of History of Religions at Institute of Philosophy, Education and the Study of Religions, University of Southern Denmark. He holds a PhD from University of Copenhagen, a part of which was carried out at School of Oriental and African Studies, London. His field of expertise has so far mostly been within the study of Dharmaśāstra, in particular with a focus on caste and Untouchability. Today he is engaged in a research of North Indian Śaiva temple ritual and temple sculpture as part of a general interest in ritual studies and religious aesthetics.