Tantric Text-Practices: a comparative ethnography of "tantra" in South and Southeast Asia

我们建议对两个现存的、历史上相关的密宗传统的文本实践进行比较民族志研究，这两个传统在非常不同的条件下独立发展了几个世纪，并且彼此相距相当远：在印度北部的西喜马拉雅山脉和印度尼西亚的巴厘岛。我们提议的研究补充了目前关于次大陆和爪哇、巴厘和柬埔寨等印度王国密宗传统之间联系的工作。虽然通常认为修行遵循（或由）经文规定，但我们的初步研究强烈建议，这些密宗经文传统应该被视为嵌入（和“旅行”）特定的修行（例如仪式，瑜伽，冥想等）。一项专注于修行而非文本的比较研究有助于我们的民族志方法，使所提出的研究具有高度的创新性，因为密宗的民族志几乎不存在。这至少在一定程度上是因为密宗传统是深奥的，而且众所周知，对它们进行研究是非常困难的。但这两位申请人多年来与当地从业人员建立了个人信任关系，正是这种关系使我们的串联项目成为可能，并充满希望。我们的项目以三种方式补充密宗研究：1）通过将密宗作为一种跨文化现象，在早期以及当代全球化进程中连接南亚和东南亚，从而扩展密宗研究; 2）通过将密宗文本纳入语言中来增强密宗研究（西帕哈里语、卡威语和高巴厘语）和到目前为止一直是密宗研究外围的经文; 3）通过对这些文本的当代使用的民族志关注，丰富了它。

We propose to undertake a comparative ethnography of text practices in two living and historically related tantric traditions that have developed independently for centuries under very different conditions and at considerable geographical distance from each other: in the Western Himalayas of north India, and on the Indonesian island of Bali. Our proposed research complements current work on the links between tantric traditions in the Subcontinent and in the Indic kingdoms of Java, Bali and Cambodia. Although it is usually assumed that practices follow (or are prescribed by) texts, our preliminary research strongly suggests that these tantric text traditions should rather be seen as embedded in (and 'travelling with') specific practices (e.g. ritual, yoga, prognostication etc.). A comparative study focusing on practices instead of texts lends itself to our ethnographic methods, making the proposed research highly innovative, since ethnographies of tantra are almost non-existent. This at least partly because tantric traditions are esoteric, and it is notoriously difficult to conduct research on them. But the two applicants have established personal relations of trust with local practitioners over a period of many years, and it is these relations more than anything else that make our tandem project possible and promising. Our project complements tantric studies in three ways: 1) it extends it by addressing tantra as a transcultural phenomenon linking South and Southeast Asia in early as well as contemporary processes of globalization; 2) it enhances it by including tantric texts in languages (Western Pahari, Kawi and High Balinese) and scripts that have until now been peripheral to tantric studies; and 3) it enriches it through its ethnographic focus on the contemporary uses of these texts.