Early Tantra: Discovering the interrelationships and common ritual syntax of the Saiva, Buddhist, Vaisnava and Saura traditions

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Tantric scriptures form the basis of almost all the various theistic schools of theology and ritual in post-Vedic India, as well as of a major strand of Buddhism (Vajrayāna). Among these schools, those centred on the Hindu deities Siva and Visnu spread well beyond the Indian subcontinent to Kambuja (Cambodia/Laos/Thailand), Champa (Vietnam) and Indonesia, while Buddhist tantrism quickly became pan-Asian. Our aim is to study the interrelationships between the tantric traditions on the basis of fundamental source-material, which we will be publishing for the first time. We have identified manuscripts in Nepal and in India of a number of the earliest surviving Sanskrit scriptures of these religious currents. Two Śaiva works (one of which we have argued may be the earliest of all surviving tantric scriptures) and two Buddhist ones have been selected for detailed treatment, including editions of the whole text or of selected chapters. Preliminary transcriptions of these works have already been produced by various scholars. Two early Vaisnava tantric scriptures, and the sole known Saura (Sun) tantra, will also be used as comparative material (preliminary transcriptions provided by Diwakar Acharya, who has agreed to coordinate his work with ours). The earliest of these tantric traditions appears to be the Śaiva one, but Śaiva tantrism has clearly both influenced and been influenced by the tantric traditions of Buddhism and of Vaisnavism. Our work, bringing together experts on these different but related traditions for the first time for such a project, will shed much new light on their formation and interdependence.