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Jacob P. Dalton offers a history of early tantric Buddhist ritual through the lens of the Tibetan manuscripts discovered near Dunhuang on the ancient Silk Road. He argues that the spread of ritual manuals offered Buddhists an extracanonical literary form through which to engage with their tradition in new and locally specific ways.
List of contents
Preface
Introduction
1. Ritual Manuals and the Spread of the Local
2. From Dhāraṇī to Tantra: The Sarvadurgatipariśodhana
Appendix: A Sarvadurgatipariśodhana Initiation Manual
3. Evoking Possession: The Sarvatathāgata-tattvasaṃgraha
Appendix: Tattvasaṃgraha-sādhanopāyika
4. Secretory Secrets: Sexual Yoga in Early Mahāyoga
Appendix: The Generation of Fortune Sādhana
5. Circles of Blazing Breaths: A Manual for Mantra Recitation
Appendix: Samādhi Sādhana with Commentary
Conclusions
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Jacob P. Dalton is Khyentse Foundation Distinguished Professor in Tibetan Buddhism at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of Taming of the Demons: Violence and Liberation in Tibetan Buddhism (2011) and The Gathering of Intentions: A History of a Tibetan Tantra (Columbia, 2016), as well as coauthor of Tibetan Tantric Manuscripts from Dunhuang: A Descriptive Catalogue of the Stein Collection at the British Library (2006).
Summary
Jacob P. Dalton offers a history of early tantric Buddhist ritual through the lens of the Tibetan manuscripts discovered near Dunhuang on the ancient Silk Road. He argues that the spread of ritual manuals offered Buddhists an extracanonical literary form through which to engage with their tradition in new and locally specific ways.
