Perfume of the Sacred Lotus

This is an anthropological analysis of religious texts and icons in which the body appears gender-flexed through sexual imagery. Based on evidence from material and historical culture we discuss a notable similarity between Egyptian and Indian narratives about the sacred body according to orientalist sources which approached the subject by translating works from Sanskrit and other languages including tantric literature. In methodological terms we consider body categories beyond biological and essentialist models going beyond genital differences - although they are emphasised in the Tantras - and analysing the asymmetries of power in the relational construction of these bodies. At first there seems to be an uninitiated impure sexualised body that needs to be reconstructed through the effort of individual and devotional will according to particular physical-mental practices. In this anthropological experiment we hope to find dissonant voices within the peculiar language of sacred eroticism and formulate new questions for the study of the subject.