Tantric Revisionings

Tantric Revisionings presents stimulating new perspectives on Hindu and Buddhist religion particularly their Tantric versions in India Tibet or in modern Western societies. Geoffrey Samuel adopts an historically and textually informed anthropological approach seeking to locate and understand religion in its social and cultural context. The question of the relation between 'popular' (folk domestic village 'shamanic') religion and elite (literary textual monastic) religion forms a recurring theme through these studies. Six chapters have not been previously published; the previously published studies included are in publications which are difficult to locate outside major specialist libraries.