Kiss of the Yogini:

Kiss of the Yogini: "Tantric Sex" in its South Asian Contexts

by David Gordon White
ISBN-10:
0226894843
ISBN-13:
9780226894843
Pub. Date:
08/15/2006
Publisher:
University of Chicago Press
ISBN-10:
0226894843
ISBN-13:
9780226894843
Pub. Date:
08/15/2006
Publisher:
University of Chicago Press
Kiss of the Yogini:

Kiss of the Yogini: "Tantric Sex" in its South Asian Contexts

by David Gordon White
$41.0 Current price is , Original price is $41.0. You
$41.00 
  • SHIP THIS ITEM
    Qualifies for Free Shipping
  • PICK UP IN STORE
    Check Availability at Nearby Stores
  • SHIP THIS ITEM

    Temporarily Out of Stock Online

    Please check back later for updated availability.


Overview

For those who wonder what relation actual Tantric practices bear to the "Tantric sex" currently being marketed so successfully in the West, David Gordon White has a simple answer: there is none. Sweeping away centuries of misunderstandings and misrepresentations, White returns to original texts, images, and ritual practices to reconstruct the history of South Asian Tantra from the medieval period to the present day.

Kiss of the Yogini focuses on what White identifies as the sole truly distinctive feature of South Asian Tantra: sexualized ritual practices, especially as expressed in the medieval Kaula rites. Such practices centered on the exchange of powerful, transformative sexual fluids between male practitioners and wild female bird and animal spirits known as Yoginis. It was only by "drinking" the sexual fluids of the Yoginis that men could enter the family of the supreme godhead and thereby obtain supernatural powers and transform themselves into gods. By focusing on sexual rituals, White resituates South Asian Tantra, in its precolonial form, at the center of religious, social, and political life, arguing that Tantra was the mainstream, and that in many ways it continues to influence contemporary Hinduism, even if reformist misunderstandings relegate it to a marginal position.

Kiss of the Yogini contains White's own translations from over a dozen Tantras that have never before been translated into any European language. It will prove to be the definitive work for persons seeking to understand Tantra and the crucial role it has played in South Asian history, society, culture, and religion.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780226894843
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Publication date: 08/15/2006
Edition description: 1
Pages: 391
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

David Gordon White is a professor of religious studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of Myths of the Dog-Man and The Alchemical Body: Siddha Traditions in Medieval India, both published by the University of Chicago Press, and the editor of Tantra in Practice.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Preface
Note on Transliteration
Abbreviations of Titles of Sanskrit Works
1. Tantra in Its South Asian Contexts
2. The Origins of the Yogini: Bird, Animal and Tree Goddesses and Demonesses in South Asia
3. The Blood of the Yogini: Vital and Sexual Fluids in South Asian Thought and Practice
4. The Mouth of the Yogini: Sexual Transactions in Tantric Ritual
5. The Power of the Yogini: Tantric Actors in South Asia
6. The Consort of the Yogini: South Asian Siddha Cults and Traditions
7. The Flight of the Yogini: Fueling the Flight of Tantric Witches
8. The Sublimation of the Yogini: The Subordination of the Feminine in High Hindu Tantra
9. Tantra New Millennium
Notes
Bibliography
Index
From the B&N Reads Blog

Customer Reviews