Tibetan Mahayoga Tantra - Hardcover

Andrea Loseries-Leick

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 8176466425 ISBN 13: 9788176466424

Publisher: B.R. Publishing Corporation, 2008

Synopsis

Language: English
Pages: 310 (34 Color and 88 B/W Illustrations)
About the Book

Bone carving, one of the most ancient crafts of Tibet, is here treated in the context of Mahayoga Tantra.

Since the first missionary report from Tibet in the letters to Rome(17th-18th century) the use of skulls and bones in Tibet was described as sorcery involving all sorts of magic operations, and referred in the context to head hunting practice and ancestry cults.

For the first time a full and thorough ethnohistorical investigation is presented, combining the study of early Indian written documents (5th-12th cent.) and Tibetan texts (11th -20th cent.) on the subject with field study and participating observation (1983- 1994).

The author, herself a practicing Tantrik Buddhist, relates the use of skulls and bones to rituals of the Mahayoga Tantra within Vijrayana Buddhism. On the example of five traditional ritual instruments made of human bones: Thigh bone trumpet, Damaru, Skull cup, Prayer beads and Bone ornaments, she explains the philosophical ground, application and aim of the technology, function and symbolism of Tibetan ‘bone lore’, including relics, sacred mummies and the practice of mummification in Tibet.

Spiced with autobiographical accounts this book gives a rare ethno-historical insight into to the magical mysteries of Tibet. Whoever wants to know about Trance-runners, skull oracles or how to fabricate a Cloak of Invisibility may find here the answers.

 

About the Author

Andrea Loseries- Leick An Austrian National, has studied in Paris, Santiniketan and Vienna Tibetology, Indology, History of Asian Arts and Ethnology. Fluent in four European and four Asian Languages she is an expert in field studies, focusing in her research on the c

About this edition

• Publisher: B.R. Publishing Corporation
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 8176466425
• ISBN 13: 9788176466424
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 258