List of Figures and Tables xiii
Preface and Acknowledgments xv
List of Abbreviations xix
Introduction: Making Sense in and of the Human Sciences 1
Part I Historiography
1. Origins, Religion, And The Origins Of Tantrism 17
Understanding Tantric Buddhism Through Its Origins 18
The Quest for Origins as Method in the History of Religions 32
2. Narrating Tantric Buddhism 37
The Poetics of Historiography 38
Tantra as End: The Decline and Fall of Indian Buddhism 43
Tantra as Beginning: The Primordial Undercurrent 51
Tantra as Middle: Medieval Estericism 58
Historical Narrative and Ideological Implication 66
3. Going Native: Traditional Historiography of Tantric Buddhism 68
Historiography and Cosmology in Exoteric Buddhism 71
Historiography and Cosmology in Esoteric Buddhims 79
Observatins on Structure, Function, and Historiography 95
Part II Interpretation
4. The Semiology of Transgression 105
The Literal and the Figurative in Tantric Hermeneutics 107
Connotative Semiotics as Exegetical Method 113
Connotative Semiotics in Tantric Ritual 117
Connotative Semiotics in Tantric Scripture 125
5. The Practice of Indian Tantric Buddhism 133
Interpreting the Practice Observance I: Irony and Inversion 144
Interpreting the Practice Observance II: Prerequisites and Temporal Frame 149
Interpreting the Practice Observance III: Saiva Parallels 152
6. Tantric Buddhist Transgression in Context 170
The Social Location of Esoteric Buddhism as an Interpretative Problem 171
Contriving Marginality 173
The Common Repertoire of Buddhist Professionals 175
Carnivalesque or Rituals of Rebellion? 188
But�Did They Really Do It?! 192
Conclusion: No Two "Ways" About It 200
Appendix I The Indrabhuti Story According to Pad Ma Dkar PO (CA. 1575) 207
Appendix II Chapter Nine of The Buddhakapala Tantra, The "Practice" (Caryapatala) 209
Notes 211
Bibliography 267
Index 301