Tantric Revisionings present 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 in major specialist libraries.

Tantric Revisionings, Geoffrey Samuel, Motilal, 2005, Hardcover, 384 Pages, $29.95

Geoffrey Samuel is a specialist in the anthropology of Buddhist societies, particularly those of the Tibet and the Himalayas. He has also researched and published on anthropological theory, medical anthropology, ethnomusicology, and new religious movements in Western societies. He has worked at the University of Newcastle, Australia where he is currently Professor of Religious Studies at Lancaster University. In January 2005, he will be moving to Cardiff University in Wales as a professorial Fellow. Samuel's previous publications include two books, Mind, Body and Culture (1990) and Civilized Shamans (1993), as well as numerous articles and book chapters. He has also edited four books: Tantra and Popular Religion in Tibet (1994), with Hamish Gregor and Elisabeth Stutchbury), Nature Religion Today (1998, with Joanne Pearson and Richard H. Roberts), Healing Powers and Modernity (2001, with Linda H. Connor) and The Daughters of Hariti (2002, with Santi Rozario).

	Contents: Tantric Revisionings - New Understandings of Tibetan Buddhism and Indian Religion
	Preface and Acknowledgements	ix
	PART I - STARTING POINTS
1.	Introduction	1
2.	Tibet as a Stateless Society and Some Islamic Parallels	27
	PART II - HISTORICAL
3.	The Dissenting Tradition of Indian Tantra and its Partial Hegemonisation in Tibet	52
4.	Tibetan Tantra as a Form of Shamanism: Some Reflections on the Vajrayana and its Shamanic Origins	72
5.	Buddhism and the State in Eighth Century Tibet	94
6.	Shamanism, Bon and Tibetan Religion	116
7.	The Indus Valley Civilisation and Early Tibet	138
8.	Ge-sar of gLing: The Origins and Meanings of the East Tibetan Epic	165
	PART III - RELIGION IN CONTEMPORARY ASIA
9.	Tibet and the Southeast Asian Highlands: Rethinking the Intellectual Context of Tibetan Studies	192
10.	The Vajrayana in the Context of Himalayan Folk Religion	215
11.	The Effectiveness of Goddesses, or, How Ritual Works	229
12.	Women, Goddesses and Auspiciousness in South Asia	256
	PART IV - BUDDHISM AND OTHER WESTERN RELIGIONS
13.	Tibetan Buddhism as a World Religion: Global Networking and its Consequences	288
14.	The Westernisation of Tibetan Buddhism	317
15.	The Attractions of Tantra: Two Historical Moments	345
	Index	367