In the early fifteenth century, two Tibetan monks debated how to transform the body ritually into a celestial palace inhabited by buddhas. The discussion between Ngorchen Künga Zangpo and Khédrupjé Gélek Pelzangpo concerned the mechanics of this tantric ritual practice, known as body mandala, as well as the most reliable sources to follow in performing it. As representatives of the Sakya and emerging Geluk traditions respectively, these authors spoke for communities of Buddhist practitioners vying for patronage and prestige in an evolving Tibetan scholastic culture. Their debate witnessed clashes between imagination and deception, continuity and rupture, and tradition and innovation. Searching for the Body demonstrates the significance of the body mandala debate for understandings of Tibetan Buddhism as well as conversations on representation and embodiment occurring across the disciplines today. Rae Erin Dachille explores how Ngorchen and Khédrup used citational practice as a tool for making meaning, arguing that their texts reveal a deep connection between ritual mechanics and interpretive practice. She contends that this debate addresses strikingly contemporary issues surrounding interpretation, intertextuality, creativity, essentialism, and naturalness. Buddhist ideas about the construction of meaning and the body offer new ways of understanding representation, which Dachille illuminates in an epilogue that considers Glenn Ligon’s engagement with Robert Mapplethorpe’s photography. By placing Buddhist thought in dialogue with contemporary artistic practice and cultural critique, Searching for the Body offers vital new perspectives on the transformative potential of representations in defining and transcending the human.

Anyone who has read more than a few books on Tibetan Buddhism will have encountered references tot he Six Yogas of Naropa. The six practices-inner heat, illsory bosy, clear light, consciousness transference, forceful projection and bardo yoga-gradually came to prevade thousands of monastaries, nunneries, and hermitages throughout Central Asia over the past five and a half centuries.

Regarded as one of the finest discussions on the subject to come out of Tibet.

This is a study and first English translation of the Vajra Rosary Tantra, a key Explanatory Tantra of the Guhyasam ja, etc. It describes the prerequisite realizations of the bodhisattva path and emptiness and the Tantric meditations that swiftly lead to buddhahood.

An essential tantric text on the practice of advanced yoga in tantric Buddhism. The Lamp for Integrating the Practices (Caryamelapakapradipa) is a systematic and comprehensive exposition of the most advanced yogas of the Esoteric Community Tantra (Guhyasamaja-tantra) as espoused by the Noble (Nagarjuna) tradition, an influential school of interpretation within the Mahayoga traditions of Indian Buddhist mysticism. Equal in authority to Nagarjuna's famous Five Stages (Pañcakrama), Aryadeva’s work is perhaps the earliest prose example of the “stages of the mantra path” genre in Sanskrit. Its systematic path exerted immense influence on later Indian and Tibetan traditions, and it is widely cited by masters from all four major lineages of Tibetan Buddhism. This volume presents the Lamp in a thoroughly annotated English translation. It includes an introductory study discussing the history of the Guhyasamaja and its exegetical traditions, surveying the scriptural and commentarial sources of the Nagarjuna tradition, and analyzing in detail the contents of the Lamp. The book also features a detailed, trilingual glossary. Simultaneously presented online for scholars are a version of its Sanskrit original, critically edited from recently identified manuscripts, and a critical edition of the eleventh-century Tibetan translation by Rinchen Zangpo, including notes on readings found in “lost,” alternative translations.

This is the first in a two-volume annotated translation of Tsong Khapa's Illumination of the Hidden Meaning (sbas don kun sel). A magnificent and massive commentary on the Cakrasamvara Tantra, this is first English translation of a work that marks a milestone in the Tibetan assimilation of the Indian Buddhist tantras. This first volume, which includes Tsong Khapa's detailed introduction to chapters 1 to 24 of the 51 chapter root tantra, covers the history of the tradition, its interpretation, and a range of topics including the construction of the mandala, the consecration therein, and the decoding of mantras and their ritual applications, as well as extensive details concerning the clans of the yoginis and the procedures to win their favor. David B. Gray situates the work in context and explores in depth the sources used in composing this commentary. He also provides detailed notes, a trilingual English-Tibetan-Sanskrit glossary, and an appendix that includes a translation and a critical edition of the Laghusamvaratantrapatalabhisandhi, a synopsis of the Cakrasamvara Tantra composed by Sumatikirti, which is quoted in its entirety by Tsong Khapa in his commentary. This work will be followed by a second volume of the annotated translation subtitled Yogic Vows, Conduct, and Ritual Praxis (An Annotated Translation of Chapters 25-51) and a third volume that will include a critical edition of the entire Tibetan text. Published by American Institute of Buddhist Studies (AIBS)

The first English translation of the Vajra Rosary Tantra, with extensive annotations from Alamkakalasha's Commentary, with a detailed introduction by the author. The Vajra Rosary is perhaps the most significant and detailed teaching attributed to Buddha instructing a practitioner how to overcome the 108 energies and their related conceptions that circulate in the subtle body and mind, leading most of us to continued rebirth in cyclic existence. The Vajra Rosary tells us how to overcome these energies and achieve the freedom of enlightenment. It is one of the “explanatory tantras” of the Buddhist Esoteric Community (Guhyasamaja) unexcelled yoga tantric system, the most complete of the four systems of tantra described in Indo-Tibetan Buddhist literature. The book’s analysis of the Vajra Rosary Tantra illuminates for readers perhaps the most compelling reason of all to choose Rosary—the path to enlightenment is built on overcoming the 108 energy-winds and conceptualities, the number of beads on the ancient Indo-Tibetan Buddhist rosary. Readers will learn what practices to engage in to accomplish the goal of becoming a fully enlightened buddha through this comprehensive text.

This collection contains four of the most cherished Tibetan Buddhist commentaries on the practices of visualization, mantra recitation, and meditative absorption—elements that form the core of development stage meditation, one of the most important practices of Buddhist Tantra. The texts within this volume—Ladder to Akaniṣṭha, Clarifying the Difficult Points in the Development Stage, The Four Stakes That Bind the Life-Force, and Husks of Unity—are among the most widely studied commentaries on this topic and have formed the basis for spiritual study and practice for centuries. In these eloquent and inspiring translations, Jigme Lingpa, Patrul Rinpoche, and Getse Mahāpaṇḍita explain the fundamental philosophy of the development stage, illuminating its profound insights into the nature of reality and how to utilize these insights through the practice of meditation.

First published in 1995. The volume is divided into four sections: The introduction places the position of the Buddhist Tantras within Mahayana Buddhism and recalls their early literary history, especially the Guhyasamahatantra; the section also covers Buddhist Genesis and the Tantric tradition. Next is the he foundations of the Buddhist Tantras are discussed and the Tantric presentation of divinity; the preparation of disciples and the meaning of initiation; symbolism of the mandala-palace Tantric ritual and the twilight language. The third section explores the Tantric teachings of the inner Zodiac and the fivefold ritual symbolism of passion. The bibliographical research contains an analysis of the Tantric section of the Kanjur exegesis and a selected Western Bibliography of the Buddhist Tantras with comments.

Despite the rapid spread of Buddhism the historical origins of Buddhsit thought and practice remain obscure.This work describes the genesis of the Tantric movement and in some ways an example of the feudalization of Indian society. Drawing on primary documents from sanskrit, prakrit, tibetan, Bengali, and chinese author shows how changes in medieval Indian society, including economic and patronage crises, a decline in women`s participation and the formation of large monastic orders led to the rise of the esoteric tradition in India.