[Buddha-l] Tantric Buddhism

[jkirk]

>
> I wonder if any of you can recommend a text or texts which could help me 
> sort out:
> (1) Indian Hindu Tantric thought 5th-13th century
> (2) Indian Buddhist Tantric thought 5th-13th century
> (3) Tibetan Tantric Buddhism
>
> Most texts I own seem to conflate all three, and many consider later 
> Tibetan Tantric ideas to be the same as the earlier Indian Tantric 
> practices and beliefs.
>
> I am inclined to believe that there are significant differences between 
> (2) and (3), but I'm not sure if there were any significant differences 
> between (1) and (2)..........
>
> Bob Zeuschner
> Dept. of Philosophy
> Pasadena City College
=================================
Recommend my old friend, now gone, Bharati, Agehananda. _The Tantric 
Tradition_. Greenwood, 1977.
Bharati was a polyglot scholar who could read several classical languages 
including Skt, Pali and Tibetan, and also major EU languages + English. 
After WW2, after he was released from a POW camp, (at that time he was 
Leopold Fischer, an Austrian), he went to India, became initiated into the 
Dasanamis, and later wrote a book about his taking the ascetic life, titled 
_The Ochre Robe_. Years later he taught Indology in the Anthro. Dept. at 
Syracuse University.

I found his sorting out of the two main traditions to be quite informative.
Joanna Kirkpatrick