Tantra Across the Buddhist Cosmopolis

Tantra Across the Buddhist Cosmopolis examines key aspects of the tantric Buddhist movement from its beginnings in early medieval India to the present day. Across its centuries-long history, tantric Buddhism has spread throughout the global community of Buddhist practitioners and institutions--the Buddhist cosmopolis. Buddhist tantra is so diverse that no conclusive or comprehensive list of defining characteristics is possible. Despite this complexity, the movement is coherent and continuous. Richard K. Payne guides us through the problematic intellectual and cultural issues historically impeding academic study of the movement and its influence. Scholarly disagreements about defining Buddhist tantra are dissolved by realizing that its components--rituals, texts, teachings, art, architecture, and yogic practices--are tantric by context, use, and designation.

Focusing on different regions and eras allows close examination of specific aspects of tantric Buddhist history--a history obscured by sectarian conflicts, attempts at erasure, changes in state sponsorship, and marginalization and neglect. Considering this complicated story, Tantra Across the Buddhist Cosmopolis argues for a three part claim: tantric Buddhism pervades Buddhist history, and while often rendered invisible, it nonetheless constitutes a coherent and continuous movement.

The intellectual understandings that ground religious studies are not neutral, not objective, and not ahistorical. They result from the history of religious studies in Europe and America. Payne demonstrates that the history and practice of tantric Buddhism complicates the academic field of religious studies. The result is an unparalleled overview of the tantric Buddhist tradition and its challenges to both popular and scholarly ideas about the nature of religion and its study.

Richard K. Payne, Professor Emeritus, Institute of Buddhist Studies (Berkeley, California), is the author of Language in the Buddhist Tantra of Japan (2018), and co-editor of the xford Encyclopedia of Buddhism (2024), The Oxford Handbook of Tantric Studies (2024), and Homa Variations (2015). He is the founding Editor in Chief of The Oxford Bibliographies in Buddhism.