Śaivism and the Tantric Traditions: Essays in Honour of Alexis G.J.S. Sanderson

Academic study of the tantric traditions has blossomed in recent decades, in no small measure thanks to the magisterial contributions of Alexis G. J. S. Sanderson, until 2015 Spalding Professor of Eastern Religions and Ethics at Oxford University. This collection of essays honours him and touches several fields of Indology that he has helped to shape (or, in the case of the Śaiva religions, revolutionised): the history, ritual, and philosophies of tantric Buddhism, Śaivism and Vaiṣṇavism; religious art and architecture; and Sanskrit belles lettres. Grateful former students, joined by other experts influenced by his scholarship, here offer papers that make significant contributions to our understanding of the cultural, religious, political, and intellectual histories of premodern South and Southeast Asia.

Contributors are: Peter Bisschop, Judit Törzsök, Alex Watson, Isabelle Ratié, Christopher Wallis, Péter-Dániel Szántó, Srilata Raman, Csaba Dezső, Gergely Hidas, Nina Mirnig, John Nemec, Bihani Sarkar, Jürgen Hanneder, Diwakar Acharya, James Mallinson, Csaba Kiss, Jason Birch, Elizabeth Mills, Ryugen Tanemura, Anthony Tribe, and Parul Dave-Mukherji.

Dominic Goodall studied under Alexis Sanderson at Oxford (doctorate 1996), joined the École Française d’Extrême-Orient (2000), and is now head of its Pondicherry Centre. He has published editions and translations of Śaiva works, Sanskrit poetry and Cambodian inscriptions. He is joint-editor, with Marion Rastelli, of the Vienna dictionary of tantric terminology (Tāntrikābhidhānakośa).
Shaman Hatley studied under Harunaga Isaacson at the University of Pennsylvania (doctorate 2007), taught at Concordia University until 2015, and is now Associate Professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston. His research mainly concerns Tantric Śaivism, yoga, and medieval goddess cults, and his publications include The Brahmayāmalatantra or Picumata, vol. I, (Pondicherry, 2018).
Harunaga Isaacson, PhD in Sanskrit (University of Leiden, 1995), was a post-doctoral research fellow at Oxford University (1995 to 2000), and held positions at Hamburg University (2000-2002) and the University of Pennsylvania (2002- 2006) before joining Hamburg University as Professor of Classical Indology in 2006. His main research areas are South Asian tantric traditions, especially Vajrayāna Buddhism; classical Sanskrit poetry; Indian philosophy; Purāṇic literature; and manuscript studies.
Srilata Raman studied with Alexis Sanderson between the years 1986-1988, taking her M.Phil under his supervision at Oxford University. She is currently Associate Professor of Hinduism at the University of Toronto and specializes on the textual history of Tamil religion in both its Sanskrit and Tamil iterations, focusing on specific figures in both the Śrīvaiṣṇava and Tamil Śaiva traditions between the 12-14th and the 18-19th centuries.