ABSTRACTS
SESSION III:
TANTRIC RITUAL AND THE BODY
Bodily Protection and Physical Harm in a Sri Vidya Temple Setting
Sudharshan Durayappah, University of Toronto
This paper will discuss the rituals of bodily protection and
instances of the bodily harming in association with the sacred in
the Sri Vidya tradition as seen in the Sri Rajarajeswari Temple in
Rush, New York. For example, in the most formal setting of a
navavarna puja the ritual practitioner performs a niyasa on his or
her body, a ritual armor required for the commencement of this puja.
Echoing the principles of the niyasa, the individuals who carry the
murtis also ritually protect themselves by applying consecrated
vibhuti before the murti is lifted. In an informal setting of the
wood workshop, when ter chariots are being constructed individuals
consider bodily injury as divinely implicated and therefore a
blessing.
Based on years of field study at Rush, I will explore rituals of
bodily protection and divine physical harming in formal, semi formal
and informal temple settings. I will reflect on the various ways
sacred powers are seen not only as benevolent but also malevolent,
potentially conferring blessings as well as danger. I have observed
during navavarna puja, sixteen different niyasas involving the
precise placement of bija syllables on different parts the body. The
murti porters also utilize mantras to apply vibhuti on specific body
parts prior to Murti contact. In contrast, individuals get
physically hurt while working on sacred objects within the temple
vicinity, attributing bodily harm to sacred power yet do not
ritually protect themselves. Is the harm reduced or more contained
in a formal ritual setting than an informal temple shed? Why does
the body need to be protected from the sacred? In my paper I will
explore the need for bodily protection from the sacred and the
implied associations between divinity, physicality and malevolence.
Yogic
Gestures and Radical Modes of Being: The Bodily Unsealing of the
Other in Abhinavagupta’s Trika Saivism
Kerry Martin Skora, Hiram College
 This paper focuses
on the use of yogic bodily gestures (mudra) and other bodily modes
of being in tantric ritual, according to the Trika Saiva sage
Abhinavagupta (c. 975-1025 c.e.).
I first discuss
Abhinavagupta’s 32nd chapter of the Tantraloka, where he
discusses yogic gestures, perceptions, and states of awareness.
Tending to the lived body, I show that these yogic gestures are
profound ways of carrying and holding oneself, allowing for new
bodily modes of being. I shift our attention away from metaphysics
and toward embodied phenomenology, showing that the deepest level of
awareness in Abhinavagupta’s tradition is best understood as
pre-cognitive bodily felt awareness.
I next turn to a
creative etymology and discussion of mudra found in the
Pratyabhijnahrdayam by Abhinavagupta’s disciple Ksemaraja (c.
1000-1050 c.e.). Especially important is his description of mudra
as “sealing” the body into Infinite Consciousness. I link this idea
to Abhinavagupta’s notion of mudra as giving the gift of the
Authentic Self in/through/as the body, showing that, for the Trika
Saivites, the highest reality is always already revealed, the gift
of the embodied Self waiting to be unveiled.
Finally, inspired
by anthropologist of the body Thomas Csordas’s notion of “embodied
Otherness,” and phenomenological theologian Jean-Louis Chretien’s
elucidation of the Other as being always already “unsealed” into the
human body through primordial touching, I conclude that, for
Abhinavagupta and Ksemaraja, Siva “calls” the individual precisely
by means of the body and touch, “unsealing” or opening Himself, by
binding or “sealing” the finite body with Infinite Consciousness.
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