Prem Saran offers the reader an intimate portrait of his life as an initiated tantrika and a self-proclaimed mystic in this idiosyncratic autobiographical and ethnographic account of Tantric traditions in Nepal. Saran weaves stories from his early childhood growing up in a Nayar Brahmin community in Kerala, his education or “intellectual engagement” (p. 36) in India and the United States, his “elite” government position within the Indian Administrative Service, and his own Tantric initiation in 1981 together with the rich life histories of eight male Tantric informants from diverse communities and ethnic groups in Bhaktapur, Patan, and Kathmandu.
Saran's central argument is that, at its core, Tantra is a “counter-cultural system” in Indic civilization, standing in opposition to the normative hierarchical privileging of the brahmanical (priestly) caste. However, his documentation of Hindu and Buddhist Tantric traditions relies almost exclusively on firsthand interviews and personal reflections on a wide range of subjects, including notions of agency, Tantric practice, and self-confessional attitudes toward sensual and yogic pleasure. Consequently, his theoretical analysis at times seems oversimplified and shallow. What really appears to be at issue here is the ongoing debate between insider and outsider perspectives in both anthropology and religious studies. Saran claims that his emic insights offer a more legitimate vantage point from which to view Tantra, but then grounds his thesis in a somewhat troubling agenda that cloaks a profound distain for Judeo-Christian tradition and most Western scholarship on South Asia.
The book is organized around three core themes, outlined in the first chapter: (1) discourse on individuality based on holonic or mandalic metaphors; (2) the metaphysics of eudaemonism, bhoga, or the erotic play (lila) of the divine; and (3) Tantric gender complementarity, as evidenced by the Hindu icon Shiva Ardhanariswara. Chapters 2 and 3 address the pervasive presence of macro, micro, and mesocosmic mandalic paradigms and reinforce Veena Das's salient argument that the Durkheimian theory of a sacred–profane dichotomy does not actually exist in Indic civilization. Rather, human and divine “co-exist on a continuum” (p. 20, 64).
Saran argues rather uncritically in chapter 5 that the androgynous form of Shiva Ardhanariswara represents convincing iconographical evidence of gynocentric elements in Hindu Tantra. Here, I would argue that Saran fails to question highly stylized brahmanical motifs and stock diagnostic indicators used in the canons of Indian iconography (shilpashastras) to depict gender. As a composite figure, Ardhanariswara displays several emblematic features, including the normative placement of left-side female, that challenge Saran's assumption of gender complementarity and gynopositivity. As I have argued elsewhere, icons such as Ardhanariswara cannot be viewed as separate from the legitimation and perpetuation of brahmanical orthodoxy. While the correlation between iconography and Indian culture is most obviously philosophical, theological, and metaphysical, we also see that it is social, economic, political, and legal, or—to use Saran's terms—the correlation is macro, micro, and mesocosmic. As such, the image of Ardhanariswara that Saran romanticizes provides an iconic repository for orthodox ideals that entrenches the very brahmanical hierarchy that Saran attempts to expose throughout his study. He therefore seems unaware of the irony implied by his oversight in not including a feminist critique or consulting women informants in his ethnographic account of Tantra.
Where I agree with Saran in theory is on the critical point that images such as Ardhanariswara represent powerful metaphysical blueprints for spiritual practice. By way of example, the androgynous image of Shiva calls into question a host of fundamental assumptions such as gender, hierarchy, dualism, and fixed notions of selfhood, individuality, and identity. However, throughout the course of his book, Saran fails to provide a penetrating gender critique of this image and, consequently, provides little more than a restatement of the traditional or brahmanical model. Had he investigated the image more thoroughly, he might have uncovered useful scholarly data by Raju Kalidos, Wendy Doniger, and Ellen Goldberg to support a more nuanced gynopositive argument.
Overall, Saran tackles some important themes and offers a useful window into the private lives of Tantric practitioners in Nepal. But, as a lasting contribution to Indology, anthropology, religious studies, and gender studies, Saran advances some innovative but ultimately unconvincing arguments for privileging emic over etic accounts.
