New Light on Tantra (Accounts of Some Tantras, Both Hindu and Buddhist, Alchemy in Tantra Tantric Therapy, List of Unpublished Tantras, etc.) (An Old Book)

The book like its predecessor seeks to set forth a history of Tantra in India. Our attention has been paid chiefly to Tantric Therapy, a Mother neglected field. In it not only Hindu Tantras but also Buddhist Tantras have been dealt with and the influence of Tantra on life literature, music art and architecture have been described. Some important works both Hindu and Buddhist have been carefully analysed. A novel feature of this book is a list of unpublished Tantras in India and abroad.

This work has no pretention to completeness. This is to some extent a pioneering work on certain aspects of Tantra. It is expected to be useful to readers.

Dr. S.C Banerjee, retired Professor of Sanskrit, Department of Education, Government of West Bengal, devoted thirty years of his life to teaching. Research has been his hobby ever since his student days. He has over 30 published works to his credit on various aspects of Indology.

These include Kalidasa-Kosa, Indian Society in the Mahabharata, A Companion to Sanskrit Literature, Dharmasutras, Tantra in Bengal, etc. His Bengali work, Smrtisastre Vangali, earned him a Rabindra Memorial Prize, the highest literary award of the Government of West Bengal. Deeply interested in the sociology of ancient India. He is engaged in the study of different aspects of it. Soma of his works have earned the acclaim of scholars, both Indian and foreign.

This Author's A Brief History of Tantra Literature ( 1988 ) appears to have been popular among the lovers of indology- The author has got appreciative response from scholars of such far-off countries as England, Switzerland and Russia. Some Indian specia- lists in Tantra expressed the desire that the author should continue his studies in Tantra shedding further light on this vast literature.

For the above reasons, the present work was undertaken. It is partly a supplement to the aforesaid Brief History of Tantra Literature in the sense that the contents of some more Tantras have heen analysed and some Tantras, briefly referred to in the earlier work, have been dealt with in greater detail.

The most novel feature of this work is Tantric Therapy which, as far as the author is aware, has not yet been dealt with by any author in English.

In this work, an attempt has been made to give accounts of some Tantras, both Hindu and Buddhist. The works of Goraksa natha and the Gheranda-samhita are predominantly works on Yoga. We have included them as they contain much of Tantric elements.

For the convenience of the readers, particularly of researchers, several appendices have been added. The highlights of the appendices are geographical information, accounts of Pithasthanas and some other places, information about Tantras dealing with Yoga and the place of Caitanya in Tantra. The last appendix gives a list of unpublished Tantras in India and abroad, with their respective places of deposit.

No work now-a-days is deemed to be complete without a Glossary of important technical terms relating to the subject in hand and a Bibliography. These two, being concerned with the same subject as in the Brief History, referred to above, are practically the same as in the previous work. To some, the Glossary and the Bibliography may appear to be repetitive. This cannot be helped under the circumstances stated above.

The author takes this opportunity to thank his wife, Sm. Ramala Devi, and his daughters, Prof. Dr. Chhanda Chakraborty and Sm. Sarmila Chattopadhyay, for their ungrudging help but for which it would not have been possible for the author to translate his dream into reality.

The author's labour, spread over a number of years, will be rewarded if the present work proves to be of some use to those who are genuinely interested in the various aspects of Tantra literature.