
Contents
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The Path of Power and the Dark Age of Modernity: Twentieth-Century European Scholarship on Tantra The Path of Power and the Dark Age of Modernity: Twentieth-Century European Scholarship on Tantra
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Imagining India: Heinrich Zimmer and the Tantric Imagination Imagining India: Heinrich Zimmer and the Tantric Imagination
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The Hero's Path: The Godlike Power of the Tantric Imagination The Hero's Path: The Godlike Power of the Tantric Imagination
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Riding the Tiger: Julius Evola and the Fascist Uses of Tantra Riding the Tiger: Julius Evola and the Fascist Uses of Tantra
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Revolt against the Modern World: Tantra and the Age of Darkness Revolt against the Modern World: Tantra and the Age of Darkness
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The Destructive Power of the Absolute: Tantra, Heroism, and Violence The Destructive Power of the Absolute: Tantra, Heroism, and Violence
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The Sacred as the Profane: Mircea Eliade, Tantra, and the Terror of History The Sacred as the Profane: Mircea Eliade, Tantra, and the Terror of History
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The Terrors of History and the Search for the Archaic The Terrors of History and the Search for the Archaic
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The Camouflage of the Sacred The Camouflage of the Sacred
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Religion for the Age of Darkness: Tantra and the Sacrality of the Profane Religion for the Age of Darkness: Tantra and the Sacrality of the Profane
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The Religion of Liberation: Reimagining Tantra in Twentieth-century Indian Scholarship The Religion of Liberation: Reimagining Tantra in Twentieth-century Indian Scholarship
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The Collective Liberation of Humanity: Gopinath Kaviraj's Supreme Integral Yoga The Collective Liberation of Humanity: Gopinath Kaviraj's Supreme Integral Yoga
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The Religion of the Oppressed Masses: Narendra Nath Bhattacharyya and the Marxist Reading of Tantra The Religion of the Oppressed Masses: Narendra Nath Bhattacharyya and the Marxist Reading of Tantra
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Tantric Radicalism and the Failure of Modern Hindu Nationalism Tantric Radicalism and the Failure of Modern Hindu Nationalism
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The Hopes and the Failures of the “Religion of the Oppressed” The Hopes and the Failures of the “Religion of the Oppressed”
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An Extreme Religion for an Age of Extremes An Extreme Religion for an Age of Extremes
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5 Religion for the Age of Darkness: Tantra and the History of Religions in the Twentieth Century
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Published:October 2003
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Abstract
This chapter looks at the “revalorized” place of Tantra—and perhaps even Tantro-centrism—in the work of twentieth-century historians of religions, such as Mircea Eliade, Heinrich Zimmer, and Julius Evola. It shows that there were often many political—and in Evola' case, explicitly fascist—ramifications in their scholarly reconstructions of Tantrism. However, it also examines the role of Tantra in modern Indian scholarship, where it likewise has become a key part of various cultural and political discourses surrounding Indian national identity and even the rise of communism in regions like West Bengal. Zimmer, Evola, and Eliade have had a formative impact on the fields of Indology (in the case of Zimmer), esotericism and right-wing politics (Evola), and comparative religions (Eliade). And all three felt a strong attraction to Tantra, a tradition that they defined as the culmination of all Indian thought: the most radical form of spirituality and the archaic heart of aboriginal India. In what they described as this modern “age of darkness,” they felt an intense sense of dislocation and a longing for an idyllic traditional past.
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