UC Santa Barbara

Magic tantras, despite their ubiquity in South Asia, have been woefully ignored by Historians of Religions in South Asia. Magic operations or pragmatic rituals, as opposed to transcendental rituals, reveal the lives and anxieties of medieval South Asians. I identify three categories of rituals that constitute a typology of magic in the tantras: (1) six-results rituals (ṣaṭkarman), (2) fantastic feats and enchanted items (kautukakarman, indrajāla), and (3) conjuring (yakṣinīsādhana). I focus primarily on the six-results in this dissertation: tranquilizing (śānti), subjugation (vaśīkaraṇa), immobilization (sthambhana), bewildering (mohana), dissension (vidveṣaṇa), eradication (uccāṭana), attraction (ākarṣaṇa), and murder (māraṇa). No matter having six, nine, or ninety-nine constituents, these are called the six-results. Three scholars have written on the six results previously: Teun Goudriaan, Hans-Georg Türstig, and Gudrun Bühnemann, though only Bühnemann describes the six results without proposing a universal structure and system of magic throughout South Asia, a proposal that is ultimately non-existent.

Magic existed prior to the tantras in the form of (1) aggressive lethal magic (abhicāra); (2) ritual enhancements, often child-bearing (abhicāra); (3) conjuring dreadful female witches (kṛtyā, kṛtyābhicāra); and (4) herbal magic pertaining to erotics and sorcery (mulakarman, auṣadhi). I explore these techniques in the Atharvaveda, Manusṃṛṭi, Arthaśāstra, Kāmasūtra, and the Mahābhārata. While the language and many of the techniques found in these pre-medievel sources are echoed in the magic tantras, there is no coherent, unified ritual system that stretches from earlier ritual cultures into the magic tantras.

I located a battery of six results rituals in the Uḍḍīśatantra edited and glossed by Tripathī that is reproduced in two other Uḍḍīśatantras; those other two are edited, glossed, and commented upon by Śivadatta and by Śrivāstava. I present each category as described by Tripathī, translating the full operation including mantras, ingredients, ritual actions, and results. I add to Triapthīs description any unique rituals from the other two tantras. I conclude each treatment of the six results rituals by presenting Śrivāstava's lively Hindi-language interpretations of these techniques in contemporary times. A full translation of Tripathī's Uḍḍīśatantra is appended to this dissertation.

But magic was not unique to Śaiva sources. Two circa tenth-century Digambara Jain tantras from Karnataka describe all the six results procedures, namely the Bhairavapadmāvatīkalpa and the Jvālāmālinīkalpa. The two Jain tantras represent a curious backwater of medieval Jain ritual culture in which pragmatic rituals for aggressive, martial, and even erotic ends are prescribed without concern for normative Jain ideology on non-violence and asceticism. Titular goddesses Padmāvatī and Jvālāmālinī are Jain deities suited for the agonistic, medieval world in which Śaivas, Buddhists, and Jains competed to secure royal patronage and vied for popularity in contentious religious marketplaces. Presenting six results lore in these texts uncovers a Jain tradition of magic that has never been thoroughly studied and demonstrates contiguity with Śaiva tantra traditions, especially Śrividyā. A full translation of the Bhairavpadmāvatīkalpa is appended to this dissertation.

Finally I depart from Śaivism and Jainism and turn to the Buddhist Bhūtaḍāmaratantra, whose main ritual concern is conjuring, the third constituent in my definition of magic. The tantra opens by describing Buddhist Vajradhara/Vajrapāṇi dominating Maheśvara, forcing to Śaiva god to convert to Buddhism and to support Buddhism, to support Buddhists, and to protect all those who practice the rituals in this text. After the conversion narrative, the text describes numerous sequences of goddess spirits who are dominated via spells, hand gestures, and ritual exertions. When presenting conjuring materials in this Buddhist text I note parallels deities and practices, especially yakṣinī spirits and yoginī sādhana practices, that are found throughout the magic tantras. A partial critical edition of the Bhūtaḍāmaratantra created from Nepali manuscripts is appended to this dissertation; its contents are either translated or glossed in the body of this final chapter.