Introduction to “Cognitive Science and the Study of Yoga and Tantra”
Journal Title: Religions - Year 2017, Vol 8, Issue 9
Abstract
The range of disciplines known as the Cognitive Science of Religions (CSR), which has emerged in recent decades, embraces many areas and specializations within the Academy, including cognitive science, linguistics, neuroscience, and religious studies. The results of this exploration, some of which are offered in this Special Issue before you, are intriguing, profound, and yet still preliminary. As will be noted below, this “preliminary” nature of CSR is due to the fact that our scientific knowledge of the neurological system—let alone of how the mind “works”—is still in mostly early phases. Techniques in imaging and scanning the brain, as well as in understanding patterns and processes in perception and cognition, are advancing with every day, yet we are still at some remove from making all but the most general or speculative statements. This does not, of course, mean that we have to stand by and wait for the technology to improve or to reach some critical point. As with any meaningful discipline in scholarship and science, CSR proceeds in halting but definite steps, and we hope that the essays in this issue demonstrate what some of us in the area of Tantric Studies can provide to the dialogue. None of these essays are by cognitive scientists, so we ask our colleagues in the sciences to consider how the dialogue might be furthered through their own efforts in understanding Tantra. For those unfamiliar with Tantric Studies (itself a fairly recent interdisciplinary field of academic pursuits),1 the field is one which examines “Tantra”, a broad range of originally pan-Asian religious traditions connected to Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Taoism, and various indigenous communities. As with the ongoing scholarly dispute over basic methodologies, terminology and vocabulary in CSR, there has been lively debate over the key term of “Tantra”, as well as how far back it goes in history.2 Dating from no later than the 4th century CE in South Asia, Tantra is difficult to define, but perhaps best regarded through the lens of a “polythetic” category as proposed by Douglas Renfrew Brooks.3 Tantra may be regarded as historical systems of ritual practices in which an individual engages with a layered cosmology, utilizing diverse senses, cognitive capacities, and sexuality in order to achieve elevated states of consciousness and embodied liberation. There are innumerable iterations of Tantra, ranging from theistic to nontheistic, although most seek to “reverse” the flow of cosmic process and manifestation in order to lead the individual to some heightened, typically unitive, state.
Authors and Affiliations
Glen Alexander Hayes and Sthaneshwar Timalsina
Keywords
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- EP ID EP25774
- DOI https://doi.org/10.3390/rel8090181
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