Thoughts on Tantra and Vaisnavism

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This book is the collection of a few essays written mainly on tantra and Vaisnavism. Some essays on the philosophers of Badarayana’s Brahma-sutra, samkhya-yoga and Vijnanavada have also been incorporated into it. In these essays, the author has endeavored to present some controversial concepts from their true perspective and to wipe put the misconceptions mostly about Badarayana’s Sri Chaitanya, samkhya-yoga and Vijnanavada.

Prof. K.P. Sinha passed M.A. in Sanskrit from Jadavpur University in 1963 and obtained the Ph.D. degree from the same university in 1968. He was admitted to the D.Lit. degree of the University of Burdwan in 1982. Prof. Sinha is a devoted researcher in the different fields of Indian philosophy. Besides, he is the first exponent of Bishnupriya Manipuri linguistics Prof. Sinha’s other works are: 1. Nyaya-darsana-vimarsah. 2. Sankara-vedante jnana-mimansa. 3. Sankara-vedante Tattva-mimansa 4. Nairatmya-vada---the Buddhist theory of Not-self. 5. Reflexions on Indian philosophy. 6. Indian Theories of creation. 7. The philosophy of Jainism. 8. The Absolute in Indian Philosophy. 9. The self in Indian Philosophy. 10.The Bishnupriya Manipuri—Their Language, literature & culture. 11. The Bishnupriya Manipuri language, 12. An Etymological Dictionary of Bishnupriya Manipuri. 13. on the need of Sanskrit.

The present work is a collection of a few papers some of which have already been published in some journals. The majority of the papers entered into this work are concerned with tantra and Sri Caitanya’s Vaisnavism. A few papers on the philosophies of Badarayana’s, Samkhya-Yoga and Vijnanavada have also been incorporated into ] ]” body of the work. The aim of all these papers is to wipe out some misconceptions about the Tantric practiced and also about some aspects of the philosophies of Sri Caitanya’s Vaisnavism, Badarayana’s Brahma-sutra, Samkhya-yoga and vijnanavada. Popularly, most of the Tantric practices are thoughts to be nasty and horrific ; we have endeavored to show that these are actually not so, rather they are all divine. Sri Caitanya’s philosophy is looked upon as quite contradictory to that of Sankara; we have to tried to establish that it is not so, the difference between these two systems lying only in the fact that Sankara puts emphasis on some aspect of the Absolute and Sri Caitanya on another, likewise we have made an attempt to demonstrate that Badarayana’s philosophy, which has been interpreted by so many commentators in so many ways, is one of bhedabheda or difference-cum-non-difference and that the philosophy of Patanjala-Yoga is quite in harmony with the other Yoga-treatises and also with the Upanisads. We hope that our thoughts contained in these papers will give a new dimension to the interpretations of the philosophical concepts concerned.

I am very much thankful to Sri S.K Bhattacharya of Punthi-Pustak who has taken a keen interest in this work and published it within a short span of time.