This thesis explores the development of an important Indian Buddhist scripture, the Cakrasamvara Tantra, and the tradition of exegesis and practice based upon it. It consists of an edition and translation of the first four chapters of the Cakrasamvara Tantra, as well as a translation of the corresponding portion of Tsongkhapa's Total Illumination of the Hidden Meaning, a Tibetan commentary on this scripture. These texts are contextualized via efforts to define “Tantric Buddhism” as it is understood by the tradition itself, and via explorations of both the intellectual and socio-historical contexts within which Tantric Buddhism developed, and the ways in which different subtraditions within it were elaborated and categorized.
It is argued that a common element of Tantric traditions is their resistance to the hegemonic ideology of caste. An exploration of this ideology and Buddhist resistance to it is undertaken. Tantric discourse was deployed as a form of resistance against caste ideology, but also constituted a counter ideology, which centered around the figure of the guru as a nexus of power and authority, and articulated in the model of the mandala .
The Cakrasamvara Tantra is notable for the strong presence of “non-Buddhist elements”. The Cakrasamvara Tantra is a composite text drawing from diverse sources, and while it probably reached its final form in a Buddhist monastic context, there is significant textual evidence suggesting that it was the product of a non-monastic, renunciant milieu in which sectarian identification was not particularly relevant. The Cakrasamvara Tantra is, in Lévi-Strauss' terms, a bricolage. It provides a particularly striking example of the processes of adaptation and reinterpretation which have continually led to the development of religious traditions. The Cakrasamvara 's identification as a Buddhist tradition was the result of the efforts of commentators in India who constructed it as such, and by Tibetan commentators, who completed this process of adaptation.
