Although the number of publications dealing with Ganesa is not insignificant, few take original Sanskrit texts into consideration. The Tantric aspects of the deity have certainly been studied too little. This book contributes to our knowledge of this less familiar side of Ganesa. It describes his forms according to the Vidyarnavatantra, a large compilation on mantrasastra attributed to Vidyaranya Yati and compiled around the seventeenth century. This text gives the iconographic peculiarities, mantras, and yantras of fourteen forms of Ganesa as well as instructions for the ritual application of the mantras.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Gudrun Buhnemann
Gudrun Buhnemann is Professor at the Department of Languages and Cultures of Asia of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, U.S.A. Her major publications include Budha-Kausika’s Ramaraksastora: A Contribution to the Study of Sanskrit Deveional Poetery (Vienna: Institut fur Universaitat Wien, 1983); Puja: A Study in Smarta Ritual (Vienna: Institut fur Universitat Wien, 1983) Forms of Ganesa: A Study based on the Vidyarnavatantra (Wichtrach: Institut fur Indologie, 1989); and The Iconography of Hindu Tantri Deities, Volume 1: The Pantheon of the Mantramahodadhi. Volume II: The Pantheon of the Propancasara and the Saradatilaka (Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 2000-2001).
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