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From the initial mailing of the Society for Tantric Studies

 This mailing is being sent out to a number of persons 
(listed at end of this package). It has three primary purposes. 
The first and simplest of these is to develop a \"registry\" of 
academics who have a serious interest in, or are currently 
engaged in, research on tantric topics. The second is to solicit 
your responses to our own feelings that the world needs a 
regularly published newsletter/journal on tantric studies.  The 
third is to suggest that the interests gathered in in  (1) and 
(2) above be conflated so as to generate an organization to 
support them, The Tantric Studies Society (name subject to better 
suggestions).

     With the above goals in mind we have drawn up a very short 
registry questionnaire that we ask you to answer and return to 
us. Once we have received and compiled as many answers as we 
think this effort is likely to produce we will, free of charge, 
share all the information with all those who have seen fit to 
respond. The registry  should, when completed, allow all of us to 
have a much fuller idea of the whole range of on-going  research 
on tantra or related topics  and, also, to obtain an up-to-date 
list of addresses. Who knows, we may even find people doing 
research which has direct impact on our own work.

     The idea of a newsletter/journal/bulletin is a bit more 
involved. It is based on several factors: the sense that there 
are an increased number of younger scholars working in these 
areas but no increased outlets for publication; a sense that even 
when work gets published the delays and lags in conventional 
journals are just too great for optimum scholarly impact; the 
feeling that published articles are scattered into too wide a 
variety of publications to be kept up with; the feeling that a 
forum for work or works in progress would aid collaboration, 
prevent duplication, and stimulate creative thinking. We have, 
thus, deliberately used the term newsletter/journal/bulletin at 
this point to indicate the sort of organ we are considering. 
Indeed, we have at least two small journals in mind as possible 
models for our proposed Tantric Studies Bulletin. (Only a 
suggestive title.) These are T'ang Studies and the Journal of the 
Chinese Religions Group, with some preference for the slightly 
more informal ambiance of the latter (especially in its earlier 
incarnation as the Bulletin for the Study of Chinese Religion). 
We would like to see this tantric bulletin  be open to a number 
of kinds of contribution from fairly straightforward single-topic 
articles to  preliminary translations of key texts, summaries of 
work in progress, brief reviews of important but likely to be 
missed works, and so on. We could even visualise that most 
ancient genre of literature, the series translation. (If anyone 
is working his/her way through the Mahavairocana Sutra, for 
instance, we would much rather see the preliminary outtakes now 
rather than wait forty years for the finished book.) We also are 
quite firm in wanting copyright (or open reprint permission) to 
stay with the authors of any such articles. Publication of such a 
bulletin would of course be a good deal easier than it might once 
have been what with the current widespread and growing use of 
wordprocessors. Would you be interested in such a journal? We 
invite your suggestions and responses. 

     The creation of a society would serve several purposes. The 
most obvious would be that of stable interchange  among 
interested parties. This  would not be have to be tied simply to 
the production of a journal or bulletin. A formal entity might 
give us the option of seeking panel space at the meetings of such 
academic organizations as the American Academy of Religion or the 
Association of Asian Studies. This would follow the path of the 
Japanese Religons Group and the Chinese Religions Group. It, 
would, however, also allow the possiblity of relatively small 
conferences aimed at three or four days of intense examination of 
specialty topics as well. Though the thrust of these two types of 
venue are opposite of each other, there seems no reason that we 
should have to choose only one of them. Again, is there a 
groundswell of support out there? Are there persons willing to do 
the work? Are there papers just waiting for a place to be given? 
Are there suggestions and ideas to add? 

     A final word. For neither the registry, nor the proposed 
society, nor any journal that might eventuate do we have a very 
hard-nosed definition of tantra. Any person. movement, 
document, or icon that coheres several of the standard features 
of tantra would be appropriate. We would like at least to bridge 
the gap (fostered in no small part by the almost ancient 
distribution of separated NDFL centers in the sixties, but not 
only by that) between China-Japan on the one hand and India-S.E. 
Asia on the other. Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, or syncretic tantra 
are all equally tantra to us. We would include at least Hindu 
tantra, Indian Buddhist tantra, the Bauls, any siddhas, Tibetan 
Buddhism, Sahajiya, golden pill Taoism, Chen-yen, Shingon, and 
Taimitsu Buddhism. We only leave Mongolian Buddhism, Bengali 
Sufism, and Tangut Manicheaism off the initial list becasue we 
are too ignorant to make a judgement as to the fit and/or bare 
existence of same. Possibly we should consider serious work on 
Western alchemy as well.

James H. Sanford
Department of Religious Studies
101 Saunders Hall
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, N. C. 27514

Charles Orzech
Department of Religious Studies
200 Foust Hall
University of North CArolina at Greensboro
Greensboro, N.C. 27401

The files of type first_line used in the index were:
   /home3/ftp/pub/academic/religious_studies/asian/Tantric_Studies/Newsletter
"
  )
