Professor Buhnemann has made a significant contribution to the Śrīvidyā community by publishing numerous papers on Mahāgaṇapati over the years. Unfortunately many of these works were hard to find, with some out of print. To make these valuable resources more accessible, an effort was undertaken to collect and compile all her published works, which were then formatted and typeset into a comprehensive volume titled “The Tantric Worship of Mahāgaṇapati.” We are immensely grateful to Professor Buhnemann for the opportunity to collaborate and believe this publication will greatly benefit Śrīvidyā practitioners.
Book Contents
Part I
- The Worship of Mahāgaṇapati according to the Nityotsava
Part II
- The worship of Mahāgaṇapati according to the Prapañcasāra
- The worship of Mahāgaṇapati according to the Śrīvidyārṇavatantra
- The Vallabheśa Upaniṣad
About the Book
This volume documents the worship of Mahāgaṇapati, a ten-armed form of Gaṇapati/Gaṇeśa with a consort (śakti), according to four Tantric texts. Part I presents the Sanskrit text and an English translation together with commentary on chapter 2 of the Nityotsava, a work written by Jagannātha Paṇḍita in 1745. The author based his work on the Paraśurāmakalpasūtra, an anonymous 16th- or 17th-century text probably composed in South India. The Paraśurāmakalpasūtra and the Nityotsava are among the best-known and most respected works of the Śrīvidyā school of Hindu Tantra in contemporary India, and studied by many practitioners.
Part II of this book focuses on three Tantric texts. The first subsection presents the Sanskrit text and a translation of a section of chapter 17 from the 12th-century Prapañcasāra. The second subsection provides an analysis and detailed summary of the section on Mahāgaṇapati found in chapter 32 of the Śrīvidyārṇavatantra. The last section offers the Sanskrit text and a translation of the Vallabheśa Upaniṣad, a Tantric Upaniṣad related to the worship of Mahāgaṇapati, who is referred to by the name Vallabheśa, the Lord of Vallabhā (or Siddhalakṣmī, the consort of Mahāgaṇapati).
The book is published by Aditya Prakashan and can be purchased in number of bookstores, including Amazon:
About the Author
Gudrun Bühnemann is a Professor of Sanskrit and Indic Religions in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA. She has published extensively on South Asian (especially Tantric) iconography and ritual. Her recent books include The Iconography of Hindu Tantric Deities (First Indian edition, revised, as a single volume, Aditya Prakashan, 2016).
The author’s website: https://buhnemann.ls.wisc.edu/
