Paolo E. Rosati
SHORT BIO & RESEARCH INTERESTS
During my previous studies, I earned a Laurea degree (MA equivalent) in Art History and Religions of India and a P.G. Diploma of Specialization in South Asian Archaeology, defending two theses on the iconographic developments in both Buddhist and Hindu art.
In 2017 I completed my PhD in "Civilizations of Asia and Africa" with a thesis (The Yoni Cult at Kamakhya: Cross-Cultural Implications in Myth, Ritual and Symbol) that focuses on the cross-cultural roots of the yoni (vulva) cult at Kamakhya (Assam).
I am, actually, working on a number of different research projects on Kamakhya cult, medieval and contemporary Assam:
● The dialectic of death and sex in medieval Assam.
● The erotic sculptures preserved in Baihata Chariali (Assam) in connection to the Kaula tradition.
● Gender and sex implications in the Tantric and Puranic myths of Kamakhya.
● Memory and identity at Kamakhya.
● CSR and the post-colonial yoni cult.
● The intersection between Tantra, magic, and shamanic traditions.
Research approach: post-structuralism, post-modernism, deconstruction, post-genderism.
Supervisors: Prof. R. Torella and Prof. A. Pelissero
Address: Roma
During my previous studies, I earned a Laurea degree (MA equivalent) in Art History and Religions of India and a P.G. Diploma of Specialization in South Asian Archaeology, defending two theses on the iconographic developments in both Buddhist and Hindu art.
In 2017 I completed my PhD in "Civilizations of Asia and Africa" with a thesis (The Yoni Cult at Kamakhya: Cross-Cultural Implications in Myth, Ritual and Symbol) that focuses on the cross-cultural roots of the yoni (vulva) cult at Kamakhya (Assam).
I am, actually, working on a number of different research projects on Kamakhya cult, medieval and contemporary Assam:
● The dialectic of death and sex in medieval Assam.
● The erotic sculptures preserved in Baihata Chariali (Assam) in connection to the Kaula tradition.
● Gender and sex implications in the Tantric and Puranic myths of Kamakhya.
● Memory and identity at Kamakhya.
● CSR and the post-colonial yoni cult.
● The intersection between Tantra, magic, and shamanic traditions.
Research approach: post-structuralism, post-modernism, deconstruction, post-genderism.
Supervisors: Prof. R. Torella and Prof. A. Pelissero
Address: Roma
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Edited Volumes by Paolo E. Rosati
The book addresses three desiderata in the field of Tantric Studies: it fills a gap in the historical modelling of Tantra; it extends the geographical parameters of Tantra to the vast, yet culturally interlinked, socio-geographical construct of Monsoon Asia; it explores Tantra as an interface between the Sanskritic elite and the folk, the vernacular, the magical, and the shamanic, thereby revisiting the intellectual and historically fallacious divide between cosmopolitan Sanskritic and vernacular local.
The book offers a highly innovative contribution to the field of Tantric Studies and, more generally, South and Southeast Asian religions, by breaking traditional disciplinary boundaries. Its variety of disciplinary approaches makes it attractive to both the textual/ diachronic and ethnographic/synchronic dimensions. It will be of interest to specialist and non-specialist academic readers, including scholars and students of South Asian religions, mainly Hinduism and Buddhism, Tantric traditions, and Southeast Asian religions, as well as Asian and global folk religion, shamanism, and magic.
Special Issues by Paolo E. Rosati
Guest Editorial
Paolo E. Rosati (Author)
A Poet with His Philosopher's Hat On A Preliminary Study of the Philosophical Section In the Seventeenth Canto of Mankha's Srikanthacarita
Chiara Livio (Author)
Ontological Transformations in Hindu Tantric Ritualisms of Kathmandu Valley A Neurocognitive Perspective about Self and Bodies
Fabio Armand (Author)
Vernacular Tantra? An Analysis of the Bengali Text The Garland of Bones
Lubomír Ondračka (Author)
The Roots of the Two Sides of Kamakhya The Blending of Sex and Death in Tantra
Paolo E. Rosati (Author)
'Devi Needs those Rituals!' Ontological Considerations on Ritual Transformations in a Contemporary South Indian Srividya Tradition
Monika Hirmer (Author)
Sakta Tantric Traditions of Kerala in the Process of Change Some Notes on Raudra-Mahartha Sampradaya
Maciej Karasinski (Author)
Book Reviews
Unfortunate Destiny: Animals in the Indian Buddhist Imagination, by Reiko Ohnuma
Herman Tull (Author)
Buddhism, Education and Politics in Burma and Thailand: From the Seventeenth Century to the Present, by Khammai Dhammasami
Nathan McGovern (Author)
Tibetan Buddhism and Mystical Experience, by Yaroslav Komarovski
Jackson Stephenson (Author)
Peer-Reviewed Articles by Paolo E. Rosati
transformed the dakṣayajña myth, legitimising the temple of Kāmākhyā on Nīlācala as the greatest śākta pīṭha (seat of power), where the yoni (vulva) of Satī was preserved. In this way, the śākta purāṇas reconnected Nīlācala–Kāmākhyā not only to the sexual symbolism, but also to an ancient cremation ground and its death imaginary–a fact that the systematisation of the yoginī cult (ninth–eleventh century) into the Yoginī Kaula school corroborated. In this cross-cultural context, the early medieval Assamese dynasties emerged tied to the danger of liminal powers—linked to both the heterodox śākta-tantra sects and tribal traditions that were harnessed by the kings through the exoteric and esoteric rituals practised at Kāmākhyā.
Book Chapters by Paolo E. Rosati
Thence, this essay aims to explain the cross-cultural negotiation which took place at Nīlācala, through the analysis of Sanskrit mythologies connected to the sacred hill as well as the study of ritual praxis linked to the temple of Kāmākhyā that was observed during a field-work period.
Editorials/Introductions by Paolo E. Rosati
for the published version, see: https://journal.equinoxpub.com/ROSA/article/view/19632
Encyclopedic Entries by Paolo E. Rosati
Conference papers by Paolo E. Rosati
Who the yoginīs were before their inclusion within the heterodox Kaula tradition? How did they influence the Tantric ritual praxis at Kāmākhyā? The yoginīs, indeed, before to burst in the Kaula folds, were a cluster of goddesses deeply associated to cremation grounds (Hevajratantra 1.7.19). They maintained, however, a deep connection with the dead world and blood sacrifices up to the tenth–eleventh century, when their related ritual praxis switched to a mystic-erotic ritual centred on the worship of the human yoni (Sanderson 1988).
What was the impact of this reformation on the symbolic meaning of the ritual praxis? Have been, thereof, the link between the yoginīs with the death imaginary cut? The offering of the ritual victim’s blood and head did hide a deep sexual symbolism that was uncovered with the affirmation of the yoni pūjā (worship). The sexual rites, on the other hand, tended to hide any explicit link with death, although they were often performed during the night in secret places such as cremation grounds.
Hence, this paper aims, through the analysis and interrelation of textual and ethnographic data (ethno-Indology), to debate the dialectic between sex and death at Kāmākhyā in order to shed light on its pre-Brahmanic yoginīs cult’s roots, which overlapped, intertwined and blended with Brahmanism, resulting, thus, in the specific Tantric cult of Kāmākhyā.
The male role in the Puranic description of the cosmogenesis of the Tantric network of the śakti pīṭhas is subsidiary, although still necessary. Kāmākhyā, in the Brahmaputra Valley (Assam), emerged as the greatest among the śakti pīṭhas. There, indeed, the yoni of Satī – the most powerful female organ – has been preserved. This Puranic myth traced back a connection between the śakti pīṭhas and the Kaula sexual rites. More specifically, the Yoginī Kaulas believed the human yoni to be the source of religious gnosis and an instrument to obtain siddhis.
In a previous study (Rosati 2016), this Puranic story emerged to stratify various Vedic mythologems blended with non-Brahmanic traditions, thus underlining, the cross-cultural dialectic standing at the origin of Kāmākhyā as the yoni pīṭha. Kāmākhyā, hence, was the place where purity and impurity, asceticism and eroticism, norms and violation of the norms coexisted. There, the yoni, concealed inside the sanctum, is primarily a sexual symbol that needs the male phallus to seed the world.
This concept of sexual union was overwhelmed in the late medieval Yoginītantra, another North-eastern text involving the origin of Kāmākhyā. It narrates a very different origin of the yoni pīṭha, which was created by Kālī without any male help. Yet, the myth, stratified a number of ancient Vedic and Puranic mythologems, but underlines the yoni as the source of everything.
This paper aims, through an interrelation of textual sources and ethnographic data (ethno-indology), not only to introduce the less-known late medieval myth of the Kāmākhyā temple’s origin, but also to shed light on the late medieval interpretation of the fundamental yoni symbol. It, indeed, was transformed from a sexual symbol that remembered the endless union with the Śiva’s liṅga to a cosmogenetic symbol, the only one being able to start the cosmogonic process. The myth, thus, deprived the Kāmākhyā-pīṭha of every obvious sexual connotation, placing the śakti as the main actor in the primordial scene.
Thereof, it is supposed that early medieval gender dialectic on the origin of Kāmākhyā-pīṭha will be identified; while a subsequent, late medieval, clearer establishment of the śakti supremacy within the Assamese Tantra ideology will be identified as the ground where an interaction between implicit and explicit sexual acts developed in the religious context. This dialectic will be equated to the fundamental dialectic between pure and impure which is the core of Tantra.
Although both the Tantric paths aimed to gratify the goddess Kāmākhyā—symbolised by the yoni of Satī preserved inside her shrine on Nīlācala—the erotic path, focusing on the woman and her sexual fluids, explains the vulva as the source of Kaula gnosis. However, Tantrikas aimed to obtain siddhis (accomplishments) through erotic practices beyond reaching mokṣa (liberation).
This paper aims, through the analysis of texts and material evidence, to understand whether a diachronic woman’s rank uprising affected the Yoginī Kaula ritual in medieval Assam.
Il contatto tra il feto e il sangue mestruale, durante il concepimento, conferì a Naraka un potere impuro legato al mondo asurico, potere che secondo i compilatori del Kālikāpurāṇa da un lato metteva in pericolo l’ordine religioso brahmanico, mentre dall’altro era necessario per mantenere la stabilità politica nell’Assam primo medievale.
Lo stretto legame del potere regale assamese con ciò che l’ortodossia vedico-brahmanica percepiva come estremamente impuro lascia supporre che le dinastie assamesi fossero dinastie samkarajāti, le quali furono originate da secoli di negoziazione transculturale che vide come protagonisti l’élite indo-aria – arrivata nell’India del nordest in un periodo compreso tra il II secolo P.E.V. e il I secolo E.V. – e il variegato cosmo delle popolazioni tribali, le quali sono descritte nel Kālikāpurāṇa con il generico “kirāta”.
Lo studio delle fonti testuali ed epigrafiche, supportato dal dato etnografico, fa emergere i sovrani del primo medioevo del Kāmarūpa come coloro in grado di mediare l’ortodossia brahmanica e le tradizioni religiose tribali, patrocinando la tradizione religiosa eterodossa śākta-tantra.
In questo contesto storico-politico e religioso, la yoni (vulva), conservata nel gabhagṛha (sanctum sanctorum) del tempio di Kāmākhyā, e il suo culto – legato al consumo dei fluidi sessuali e alle offerte di sangue – emergono come il mezzo necessario per ottenere l’estinzione finale (paranirvāṇa), ma anche come fonte di quei poteri soprannaturali (siddhi) necessari al rafforzamento del potere politico del sovrano.
Vidya Dehejia suggested that the temple of Kāmākhyā was an ancient yoginī centre, although it is neither circular in plan nor hypaethral, formal characteristics shared by most of the yoginī temples. The yoginīs are semi-divine female beings—often represented as theriomorphic/theriocephalic—an aspect that grounds their roots in the Tribal substratum. Their cult was systematised within the Hindu-Tantric tradition through the Kaulajῆānanirṇaya, a text compiled in Assam during the ninth-tenth century, which preserved the cult’s Tribal traits. Thus, the temple of Kāmākhyā mirrors the cross-cultural negotiations between Tribal and Hindu traditions, which resulted in the worship of the yoni through blood sacrifices and secret sexual rites.
According to the Kālikāpurāṇa—a śākta text compiled during the tenth-eleventh century in Assam—the yoginīs were the protectress of the yoni, a role corroborated through their sculptural representation around the outer-wall of the garbhagṛha. Therefore, the genesis of yoginīs derived from the yoni and its splitting into more pieces when fell down on Nīlācala—which alludes either to the multiplication of generative power or to the dismemberment of the Goddess’s body.
Rosati, Paolo Eugenio, "The Goddess Kāmākhyā: Religio-Political Implications in the Tribalisation Process," History and Sociology of South Asia 11(2): 1-19. DOI: 10.1177/2230807517703014.
SAGE Publications.
ABSTRACT:
This article examines the absorption process of the goddess Kāmākhyā (Assam) within the Brahmanic pantheon. The Hindu people in order to obtain the political support from the local inhabitants manipulated the mythology, transforming the tribal yoni in the “yoni of Satī,” which is preserved inside the sanctum of the temple of Kāmākhyā. Therefore her temple has been considered as the most important śākta pīṭha, a place linked with either sexual symbolism or death imaginary - both the elements strongly connected to the tribal world. Even if Kāmākhyā was incorporated within the Hindu sphere, she has maintained many tribal traits as demonstrated by either her mythologies or her connected ritual praxis dominated by blood sacrifices and sexual practices. Thereby it emerges in the Kāmākhyā case-study the ‘Sankritization’ as a too generic concept, while a strong cultural negotiation has operated on the traits of the goddess.