6. Ben Williams | Śaiva Tantra, Abhinavagupta, and the Tantric Sahṛdaya

In this episode, we speak with Dr. Ben Williams (Naropa
University) about his story of growing up in spiritual community,
the scholar-practitioner, the scriptures and world of non-dual
Śaiva Tantra, the Kashmiri exegete Abhinavagupta and his concept
of the guru, the view of Aṣṭāṅgayoga within tantra, the new MA
program in Yoga Studies at Naropa University, and more.

Speaker Bio
Ben Williams is an intellectual historian focused on
Indian religions and the history of Śaiva tantra. He has received
extensive training in Indian philosophy, literature, and
aesthetics in Sanskrit sources. Ben received a BA in Religious
Studies from the University of Vermont, a Masters in Theological
Studies from Harvard Divinity School, and completed his PhD in
the Department of South Asian Studies at Harvard University. He
currently serves as an Assistant Professor of Hinduism at Naropa
University, where he has recently co-created a low-residency MA
program in Yoga Studies that will launch in fall 2020. Ben also
serves on the academic advisory council of the Muktabodha
Indological Research Institute, which is dedicated to the
preservation of scriptural and philosophical texts of classical
India.  


Ben’s doctoral thesis is on revelation and the figure of the
tantric guru in the writings of Abhinavagupta, an eminent
intellectual figure of medieval Kashmir. Building upon this
study, one of his current research projects is charting the
transmission of tantric traditions to South India that are
indebted to non-dual Śaiva teachings and lineages that originally
flourished in Kashmir.



Links


YS 107 | Yoga and Śaiva Tantra: An Uncharted History

"Abhinavagupta's Portrait of a Guru: Revelation and Religious
Authority in Kashmir" (Williams 2017)

Yoga Studies Master of Arts Program, Naropa University

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