The Kālacakratantra and its commentarial literature are a rich textual source for the study of diverse but mutually related fields of South Asian studies in general and of South Asian Buddhism in particular. The works that belong to the Kālacakra literary corpus warrant careful research for several reasons: they express the doctrinal and social theories and the relevant tantric practices that were characteristic of north Indian Buddhism in its final stages; the Kālacakratantra literature also sheds light on the religious and social conditions of eleventh‐century India in general and on the soc ... More

The Kālacakratantra and its commentarial literature are a rich textual source for the study of diverse but mutually related fields of South Asian studies in general and of South Asian Buddhism in particular. The works that belong to the Kālacakra literary corpus warrant careful research for several reasons: they express the doctrinal and social theories and the relevant tantric practices that were characteristic of north Indian Buddhism in its final stages; the Kālacakratantra literature also sheds light on the religious and social conditions of eleventh‐century India in general and on the social standing and role of Indian tantric Buddhism of that era in particular. For these reasons, a main focus of this book is on the Kālacakra tradition as an Indian Buddhist tradition. The central topic of the book is the Kālacakratantra's view of the nature of the individual and the place of the individual in the universe and society. Accordingly, a primary theme is a textual, historical, and philosophical analysis of the second chapter of the Kālacakratantra, the “Chapter on the Individual” (adhyātma‐paṭala), and its principal commentary, the Vimalaprabhā. However, since the Kālacakra tradition's theory of the human being permeates all the chapters of the Kālacakratantra, its second chapter is intimately related to the other chapters of the tantra. For example, the Kālacakratantra's view of the individual is inseparable from its view of the universe as discussed in the first chapter of the tantra. Likewise, the purpose of the Kālacakratantra's presentation of the individual's psycho‐physiology in the second chapter becomes clear only when examined in light of the tantric yogic practices described in the third, fourth, and fifth chapters. Therefore, in this book the topics of the inner Kālacakratantra are dealt with in their relationship to the larger context of the Kālacakratantra's theory and practice. In accordance with the Kālacakratantra's theory of nonduality, this book analyzes the Kālacakra tradition's view of the individual in terms of the individual as cosmos, society, gnosis, and the path of spiritual transformation.