The Sampuṭatilaka, its sources, and what it can teach us about late tantric Buddhist scriptural composition

Péter-Dániel Szántó (Oxford)

Abstract

A few years ago I published an article entitled "Before a Critical Edition of the Sampuṭa" in which I have managed to show more extensively than previously known that one of the most important Buddhist yoginītantras, the Sampuṭodbhava (ca. late tenth or early eleventh century), is in fact almost entirely a compilation of earlier scriptural and exegetical material. In the present talk, after a short reiteration of these previous findings, I wish to extend the inquiry to the explanatory tantra of the Sampuṭodbhava, the Sampuṭatilaka. This text, probably written shortly after the Sampuṭodbhava, draws much more extensively from exegetical, not scriptural, sources. I will try to identify these sources, I will show that they were cobbled together rather carelessly, and finally, I will share some critical reflections on the idea that tantric scriptures were created by one, 'siddha-type' subculture and then commented on by another, institutionalized/monastic.

Bio

Péter-Dániel Szántó initially studied Tibetan and Indology at ELTE Budapest. He received his DPhil from the University of Oxford (Balliol College, 2012), where he was also a Junior Research Fellow (Merton College). After a ten-month stipend at the University of Hamburg, he returned to Oxford in 2014 as a Post-doctoral Research Fellow at All-Souls College. His research focuses mainly on mature esoteric Buddhism in India, its texts, its development and transmission, and its socio-historical background.