Conceptual Blending Theory, ‘Reverse Amnesia’, and the Study of Tantra

Conceptual Blending Theory, ‘Reverse Amnesia’,

and the Study of Tantra1

Glen Alexander Hayes*

*Corresponding author: Bloomfield College, Bloomfield, NJ, [email protected]

Abstract: In contrast to the preceding essays, which focus on the study ofTantric texts and communities, this article is very much an excursion intomethodology and possible new avenues for the study of Tantra. It will considerrecent insights from the growing field of the Cognitive Science of Religion(CSR), especially the modern conceptual metaphor theory developed byGeorge Lakoff and Mark Johnson and ‘conceptual blending theory’, amore-recent method crafted by Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner. We willapply their ideas such as ‘conceptual integration networks’, ‘cross-domainmapping’, ‘emergent structure’, and ‘blended worlds’ to the consideration ofHindu Tantric visualization sequences, generation of the ‘yogic body’, andthe ‘remembrance’ of one’s ‘forgotten’ cosmic essence as a type of anamnesis(‘reverse amnesia’). We will examine beliefs, practices, and texts from theVaiX>ava Sahajiy@ Tantric traditions of 16th to 19th century greater Bengal.I argue that these new CSR methods can help us to illuminate the vivid andimaginative worlds and processes found in the highly esoteric VaiX>avaSahajiy@ traditions, and may be useful to the study of religion in general.

This essay presents a somewhat different aspect of Tantric Studies compared tothe previous four essays, which focused on textual analysis in order to considerissues of intellectual communities, regional influences, and other intriguing mat-ters that may be gleaned from existing Tantric texts. Here I will take a decidedlymethodological turn for, as has been amply demonstrated over the decades at themeetings of The Society for Tantric Studies, the field also grows by our exploringof new ways of studying Tantra. In terms of subject area, we will be consideringthe Hindu Tantric traditions known collectively as the VaiX>ava Sahajiy@ traditionsof greater Bengal (ca. 16th to 19th century CE), especially the texts associated withthe noted guru Siddha Mukundadeva, who was active around the mid-17th centuryCE.2 These Tantric VaiX>avas borrowed extensively from the contemporary schoolsof the so-called ‘Bengali’ or Gaunaya branch of orthodox devotional VaiX>avism,centered on the charismatic figure of the godman KPX>a Caitanya (ca. 1486–1533

� The Author 2012. Oxford University Press and The Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies. All rights reserved.For permissions, please email [email protected]

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CE) and its six theologians (gosv@mins). Thus, we will also explore some aspects ofGaunaya VaiX>ava ritual and cosmophysiology. But we will conduct our explorationby applying recent insights from the field of contemporary or ‘conceptual’ meta-phor theory, as well as the more-recent field known as ‘conceptual blending the-ory’. Both of these approaches are considered to be aspects of the rapidly growingfield of the ‘Cognitive Science of Religion’ (CSR), which includes not only metaphorand blending theories, but also the more ‘hard science’ insights from neuroscienceand neuropsychology. Although I have made some initial attempts at using thesetheories in other publications,3 we are frankly just in the early stages of this effort,and I hope that this essay will stimulate discussion among my colleagues in theAcademy. Using a nuanced approach to the study of religion and Tantra using CSRmethods, we stand to gain powerful insights into the vivid uses of the mind andimagination in the religious experience.

The past few decades have provided the historian of religions with powerfulnew methodologies for the study of human imagination and cognition – vitalaspects for any understanding of religion. As Edward Slingerland (2008) has clearlydemonstrated and powerfully argued in his superb recent work, What Science Offersthe Humanities,4 recent developments in cognitive science are now enabling us toexplore aspects and nuances of the human imagination and embodied experiencethat were previously unavailable for scholarly analysis. What I hope to do today isto provide a quick review of conceptual metaphor theory and conceptual blendingtheory, and then suggest how basic ideas such as ‘emergent structure’ and aspectsof ‘cross-domain mapping’ can help us to better understand religious rituals andvisualizations in Hindu Tantric traditions from Bengal in northeastern India. Asnoted, I will use examples from the VaiX>ava Sahajiy@ Tantric yogic traditionsassociated with Siddha Mukundadeva (ca. 1650 CE). I will suggest how conceptualblending theory can help us to ‘unpack’ the elaborate and often beautiful visionarysequences that are used in this vernacular Bengali Tantric tradition. To set up theproblem in its most essential, ‘embodied’ form: if the goal of VaiX>ava Sahajiy@Tantrics is to experience a state of bliss (@nanda), in a type of ‘subtle’ or ‘yogicbody’, on another level of reality (Vraja, VPnd@vana, Sahajapur), then just ‘how’does one ‘get’ ‘there’? In other words, what type of neurobiological experience orconceptual blend must be available to the adept, and how do they ‘run the blend’?If another, ‘yogic form’ (siddha-r+pa) or even ‘divine body’ (deva-deha) is required,how is this imagined, and how is it experienced? Furthermore, how might thisentail a type of ‘reverse amnesia’, where the adept ‘forgets’ their worldly identity(r+pa) and realizes their true form (svar+pa) as a participant in the eternal lovedrama of the god KPX>a and his divine consort R@dh@ including, for advancedSahajiy@s, becoming KPX>a or R@dh@ themselves? This derives from the GaunayaVaiX>ava concept of smara>a (‘remembering, recalling’), which requires the de-votee to ritually and psychologically ‘adopt’ the persona and even ‘body’ of acharacter spiritually present on the eternal celestial plane (dh@ma) of R@dh@ andKPX>a in heavenly Vraja.5 The Sahajiy@s, transforming this into a Tantric version

2 The Study of Tantra

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where all men become KPX>a and all women R@dh@, themselves participating inadulterous love-trysts (much to the outrage of orthodox VaiX>avas through thecenturies), refer to this as ‘attribution practice’ or @ropa-s@dhana, in which one dis-solves one’s worldly nature and form (r+pa) and assumes the ‘forgotten’ underlyingcosmic ‘essential form’ (svar+pa) of the Divine Cowherd or his consorts. Now let usexplore how this elaborate ritual, devotional, and yogic process may be consideredfrom the perspective of the CSR.

Although many readers may be familiar with modern conceptual metaphor andblending theories, some are not; thus, I will take a brief detour with a summary ofthe basics of these new methods before looking at our Sahajiy@ and Gaunaya ex-amples. (I would also direct readers to Slingerland’s superb work, especiallyChapter 4, where he provides an insightful and concise overview of both theories.)Recent cognitive linguistic research in the area of ‘contemporary metaphor’ stu-dies (e.g. Lakoff, Johnson, Turner)6 has led to the even more recent efforts knownas ‘conceptual blending theory’,7 which extend and critique metaphor theoryusing recent discoveries in neuroscience and cognitive science. I have been espe-cially interested in using some of the concepts developed by Gilles Fauconnier andMark Turner in The Way We Think (2002) regarding ‘conceptual blending’ to illus-trate entirely new ways of studying Tantra. Although this essay is not the place fora thorough overview of this promising new methodology, I will quickly review thetheory, and apply it to some examples from VaiX>ava Sahajiy@ texts that I havetranslated.8

Much of recent conceptual metaphor theory really flourished with the publica-tion in 1980 of George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s groundbreaking Metaphors WeLive By, a deceptively short work which developed the argument that metaphorsare not just woven into everyday speech (‘I find your thesis hard to digest.’), butoperate in fact more deeply in our minds, influencing how we perceive, construeand behave in the world.9 A number of other wonderful books developed out ofthis, by Lakoff, Turner, Mark Johnson, and others.

Let us begin with some of their basic points. As Lakoff and Johnson observe inMetaphors We Live By (p.3): ‘metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just inlanguage but in thought and action. Our ordinary conceptual system, in termsof which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature.’ In TheBody in the Mind, Mark Johnson (1987) observes that metaphor is:

conceived as a pervasive mode of understanding by which we project pat-terns from one domain of experience in order to structure another domainof a different kind. So conceived, metaphor is not merely a linguistic modeof expression; rather, it is one of the chief cognitive structures by whichwe are able to have coherent, ordered experiences that we can reasonabout and make sense of. Through metaphor, we make use of patternsthat obtain in our physical experience to organize our more abstractunderstanding.10

Glen Alexander Hayes 3


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As Lakoff, Johnson, and others developed this theory of ‘conceptual metaphortheory’, they standardized some typography to indicate a metaphor, generallyusing all capital letters, as in the LIFE IS A JOURNEY or LOVE IS A JOURNEYmetaphors. They also emphasized that conceptual metaphors are expressed astwo different domains of meaning, joined by the copula ‘IS’. The result of thesedevelopments by Lakoff and Johnson goes beyond mere typography, as it alsoinvolves the basic idea of metaphors being based on the structure of the so-called‘TARGET IS SOURCE’ format. The two domains have very different meanings andfunctions. In this central formulation, the TARGET domain is the generally abstractthing that we are trying to understand (like LIFE or LOVE), and the SOURCE domaininvolves the more concrete reference, like JOURNEY, and provides the framinginformation and details that are ‘cross-mapped’ onto the TARGET. Thus, the basiccore metaphor of LIFE IS A JOURNEY (similar to the central Tantric metaphor ofS?DHANA IS A JOURNEY) can be used to illustrate how the details of journeys(paths, roads, obstacles, travelers, topography, time, and such) are used to under-stand the mysteriousness of life.11 Other interesting general examples would beARGUMENT IS WAR, and DEATH IS SLEEP. There are so many more to be explored.

As useful as this approach has been, it has always had its limitations, includingworking with the many ‘entailments’ or nuances, details, and consequences thatgrow out of the metaphors, and explaining how only some aspects of the SOURCEdomain are mapped to the TARGET domain, but not others – and why. (Slingerlandshares this critique in his book, pp.174–6.) Lakoff and Johnson have indeed helpedto popularize and establish the modern study of metaphors, but it is really themore recent efforts of Turner with Gilles Fauconnier (in The Way We Think) thathave extended and enriched the theory. And it is precisely these enrichments tothe methodology that I believe can help the scholar of South Asian religions andTantra to gain greater insight into the imaginative worlds that underlie the textsand rituals that we study.

As presented in The Way We Think, conceptual blending is an essential aspect ofbeing human; in fact, Fauconnier and Turner argue (using research by StephenMithen), that the ability to create conceptual blends and networks first emergedsome 50,000 years ago. This stage, following upon the evolution of biologicallymodern humans (which dates to perhaps 200,000 years) led to our ancestorsbecoming truly cognitively modern humans. As Mark Turner observes on the ex-cellent website portal (http://markturner.org) dealing with blending:

During the Upper Paleolithic, human beings developed an unprecedented abil-ity to innovate. They acquired a modern human imagination, which gave themthe ability to invent new concepts and to assemble new and dynamic mentalpatterns. The results of this change were awesome: human beings developedart, science, religion, culture, refined tool use, and language. Our ancestorsgained this superiority through the evolution of the mental capacity for con-ceptual blending. Conceptual blending has a fascinating dynamics and a crucial



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role in how we think and live. It operates largely behind the scenes. Almostinvisibly to consciousness, it choreographs vast networks of conceptual mean-ing, yielding cognitive products, which, at the conscious level, appear simple.12

Many scholars from a range of disciplines have begun to apply this theory, andhere I am suggesting its usefulness for the study of Hindu Tantra. At the risk ofoversimplifying their incredibly complicated methodology, we can say that con-ceptual blending is a process whereby we take information and meanings from twoor more ‘mental spaces’ (neuronal assemblies called ‘inputs’) and, using an over-arching ‘frame’ or organizing pattern provided by what they call a ‘generic space’,we create an entirely new ‘blended space’ that combines aspects of the inputs andframe (see Fig. 1, and also Slingerland, pp.176–7 on ‘mental spaces’). This results ina range of what they call ‘conceptual integration networks’, from the most basic‘simplex’ network, to a ‘mirror’ network, to the ‘single-scope’ network of trad-itional TARGET-SOURCE metaphors, and culminating in the amazing ‘double-scope’ and ‘megablend’ networks that are at the heart of language, art, religion,and much daily life.13 Even a cursory glance at Tantric texts and rituals revealsthe presence of often-complex ‘conceptual integration networks’, as we shall seefurther.

These networks refer to the many ways that the brain accesses and combinesneuronal assemblies or ‘mental spaces’, creating meaning and thought. The ‘hardscience’ on this is still developing, but we know enough to take initial steps inapplying these insights.14 This involves far more than just language and meta-phors. All conceptual integration networks involve the ‘compression’ of differentaspects of the inputs – using the organizing frames – to create the new ‘blendedspaces’. In brief, this is how our imagination and perception ‘works’, in a mostdynamic (but largely unnoticed) way.

“Generic Space”

Input 2

values and properties 2

Input 1

values and properties 1

Blended Space “Emergent Structure”

new values and properties

Figure 1. The basic structure of conceptual blending.



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‘Mirror networks’, for example, are integration networks in which all spaces –inputs, generic, and blended – share a common organizing frame or theme. An‘organizing frame for a mental space is a frame that specifies the nature of therelevant activity, events, and participants’. (Fauconnier and Turner, 2002, p.123)The input spaces ‘mirror’ each other since they have the same basic organizingframe, as do the generic and blended spaces. Slingerland (2008) observes (p.160)that all such conceptual blending may in fact be a common form of ‘synaesthesia’,where we combine two or more senses together. Such uses of our capacity forsynaesthesia must certainly also underlie Tantric visualizations and s@dhana. Forexample, the ?tmatattva, an undated VaiX>ava Sahajiy@ text which I recently pub-lished, very clearly outlines stages of s@dhana in which the different senses are tobe blended and absorbed into higher states of consciousness.15

What Fauconnier and Turner refer to as ‘single-scope’ networks are betterknown as the above-mentioned conventional SOURCE-TARGET metaphors of thetype originally studied by Lakoff and Johnson. In other words, there are two inputspaces with two different organizing frames, but only one organizing frame is pro-jected into the blend. This is the key. For example, in the metaphor of two topexecutives who are in competition (BUSINESS IS BOXING), we might say thatthey are fighting like two boxers: ‘The late Steve Jobs often fought it out withBill Gates.’ The generic organizing frame is that of COMPETITION. The SOURCEdomain is ‘boxing’, which provides the organizing frame, details, and framinginput, while the TARGET domain is that of ‘business’, the focus of understanding.Although the two men may have never struck one another, in the blend their rolesas ‘boxers’ make sense and we are able to gain global insight from the network. Aswith any such basic metaphor, the conceptual integration network provokes in-sight into ‘one thing’ (boxing) which is then projected onto ‘another thing’ (busi-ness). The same type of ‘cross-mapping’ or projection is true of religiousmetaphors like GOD IS LOVE, and Tantric metaphors like THE YOGIC BODY IS ALOTUS FLOWER, or CONSCIOUNESS IS A DESTINATION. We use inferences anddetails available from the framing input (boxing, love, lotus flowers, destinations),which themselves already have many compressions of meaning. And even theseinputs are blends themselves – so that we can have complicated systems ofblended spaces becoming inputs for further blending. This may reflect culturaldevelopment (Slingerland 2008 suggests using an ‘epidemiological metaphor’ forthis; pp.212–14), as certain blends become entrenched in a culture, always avail-able to make new blends to be ‘reblended’ (or perhaps, to be forgotten). And thiscognitive network can be very, very powerful (a power that gurus and s@dhanastake advantage of), as it evokes ‘emotions, seemingly anchored in the trustworthyframing input, that feel to us as if they are all-clarifying.’ (Fauconnier and Turner2002, p.129). So, we can more readily understand the more diffuse concepts ofbusiness, God, the yogic body, or consciousness because we project onto them – inthe blend – things that are quite well known from the more-detailed source domainof framing. Above all, it is this blending of what they call the ‘inner-space’



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relations or properties in the SOURCE input (boxing, love, lotus flowers, destin-ations) with the more diffuse or less knowable qualities in the TARGET input(business, God, the yogic body, consciousness) that allow metaphors to do thecognitive and imaginative ‘heavy lifting’ that they do, ranging from ordinary lan-guage (‘He digested the book.’) to more complicated Tantric metaphors like THEYOGIC BODY IS A LOTUS FLOWER and CONSCIOUSNESS IS A DESTINATION.16 AsFauconnier and Turner note (p.131), ‘This kind of projection is an imaginativeachievement’, which is taken even further with the richest of networks, called a‘double-scope’ network and a megablended network (involving more than twoinputs/frames).

With ‘double-scope’ networks, we come to perhaps the most intriguing conceptthat may be used in the study of religion and Tantra, as they (as well as mega-blends) produce the most imaginative and creative blends. In this type of network,there are not only two different inputs and two different organizing frames, but thoseframes may typically clash with each other, so that only parts of each frame areprojected into the blend, leading to an entirely new ‘blended space’ which has its own‘emergent structure’ and frame. It is this concept of the ‘emergent’ or novel blendthat I feel is most useful for the study of Tantra. Let’s examine a good ‘real-world’example used by Fauconnier and Turner: that of the Computer Desktop (such asthe Windows XP and Word version that I am ‘writing’ this on). The first input isthat of ‘office work’, and includes details like desks, files, folders, trashcans, andpaper clips.17 The second input is that of ‘computer commands’, such as print,copy, find, replace, save, point-and-click, and paste. In the blended space of theComputer Desktop (Windows or Mac), of course, we never actually touch or lift any‘folders’, and pointing and clicking is not part of traditional pre-computer officework.18 Only certain parts and details of each input are projected into the space,and they only really make sense in the new emergent structure of the blended space.Although the organizing ‘frames’ of offices and computers clash in some ways (andthe topology of a 3D office world is ‘relaxed’ or ‘compressed’ for the 2D screen inthe blend), they result in an incredibly creative and imaginative blended network.As they observe, ‘This emergent structure is not in the inputs – it is part of thecognitive construction in the blend . . . The blend is an integrated platform fororganizing and developing those other platforms.’ (Fauconnier and Turner 2002,p.133). Thus, we might say that any Tantric visualization or ritual also involves thecreation of complex ‘emergent structures’ of experience and imagination, for theyonly occur (at least initially) in the blended ‘world’ of the s@dhana imparted by theguru. Conceptual blending theory also allows us to bridge from textuality to ritual,as s@dhana involves receiving and ‘running the blends’ not only in the texts andoral transmissions, but also in the performative bodily movements mediated by yetother blended spaces and worlds. Through conceptual integration networks, textsand ritual are fused, a blending that has been addressed in many ways by otherscholars of Tantra through the years.19



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Another critical aspect of blending that can be applied to the study of Tantra iswhat Fauconnier and Turner (2002, pp.217 ff.) term ‘counterfactual reasoning’,which allows us to operate mentally on the ‘unreal’, to run scenarios, checkoutcomes, and then make choices. For example, hypothesizing about becominganother person (‘If I were you.’), or stating ‘I see nothing’, are powerful counter-factual statements. But we do this all the time, creating seemingly ‘absurd’ possibleworlds that, while actually powerful conceptual blends, seem to be just a routinefeat of the imagination. In addition to using the conditional sense of ‘If’ andconsequent clauses, counterfactuals also make use of the clash between analogyand disanalogy, between what seems to be possible and what seems impossible.(Slingerland 2008, pp.182–4, refers to this perceptual and construal modality asseeing ‘as-if.’) Fauconnier and Turner (2002) observe that:

the capacity to juggle counterfactual spaces is a consequence of the evolutionof cognitively modern human beings and their remarkable capacity fordouble-scope blending. Counterfactuals are a good exemplar of double-scopeblending because the oppositions between the spaces are so manifest. Onecannot overstate the importance of counterfactuals in human life. (p.231)

Counterfactuals are at the roots of scientific and mathematical reasoning and,this point needs to be emphasized, they underlie just about every religious world-view and cosmology. To draw inferences about an unseen deity or heavenly realm,to communicate with spirits and to fly in an astral body to an invisible realmall involve complex counterfactuals and double-scope blending. To be sure, theperson who is involved in ‘running the blend’ will not regard it as such; instead,they will attribute profound ontological, cosmological, and epistemological statusto the blend. To the religious person, the blends are very much experienced as‘real’, like most blends. At the very least, they are neurobiological realities. Butreligious blends are entrenched in societies, cultures, languages, and even in ‘ma-terial anchors’ such as texts, statues, and buildings. This is because ‘human beingsuse conceptual integration to create rich and diverse conceptual worlds with suchfeatures as sexual fantasies, grammar, complex numbers, personal identity, re-demption, and lottery depression.’ (Fauconnier and Turner 2002, p.309). It seemsquite clear to me that such complex conceptual integration networks and ‘worlds’are also essential to many aspects of Tantra.

To conclude this necessarily brief overview of CSR theory, I would argue thatany accomplished Tantric guru has also been very skilled in the development andtransmission of creative ‘double-scope’ and ‘megablend’ blending of the sort wehave reviewed. Tantra, in the broadest of terms, is an imaginative exploration ofthe human body, mind and the cosmos in the search for a final transformativestate. I would argue that virtually all of the key aspects of Tantra involve creativeconceptual integration networks and complex blends. This entails not just‘running the blends’ conceptually, but actually ‘living the blends’ in actual life,



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entrenching them in a subculture, and transmitting them to subsequent gener-ations – through texts, sculpture, painting, architecture, and ritual. Tantra may beregarded, then, as a blend which has been repeatedly ‘reblended’20 Among otherthings, this would involve the basic process of s@dhana (the system of ritual prac-tices), including yoga and ritual sexual intercourse; uses of mantras and bajas(powerful phrases and syllables); worship of the guru and deities; rituals usingphysical substances and objects; pilgrimages to sacred spaces; and especially thevisualization and entering of the ‘yogic body’. In all of this, we see the powerfulrole of the ‘emergent structure’ of the blended space of the Tantric worldviewsand experiences; although the inputs may, for example, be the human body and achanting of syllables, the ‘emergent structure’ of a higher reality is experienced as aneurobiological reality by the practitioner. Seen this way, a classic conundrum such as‘where are the cakras?’ becomes moot: their placement ‘near’ the bellybutton oratop the skull misses the point. They reside in the ‘blended space’ and ‘emergentstructure’ that is conveyed by the guru, the texts, and s@dhanas of the respectivelineages or samprad@yas. It is clearly counterfactual to say that there are lotusflowers and ponds in the physical body; but, once projected into the blendedspace of the yogic body, this compression makes very good ‘sense’ and enhancesthe experience of embodiment.

Let us return now to considering how the incredibly interesting and compli-cated ritual process of smara>a or @ropa-s@dhana can be examined using conceptualblending theory. By identifying certain ‘vital relations’ between the inputs, such as‘identity’ and ‘causality’ (Fauconnier and Turner 2002, p.161), we will find that thisprocess may be regarded as a type of ‘reverse amnesia’ (anamnesis) in which theadept gradually ‘remembers’ (smara>a) their ‘true identity’ (svar+pa) as a characterin the eternally unfolding mythical drama of R@dh@ and KPX>a.21 The VaiX>avaSahajiy@s combined beliefs and practices from diverse Tantric and alchemicaltraditions22 prior to their flourishing in the 16th through 18th centuries, a topicwhich has been explored by a number of scholars.23 As we have noted, theVaiX>ava Sahajiy@s extensively adapted and ‘reblended’ devotional bhakti practicesfrom the very popular Caitanya movement of Bengali VaiX>avism.24 The under-lying orthodox Gaunaya VaiX>ava system derives from the famous exploits of thedivine cowherd KPX>a, presented especially in the Bh@gavata Pur@>a (ca. 8th to 9thcenturies CE) and in later VaiX>ava Hindu texts. The frame story involves the lovetrysts between KPX>a, regarded by orthodox VaiX>avas as the Supreme Godhead,and various milkmaids (gopas), especially R@dh@, who are regarded as both theblissful emanations of god and as the inner human soul. There are many episodesto the story, but the key is to visualize the romancing and even love-making of thedivine couple in the celestial realm of Vraja. How? For this, Sahajiy@s adapt thedevotional process of ritually creating, imagining, and ‘becoming’ one of the char-acters in the drama – typically one of the female attendants or friends of R@dh@, a‘maiden’ (manjara), ‘friend’ (sakha), or milkmaid (gopa). The Sahajiy@s typically usethis system as just a preliminary one in their much longer series of rituals, but it



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involves singing the stories of this love-play (la l@), physically dancing and chant-ing, adopting the emotions (bh@va) of a particular maiden, and – thanks to theinitiation of a guru and the gift of a powerful mantra – ‘remembering’ (smara>a) theactual appearance and personality of the inner maiden, whom one has ‘forgotten’they really are, due to cycles of rebirth in the swirl of the phenomenal universe.For details I would refer readers to David Haberman’s superb study of GaunayaVaiX>ava devotional practices, Acting as a Way of Salvation: A Study of R@g@nug@Bhakti S@dhana (1988). As developed by one of the great VaiX>ava theologians inthe 16th century, R+pa Gosv@min, and then ‘Tantricized’ by the Tantric VaiX>avaSahajiy@ guru Siddha Mukundadeva a century later, this process not only results inthe creation of a megablended ‘emergent structure’ which is the body and realm ofthe ‘maiden’, but it is also built upon the theory that the guru helps one to recoverthis ‘forgotten’ identity (abhim@na) of the maiden.

In Fig. 2 I have sketched out a possible conceptual blending chart to ‘unpack’this maiden body, and the various inputs and vital relations involved. Of note forus is that this is not just a visualized process; by using the performative move-ments of the actual physical body (r+pa), and using the projected details from themythical drama, the adept seems to trigger mirror neurons, activating and reor-ganizing inner ‘bodily schema’, and creating novel sensorimotor programs.Because the intensity of the emotions and sexuality are also experienced andprojected into the emergent structure of the blend, the entire process leads tothe adept truly believing and experiencing oneself no longer as a Bengali devoteein, let us say, 1650, but rather as a beautiful young maiden, helping R@dh@ in her

Figure 2. Possible blending of the maiden (manjara) s@dhana of orthodox Bengali VaiX>avism.Physical forms (r+pa) of ordinary men and women are ‘remembered’ (smara>a) as the ‘perfectedform’ (siddha-r+pa), of the maidens, friends, and milkmaids in the KPX>a story. In the BlendedSpace – which is the goal of s@dhana – the emergent structure is transcendent, the timeless realmof Vraja and divine love (prema).



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trysts on the celestial plane. Among the community of orthodox VaiX>avas,Haberman reports, this transformation can be so real that one male devotee,who had ‘remembered’ his maiden identity in Vraja, was seen by colleaguesnearby as if in a trance, and in fact seemed to have grown female breasts!(Haberman 1988, p.92). Thus, this ritual process provides both the cognitive sci-entist of religion and the South Asianist with a wealth of imagery to analyze usingnew theories from CSR.

Although this maiden body (siddha-r+pa; manjara-r+pa) was regarded by R+paGosv@min as being created out of a ‘particle of light’ (jyotir-a:sa) of God/KPX>a,it was brought to realization through the agency of the initiating guru and thecosmic revelatory powers of the initiatory mantra. For later Sahajiy@s, this servedas but the first or second of three stages of ritual practice, the highest being that ofthe ‘perfected’ or siddha stage.25 Much to the chagrin and outrage of orthodoxVaiX>avas then and now, the Sahajiy@s, as Tantrics, ‘ratcheted the blend’, to useSlingerland’s phrasing, and argued that each male devotee himself should becomeKPX>a, and each female devotee should become R@[email protected] But rather than experien-cing this love play as voyeuristic young girls in the celestial realm, Sahajiy@s madethe bold (and very Tantric) claim that one should actually engage in ritual sexualintercourse in this body, in this world, and then, through the practice of coitusreservatus, reverse the flow of sexual fluids through yogic channels into theinner body, where the ‘divine’ androgynous body of the Sahaja-m@nuXa would be‘born.’ I have written about this process elsewhere (Hayes 1995, 2000, 2012; see onepossible conceptual blending chart for this process in Fig. 3.), but here we needjust observe that this takes the ‘maiden process’ further, in that one ‘remembers’

Figure 3. Possible blending of overall Sahajiya Tantric s@dhana. Physical forms (r+pa) are blendedwith essence (svar+pa), men and women with KPX>a and R@dh@, the li>gam and yoni with a bee (ali)and lotus (padma). In the Blended Space – which is the goal of s@dhana – the emergent structureis transcendent, the timeless realm of Sahaja and cosmic substance (vastu).



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oneself as not just KPX>a or R@dh@, but in fact as the androgynous inner cosmicbeing, the ‘innate’, ‘co-eval’, or ‘together-born’ (sahaj-ja) being (Sahaja-m@nuXa)which is above and beyond everything. There are many wonderful passages con-cerning this esoteric practices that lead one to this ‘destination’ above the innerlotus flowers and ponds/tanks (sarovara). One compares the tongue of the guru tothe penis, the ear of the adept to the vagina, the initiatory mantra as the semen,and the songs and chanting to the female blood/seed.27 And whereas the result ofworldly lovemaking may be the birth of a physical child, the result of Sahajiy@sexual s@dhana is the birth of the divine yogic body ‘within’ the male body, theyogically reversed sexual fluids (rasa-rati) becoming ‘cosmic essence’ (vastu). Theinner body is then fashioned out of this ‘cosmic essence’,28 and is often visualizedas a series of ascending lotus ponds (sarovara), connected by a ‘crooked river’(b@nk@-nada)), which one takes ‘upwards against the current’ (sroter uj@na) up tothe ‘destination’ of Sahajapur and the achievement of becoming the ‘forgotten’Sahaja-m@nuXa. This Sahajiy@ cosmophysiological model of the yogic body is quitedifferent from the better-known Saiva and S@kta systems of the cakras and n@nas, asit is based more on fluids than energies, and centers on rivers and lotus pondsrather than just lotus flowers. This ‘fluidic’ nature of the VaiX>ava Sahajiy@ yogicbody may very well reflect the riverine topography of greater Bengal, where mostof the community lived.

I hope that the above exploration of selected VaiX>ava Sahajiy@ and GaunayaVaiX>ava beliefs and practices has illustrated the potential uses of new method-ology derived from the CSR. We have seen how some Hindu Tantrics have creatednovel and powerful ‘blended worlds’, used vivid counterfactuals, and have experi-enced a type of ‘reverse amnesia’ in their long journey to the ‘destination’ ofcosmic consciousness. We are only at the beginning of our own interdisciplinaryquest to understand how cognitive science can further illuminate these distinctiveways of being an embodied, gendered, and emotional human being. Rather thanproviding a challenge to our more usual textual and field-based studies of Tantra,I hope that the uses of CSR will prove to be complimentary to our older meth-odologies and hermeneutical stances. I look forward to our ongoing conversationsin print and at conferences.

References

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Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.Bose, M., 1986. The Post-Caitanya Sahajia [sic] Cult of Bengal. Reprint ed. Delhi, India: Gian

Publishing House.Bulkeley, K. (eds). 2005. Soul, Psyche, Brain: New Directions in the Study of Religion and

Brain-Mind Science. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.Bulkeley, K., 2004. The Wondering Brain: Thinking About Religion with and Beyond Cognitive

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Dasa, P., 1972. Caitanyottara Prathama C@ribi Sahajiy@ Punthi. Calcutta: Bharati Book Stall.Dasa, P., 1978. Sahajiy@ o Gaunaya VaiX>ava Dharma. Calcutta: Firma K. L. M. Private Ltd.Dasgupta, S., 1969. Obscure Religious Cults. 3rd ed. Calcutta: Firma K. L. Mukhopadhyay.Dimock, E. C. Jr, 1989. The Place of the Hidden Moon: Erotic Mysticism in the Vaishnava-Sahajiy@

Cult of Bengal. Reprint ed. Chicago: Phoenix Books.Dimock, E. C. Jr, Stewart, T. K. (eds. and trans.) (1999). Caitanya Carit@mPta of

KPX>ad@sa Kavir@ja: A Translation and Commentary. Harvard Oriental Series, vol. 56.Witzel, M. ed. Cambridge, MA: Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies, HarvardUniversity.

Fauconnier, G., Turner, M., 2002. The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind’sHidden Complexities. New York: Basic Books.

Flood, G., 2006. The Tantric Body: The Secret Tradition of Hindu Religion. New York: I. B.Tauris.

Gallagher, S., 2005. How the Body Shapes the Mind. New York: Oxford University Press.Gibbs, R. W. Jr, 2006. Embodiment and Cognitive Science. New York: Cambridge University

Press.Haberman, D., 1988. Acting as a Way of Salvation: A Study of R@g@nug@ Bhakti S@dhana. New

York: Oxford University Press.Hayes, G. A., 1985. ‘Shapes for the soul: a study of body symbolism in the VaiX>ava-

sahajiy@ tradition of medieval Bengal.’ Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago.Hayes, G. A., 1995. The VaiX>ava Sahajiy@ traditions of medieval Bengal. In: Lopez, D. S. Jr

(ed). Religions of India in Practice. Princeton Readings in Religions. Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press, pp. 333–51.

Hayes, G. A., 2000. The necklace of immortality: a 17th-century VaiX>ava Sahajiy@ text.In: White, D. G. (ed). Tantra in Practice. Princeton Readings in Religions. Princeton:Princeton University Press, pp. 308–25.

Hayes, G. A., 2003. Metaphoric worlds and yoga in the VaiX>ava Sahajiy@ Tantric traditionsof medieval Bengal. In: Whicher, I., Carpenter, D. (eds). Yoga: The Indian Tradition,pp. 162–84. New York: RoutledgeCurzon.

Hayes, G. A., 2005. Contemporary metaphor theory and alternative views of Krishna andR@dh@ in Vaishnava Sahajiy@ Tantric traditions. In: Beck, G. (ed). Alternative Krishnas:Regional and Vernacular Variations on a Hindu Deity, Albany: SUNY Press. pp. 19–32.

Hayes, G. A., 2006. ‘The Guru’s tongue: metaphor, imagery, and vernacular language inVaiX>ava Sahajiy@ traditions.’ In Pacific World: Journal of the Institute of Buddhist Studies..Berkeley: Institute of Buddhist Studies. 3rd series no. 8. pp. 41–71.

Hayes, G. A., 2012. Eroticism and cosmic transformation as yoga: the ?tmatattva of theVaiX>ava Sahajiy@s of Bengal. In: White, D. G. (ed). Yoga in Practice. Princeton Readingsin Religions. Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 223–41.

Johnson, M., 1987. The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason.Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Kaplan-Solms, K., Solms, M., 2002. Clinical Studies in Neuro-Psychoanalysis: Introduction to aDepth Neuropsychology. 2nd ed. New York: Karnac.

Kaviraja, G., 1969/1975. Tantrik S@dhana o Siddhanta. 2 vols. Burdhwan: BardhamanVisvavidyalaya.

Kelly, E. F. et al. (eds). 2007. Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century.New York: Rowman and Littlefield.

Koch, C., 2004. The Quest for Consciousness: A Neurobiological Approach. Englewood, Colorado:Roberts and Company.



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Lakoff, G., 1987. Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind.Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Lakoff, G., Johnson, M., 1980. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Lakoff, G., Nunez, R. E., 2000. Where Mathematics Comes from: How the Embodied Mind Brings

Mathematics into Being. New York: Basic Books.Lakoff, G., Turner, M., 1989. More than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor. Chicago:

University of Chicago Press.Lakoff, M., Johnson, M., 1999. Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to

Western Thought. New York: Basic Books.McDaniel, J., 2012. ‘The role of Yoga in some Bengali Bhakti traditions: Shaktism, Gaudiya

Vaisnavism, Baul, and Sahajiya Dharma.’ Journal of Hindu Studies 5: 53–74.Newberg, A., Waldman, M. R., 2009. How God Changes Your Brain: Breakthrough Findings from

a Leading Neuroscientist. New York: Ballentine Books.Openshaw, J., 2002. Seeking B@uls of Bengal. New York: Cambridge University Press.Ramachandran, V. S., 2004. A Brief Tour of Consciousness: From Imposter Poodles to Purple

Numbers. New York: Pi Press.Ramachandran, V. S., 2011. The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Quest for What Makes Us

Human. New York: W. W. Norton and Co.Slingerland, E., 2008. What Science Offers the Humanities: Integrating Dody and Culture. New

York: Cambridge University Press.Stewart, T. K., 2010. The Final Word: The Caitanya-Carit@mPta and the Grammar of Religious

Tradition. New York: Oxford University Press.Turner, M. The portal for Mark Turner’s very useful website on the latest in conceptual

metaphor theory and conceptual blending theory. Available: http://markturner.org.Urban, H. B., 2001a. The Economics of Ecstasy: Tantra, Secrecy, and Power in Colonial Bengal.

New York: Oxford University Press.Urban, H. B., 2001b. Songs of Ecstasy: Tantric and Devotional Songs from Colonial Bengal.

New York: Oxford University Press.White, D. G., 1996. The Alchemical Body: Siddha Traditions in Medieval India. Chicago:

University of Chicago Press.White, D. G., 2003. Kiss of the Yogina : ‘Tantric Sex’ in its South Asian Contexts. Chicago:

University of Chicago Press.

Notes

1 I would like to dedicate this essay to the memory of the late Professor JosephO’Connell of The University of Toronto, who passed away while this draft wasbeing edited. Professor O’Connell, for decades a champion of Bengal Studies andthe study of Bengali VaiX>avism, originally suggested to me the idea of BengaliVaiX>ava smara>a as a type of anamnesis.

2 See note 23 below for standard scholarly studies on the VaiX>ava Sahajiy@ trad-itions. Although these transgressive Bengali Hindu Tantrics have been termed‘VaiX>ava’, they actually privileged Tantric interpretations of the god KPX>a andhis lover R@dh@. The term ‘Sahajiy@’ or ‘seeker of Sahaja’ derives from the Sanskritand Bengali word ‘sahaja,’ itself a compound of saha-ja, literally ‘together-born.’ Thisawkward English phrase refers to the ultimate Sahajiy@ goal of uniting the cosmicmale and female essences into the androgynous salvific state of the [email protected] is roughly parallel to the union of Siva and Sakti in other Tantric traditions.Other glosses of sahaja are ‘innate’, ‘spontaneous’, ‘co-eval’, ‘natural’, and ‘easy’.



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3 See Hayes (2003, 2005, 2006).4 Slingerland (2008). See note 14 below for other recent works in the area of cognitive

science.5 The most useful study of this is Haberman (1988). The practice was especially

developed by one of the six Bengali VaiX>ava theologians, R+pa Gosv@min. It wasalso called manjara-s@dhana, or ‘practice with [the spiritual body of] a youngmaiden’. This underlies the well-known Bengali VaiX>ava practice of singing andchanting to KPX>a, as well as joyful dancing in his honor (kartana, sa:kartana). Alsosee Stewart (2010) for a detailed discussion of the Bengali VaiX>ava texts supportingthis practice.

6 See note 9 below.7 Fauconnier and Turner (2002).8 For my translations of selected VaiX>ava Sahajiy@ texts, see Hayes (1985, 1995, 2000,

2012). Dimock (1989), Dasgupta (1969), and Bose (1986) also have translated portionsof texts. Dimock includes a complete translation of a short ritual text (pp.234–45).

9 Lakoff and Johnson (1980). See also the later work exploring metaphor and em-bodiment by Johnson (1987). Other useful works by Lakoff, Johnson, and MarkTurner include Lakoff (1987); Lakoff and Turner (1989); Lakoff and Johnson(1999); and Lakoff and Nunez (2000), which explores relationships between embodi-ment and mathematics. The literature on contemporary metaphor theory is exten-sive, and growing all of the time. I am indebted to all of these works for helping meto appreciate the pivotal role of conceptual metaphor in the medieval VaiX>avaSahajiy@ traditions.

10 Johnson (1987, pp.xiv–xv).11 I explored this Tantric metaphor in Hayes (2003) and Hayes (2005).12 See http://markturner.org. There is some recent evidence of colored minerals being

applied as body painting, which may suggest an earlier date for conceptual blend-ing, perhaps as far back as 100,000 years. The recent magnum opus by Robert Bellah(2011) also examines the role of religion in human evolution.

13 See Fauconnier and Turner (2002), especially pp.113–37.14 The ‘hard science’ on all of this is still evolving, and there is a great need for

scholars of religion and the humanities to work with neuroscientists in futureendeavors. At the American Academy of Religion, the Cognitive Science ofReligion Program Unit was recently formed, and they have co-sponsored fascinatingpanel sessions with the Tantric Studies Program Unit. Slingerland (2008), especiallychapters 3 and 4, explores this need to work across disciplines. Another usefulconsideration may be found in Bulkeley (2005). Also see his useful survey ofrecent interactions between religious studies and the cognitive science of religion,Bulkeley (2004). Recent useful works in the general area of cognitive neuroscienceinclude Ramachandran (2004, 2011); Newberg and Waldman (2009); Gallagher(2005); Gibbs, Jr. (2006); Kelly et al. (2007); Kaplan-Solms and Mark Solms (2002);and Koch (2004). This is just a sampling of recent works in the field, which isflourishing now. My thanks to Kelly Bulkeley for suggesting many of these titles.

15 See Hayes (2012). The ?tmatattva, which may be as late as the 18th century, illus-trates how basic S@:kya-Yoga cosmophysiology may be given a Tantricreinterpretation.



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16 See Fauconnier and Turner (2002, 129–30), and Figure 7.3 for a detailed discussionand diagram of how all of this can be ‘mapped out.’ For VaiX>ava Sahajiy@s, theultimate cosmic state of liberation, wherein all dualities collapse, is said to occurwhen the androgynous Sahaja-m@nuXa (the ‘innate’ or ‘co-eval’ Being) resides in the‘destination’ called variously ‘The Place of the Hidden Moon’ (guptacandrapur) or‘The Innate Place’ (sahajapur). A literal translation of sahaja (saha-ja), of course, is‘together-born’, which glosses poorly in English. As we shall see, however, theimagery of ‘birth’ is essential to central tropes and blends in the tradition.

17 In the latest version of Windows XP, on my laptop, the ‘trashcan’ has been‘upgraded’ to the more environmentally friendly ‘Recycle’ bin. Even blends canbe subject to popular trends!

18 See Fauconnier and Turner (2002, p.340) for more examples involving the clashes inthe Computer Desktop blend.

19 For example, Flood (2006) explores the intricate relationship between ‘text’ and‘body’ in Saiva Tantric traditions. A basic goal of the Tantric visualization of animage or a ma>nala is to gradually learn the details of that which is beheld, and thento merge with the deity or being depicted in the image and/or diagram. This wouldrequire a massive megablended conceptual integration network to be fashionedover months and years.

20 Although he does not use the terms ‘blend’ or ‘reblending’, Hugh Urban’s fine studyand translations of the songs of the Kart@bhaj@s of Bengal illustrate how Tantrictraditions were reimagined and reinterpreted in response to the growth of mer-cantile capitalism in colonial Bengal. See Urban (2001a) and Urban (2001b), the laterof which contains vivid translations of Tantric Kart@bhaj@ songs. For an explorationof how the B@uls of Bengal also adapted Tantric beliefs and practices, see Openshaw2002.

21 The classical Greek philosophical and epistemological treatment of anamnesis maybe found, of course in Plato’s dialogues Meno and Phaedra. For Plato, the forgottenontological status is that of the free soul, not completely dissimilar to the VaiX>avanotion. In a very different and more recent vein, we find the late science fictionwriter Philip K. Dick making creative use of anamnesis in stories such as ‘We canremember it for you Wholesale’, which was turned into the blockbuster movie TotalRecall. Philosopher Simon Critchley recently contributed a three-part essay to theNew York Times (online only) on Dick’s use of anamnesis and its similarity toGnosticism. See Critchely (2012).

22 For a useful study of alchemy and Tantra, see White (1996). Although he does nottreat the medieval VaiX>ava Sahajiy@s, White explores the transgressive practicesand use of sexual substances in earlier Tantric traditions that were utilized in theirown form by the later VaiX>ava Sahajiy@s. On sexual substances in Tantra, also seeWhite 2003.

23 Standard scholarly works on the VaiX>ava Sahajiy@s in English are Dasgupta (1969),especially pp.113–56; Bose (1986); and Dimock (1989). Dasgupta tends to seethe medieval VaiX>ava Sahajiy@s as a later development of the earlier BuddhistTantrics who used the term sahaja, while Bose/Basu (reflecting most current schol-arly opinion) argues that they should be regarded as primarily a post-Caitanyamovement. My own works of translation and analysis include: Hayes (1985, 1995,



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2000, 2003, 2005, 2012). Scholarly works in Bengali include: Bose (1932); Dasa (1972,1978); and Kaviraja (1969/1975), which covers the VaiX>ava Sahajiy@s in variousplaces.

24 The most useful and comprehensive study of the Bengali VaiX>ava traditions de-veloping around Caitanya is Stewart (2010), and the massive translation of the keytext, the Caitanya-carit@mPta, by KPX>ad@sa Kavir@ja, in Dimock and Stewart (1999).

25 According to the AmPtaratn@vala (‘The Necklace of Immortality’) of Mukunda-d@sa, alater 17th-century text connected to the Mukunda-deva lineage, the three stagesare: ‘beginner’ (pravarta), ‘accomplished’ (s@dhaka), and ‘perfected’ (siddha). SeeHayes (2000) for translations of selected passages from this text and some analysis.As with most Tantra, the adept first requires initiation by the dakX@ guru, who utterspowerful mantras and baja syllables into the ear. However, the VaiX>ava Sahajiy@salso required a second guru, the ‘teaching’ or sikX@ guru to impart the later phases ofs@dhana. Dimock (1989, pp.199–200) noted that this second teacher was often awoman, who imparted the ritual sexual techniques.

26 See McDaniel (2012, pp.63–7) for a discussion of how this Tantric interpretation oftaking on the identities and bodies of R@dh@ and KPX>a remains controversialeven in recent Bengal.

27 This is a passage from a 17th-century text by ?kincanad@sa, the Vivarta-vil@sa(‘The Game of Transformation’), which itself is a Sahajiy@ commentary upon theCaitanya-carit@mPta of KPX>ad@sa Kavir@ja. See Hayes (2006) for a discussion of theseverses and the concept of ‘reverse birth’ in VaiX>ava Sahajiy@ tradition.

28 In contrast, the worldly mixing of sexual fluids into the womb lead to the birthof a baby; this ‘reverse practice’ (ulb@-s@dhana) leads to the generation of the inneryogic body, regarded variously as the ‘perfected form’ (siddha-r+pa), ‘divine body’(deva-deha) or ‘maiden form’ (manjara-r+pa).



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Conceptual Blending Theory, ‘Reverse Amnesia’, and the Study of Tantra

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