Abstract

In a forthcoming article, I have provided a first survey of a Śaiva astrological tantra from tenth-century Kashmir titled Yuddhajayārṇava (YJA), the “Ocean of Victory in Battle,” or, more generally, Svaraodaya, the “Emergence of Vocalic Sound.” The latter designation has come to refer broadly in India to the entire field of pneumancy, or divination practices based on the breath. In the thirteenth century, the YJA was also translated into Tibetan, where its legacy includes an impressive body of richly illustrated charts and diagrams derived from the astrological procedures described there.

The present communication will offer a general summary of what we now know of the YJA and its history, before turning to its specific treatment of the “five paths” (pathapañcaka) relating the elements and breaths, and thus forming the basis for the “emergence of vocalic sound.” It will be seen that there are remarkable discrepancies in the treatment of this topic between the Sanskrit text and its Tibetan translation, a notable departure from typical Tibetan translation practices. To attempt to understand the reasons for this will be one of the tasks before us.

Biography

Matthew T. Kapstein studied Sanskrit at the University of California, Berkeley, before completing his Ph.D. in Philosophy at Brown University (1987). He taught at Columbia University and the University of Chicago, before joining the École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris, as Director of the Study of Tibetan Religions, in 2002. In 2018 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His publications include: The Tibetan Assimilation of Buddhism (New York 2000), The Tibetans (Oxford 2006), The Rise of Wisdom Moon (New York 2009), and, co-edited with Kurtis Schaeffer and Gray Tuttle, Sources of Tibetan Traditions (New York 2013). Tibetan Manuscripts and Early Printed Books (two volumes, Cornell 2024), of which he was editor and co-author, received the Toshihide Numata Book Award in 2024.