Body, self, and healing in tantric ritual paradigm

This article addresses the spiritual healing practices in classical India that are still prevalent throughout the sub-continent. Primarily relying on the text, Netratantra, with its purview of religious exorcism, mantra healing, and yogic and contemplative practices, this article explores the possibility of relating practices in the field to what has been inscribed in the texts from within the culture. This research demonstrates the fluid relationship existing between the textual and oral traditions, in contrast of the 'high' and 'low' cultures conceived by the Indologists. Tantric texts are exemplary in this regard, as they attempt to provide a framework for the cultural references they are encoding. In a broader sense, this article explores the understanding of the body that is presupposed in the detailed prescriptions of mantra healing. Although what is ailing is the flesh, healing practices detailed here are directed towards the mentally constructed body, and rituals include visualisation, chanting, and other forms of practices. The body in this belief-system defies the oppositional boundaries of 'outside' and 'inside', and 'subject' and 'object'. The healing process relies on the interaction and interpenetration of mental body with the constructed body and the flesh through mantras and other agents.