#  HAA 282K - Art of Indian Esoteric Buddhism 

 





 Semester:   Fall 

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 Year offered:  2025 

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 Link: [Course Website](https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/153527) 

 

 

 

This seminar explores the art of Indian Esoteric Buddhism from various interpretive vantage points. After a brief historiographical introduction, we will examine scholarly discourses on Esoteric or Tantric Buddhism in relation to the artistic productions in medieval South Asia (ca. 800-1200CE). We will read *sādhana*s (ritual texts for visualization practices) and study the formal and historical structure of Esoteric Buddhist iconography as it developed in the Indian sub-continent. The two main topics for this semester will be 1) Śaiva-Buddhist interactions as manifested in iconographic and artistic articulations, and 2) women in the age of tantra. Students will engage in case studies exploring a historical relationship between ritual practices and artistic outputs in various Esoteric Buddhist contexts, which may include comparative examples from outside the Indian sub-continent.



 

 



 

 See also:- [ Fall 2025 ](/classterm/fall-2025)
- [ graduate ](/class-type/graduate)