The Economics of Ecstasy: Tantra, Secrecy, and Power in Colonial Bengal

by Hugh B. Urban and Wendy Doniger

This is a study of the Bengali Kartabhaja sect and its place in the broader movement of Tantrism, an Indian religious movement employing purposely shocking sexual language and rituals. Urban looks closely at the relationship between the rise of the Kartabhajas, who flourished at the turn of the 19th century, and the changing economic context of colonial Bengal. Made up of the poor lower classes laboring in the marketplaces and factories of Calcutta,...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 019513902X
• ISBN13: 9780195139020
• Release Date: November 2001
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.37 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.0"