Paper short abstract:

The paper wants to contribute to an understanding of the diverse application and interpretation of yantras as objects of worship in the lived religions of South Asia. It does so by discussing the Dhumavatiyantra as compared to the Sriyantra in historical textual as well as recent practiced contexts.

Paper long abstract:

Yantras are understood to be devices assisting meditation and ritual as well as objects of worship on their own right in Hindu and Tantric traditions, both. In present-day South Asia, they are widespread and frequently appear in socio-religious contexts in public, as in temples and public festivals, and in private, as in house-shrines and for individual worship at home. The most prominent example here is the Sriyantra, understood by most modern Hindu traditions as the one auspicious symbol for subh-labh, "prosperity and gain".

From a religious history point of view yantras first rose to elevated prominence in Tantric traditions and, from there, were highly successfully incorporated into mainstream Hinduism. The story of yantras then is one of incorporating esoteric Tantric (ritual) practices and symbols into exoteric Smarta Hindu traditions. To exemplify and discuss this, the paper analyses one goddess-yantra, the Dhumavatiyantra, and its socio-religious development and interpretation from the marked Tantric textual background to its reading in recent Hinduism, for instance in lived religious practices or in online yantra shops.

This paper wants to contribute to an understanding of the broad and diverse application and interpretation of yantras as objects of worship in the lived religions of South Asia. It does so by discussing one example, the Dhumavatiyantra as compared to the Sriyantra, in its historical textual as well as recent practiced contexts. The paper accentuates that yantras, (geometric) visual images at first sight, are indeed multi-layered symbols utilized and interpreted in a multi-functional way in Hindu and Tantric traditions.