The Netra-tantra and its Yogas - Gavin Flood

This lecture was recorded for the SOAS Centre of Yoga Studies on 7th March 2023.

The Netra-tantra, composed in Kashmir between 700 and 850 CE, is part of the then new revelation of the Tantras, some of which challenged the older Vedic tradition and some of which complemented that tradition. The text covers a range of topics including the formation of the Netra mantra, possession and exorcism, meditation on a variety of deities, and three yogas called the gross, subtle, and supreme meditations. This talk will describe the relevant content and raise critical questions about who wrote the text and why.

Gavin Dennis Flood FBA is a British scholar of comparative religion specialising in Shaivism and phenomenology, but with research interests that span South Asian traditions. From 2005 to 2015, he served in the Faculty of Theology University of Oxford and as the Academic Director of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies. In 2008, he was granted the title of Professor of Hindu Studies and Comparative Religion from the University of Oxford. In 2014, he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy. In 2016, Flood became the inaugural Yap Kim Hao Professor of Comparative Religious Studies at Yale-NUS College in Singapore. He is a senior research fellow at Campion Hall, University of Oxford.