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Can Representation be Transformative? Resemblance, Suggestion, and Metaphor in Tantric Meditation

Abstract:After contextualizing “representation” in the monistic tantric paradigm, this article explores the aff ective domains of representation in light of tantric visualization. In order to capture the embodied nature of meaning in the monistic tantric paradigm of representation, the concept of saṅketa is engaged as a tantric category to address suggestion or “indication,” whereby meaning is conveyed and representation established. Primary reliance is on the Yoginīḥrdaya to address the threefold representation by speech, gesture, and maṇḍalas. Engaging meaning and representation from within a Śākta philosophical perspective allows us to bridge some of the chasms within contemporary understandings of the body, schema, and meaning. This new theoretical framework facilitates addressing simulation and animation, where the lived body is both representing and represented, by means of gestural language. The final argument of the article is that these “representations” of experience do not merely present again the reality presented before. They transform experience itself.