The Path of Power: Impurity, Kingship, and Sacrifice in Assamese Tantra

Infamous throughout both Indian and western literature as a land of black magic, violent ritual, and tribal superstition, the region of Assam in northeast India has long been imagined to be the heartland of the secret and licentious practice of Tantra. Yet, despite their infamous reputation, the Tantric traditions of Assam have seldom been explored in any serious way by modern scholarship but have instead typically been dismissed as a thin veneer of Brahminical Hinduism over a substratum of indigenous tribal religion. This article suggests a fresh approach to the study of Assamese Tantra by looking at the deep relations among Tantric ritual, political power, and kingship in ancient Assam. Using insights from Michel Fou-cault and Georges Bataille, this article argues that much of Assamese Tantra centers around the unleashing and harnessing of power {śakti) in all its forms—social, political, and spiritual alike. Above all, Tantric ritual involves a systematic transgression of the normal laws of purity in order to release the dangerous power that lies bound up with impurity and violence. As such, Tantra was naturally very attractive to many of Assam's kings, enmeshed as they were within the dangerous, often impure world of statecraft, military struggle, and the inevitable violence of political power. You are the Primordial Supreme sakti, you are all power.It is by your power that we are powerful.