Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
Contributors
Introduction, Richard K. Payne

Symbolic and Comparative Studies
1. The Ritual Interplay of Fire and Water in Hindu and Buddhist Tantras, Holly Grether
2. Buddhist Permutations and Symbolism of Fire, Tadeusz Skorupski
3. The Structure of Japanese Buddhist Homa, Musashi Tachikawa

Textual Studies
4. The Vedic Homa and the Standardization of Hindu Puja, Timothy Lubin
5. Oblation, Non-conception, and Body-Systems of Psychosomatic Fire-oblation in Esoteric Buddhism in Medieval South Asia, Tsunehiko Sugiki
6. The Three Types of Fire Sacrifice According to Kanha'sSricakrasamvara-homavidhi, David B. Gray
7. Fire Rituals by the Queen of Siddhas: The Aparimitayur-homa-vidhi-nama in the Tengyur, Georgios T. Halkias
8. Homa Rituals in the Indian Kalacakratantra Tradition, Vesna A. Wallace
9. Ritual Subjects: Homa in Chinese Translations and Manuals from the Sixth through Eighth Centuries, Charles D. Orzech

Descriptive Studies
10. Newar Buddhist Homa Ritual Traditions, Todd Lewis and Naresh Bajracarya
11. The Navaratra Homa: Liver, Enchantment, and Engendering the Divine "Sakti-s", Nawaraj Chaulagain
12. Fire on the Mountain: The Shugendo Saito Goma, Richard K. Payne
13. Agnihotra Rituals in Nepal, Michael Witzel


Index

About the Author

Richard K. Payne is Yehan Numata Professor of Japanese Buddhist Studies at the Institute of Buddhist Studies, Berkeley.

Michael Witzel is Wales Professor of Sanskrit at Harvard University.

Reviews

"Some thirty years ago, the publication of the late Frits Staal's Agni: The Vedic Ritual of the Fire Altar marked a significant milestone in the study of Indian religions and, in the second volume of that monumental work, Staal's collaborators began to explore the diffusion of the fire ritual throughout Asia. With Homa Variations, Professors Payne and Witzel, together with a group of outstanding contributors, extend that project, bringing to
bear the resources of the best current field work, textual scholarship and ritual theory on the diversity of the fire ritual in Hindu and Buddhist milieux." --Matthew T. Kapstein, École Pratique des Hautes Études (Paris)
and The University of Chicago