Beef, Dog, and Other Mythologies: Connotative Semiotics in Mahāyoga Tantra Ritual and Scripture

• Published in: Journal of the American Academy of Religion 2007-06, Vol.75 (2), p.383-417
• Main Author: Wedemeyer, Christian K.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Ambrosia; Asian religions; Beef; Buddhism; Buddism; History and sciences of religions; Meats; Religious literature; Religious rituals; Rites & ceremonies; Sacred texts; Semiotic connotation; Semiotic signs; Semiotics; Signification; Symbolism; Tantra; Theology
• ISSN: 0002-7189; 1477-4585
• DOI: 10.1093/jaarel/lfm006

Scholars have long debated how the antinomian elements in the Buddhist Tantras are to be interpreted. Some maintain that they are to be taken literally; others that they are figurative or "symbolic." Both, however--in approaching these statements as examples of directly denotative natural language--miss the most essential aspect of the semiology of these traditions. This paper demonstrates that the Buddhist Mahāyoga Tantras employ a form of signification (theorized by Roland Barthes) called "connotative semiotics," in which signs (a signifier-signified union) from natural language function as signifiers in a higher-order discourse. Employing these simiological tools enables criticism to recognize that what is fundamentally operative--in both ritual performance and scriptural narrative--is a grammar of purity and pollution in significant dialog with both earlier Buddhistn Tantras and Broader Indian religious norms. This suggests that such antinomianism--far from representing either "tribal" practices or rarified yogic codes--reflects concerns native to mainstream Indian religion.