A Critical Edition of Sri Kalacakratantra-Raja-Collated with the Tibetan Version (An Old and Rare Book-Pinhole)

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Sri Kalacakratantra-raja (collated with the Tibetan version) was critically edited for the first time by Dr. Bis- wanath Banerjee and published by the Asiatic Society. Calcutta in 1985.

The Kalacakra system, better known as the Kalaca- krayana is an offshoot of Vajrayana. The Kalacakratantra is the only available text of this system, which is of profound importance in Eastern India particularly because of its association with the Sahajiya cult embodied in the songs and dohas of the Siddhacaryas. Because of its importance in the study of cultural and social, religious and spiritual his- tory of the Country, the first edition of the book was exhausted in less than a year's time. In view of the great demand of the book, as also in view of its pro- found importance as a source book, the Asiatic Society is pleased to reprint it and make it available to interested scholars.

The Kilacakra system, better known as the Kalacakra- yana, is an offshoot of Vajrayana. At many places later Buddhism has been divided into three schools, viz., Vajrayana, Sahajayana and Kalacakrayana but the basis of such division of later Buddhism into three different yanas is not clear. We do not possess any extensive literature developed around the Sahajiya-cult excepting the dohas and songs of Sahajiya poets and Siddhacaryas, who, again, have generally recognised the important texts and theories of Vajrayana as authority. Of the Kalacakra-system we know of some texts, now available to us, from which we derive some idea about the tenets of the Kalacakra system and which perhaps establish that it is not an independent yand but a phase of Vajrayana Later Buddhism seems to have reached its extreme development with this system.

Waddell discarded the system as unworthy of being considered as a philosophy and found in it 'a monstrous and poly-demonist doctrine with its demonical Buddhas'. S. B. Das Gupta in his excellent work entitled 'An Introduction to Tantrik Buddhism' seems to have tacitly accepted the views of Waddell. Considered on the basis of Sanskrit texts now known, both in print and manuscripts, the views of Waddell loses its ground. The Kalacakratantra, the Vimalaprabha, the Sekoddeta-(ikä and various Tibetan commentaries on the subject help us to understand the system which in keeping with the traditions of Vajrayina attempts to explain the whole creation within this body.

The Kalacakratantra, also known as the Laghu-Kalacakra tantra-raja, is the only available fundamental text of this system, and it appears from various sources that there was a Malatantra from which the available text of the (Laghu) Kilacakratantra has been derived. The present edition of the Kalacakratantra has been prepared on the basis of the following manuscripts.