Southern Esoteric Buddhism
Esoteric practices, views and texts within Theravada Buddhism / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Southern Esoteric Buddhism and Borān kammaṭṭhāna ('former practices') are terms used to refer to certain esoteric practices, views and texts within Theravada Buddhism. It is sometimes referred to as Tantric Theravada due to its parallel with tantric traditions (although it makes no reference to tantras); or as Traditional Theravada Meditation.
L.S. Cousins defines it as "a type of Southern Buddhism which links magical and, ritual practices to a theoretical systematisation of the Buddhist path itself".[1][2]
One specific kind of Southern Esoteric Buddhism is termed the Yogāvacara tradition. It is most widely practiced today in Cambodia and Laos and in the pre-modern era was a major Buddhist current in Southeast Asia.
In the west, the study of Southern Esoteric Buddhism was pioneered by professor François Bizot and his colleagues at the École française d'Extrême-Orient with a particular focus on the material found at Angkor.[3]