Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>The tantric tradition of Buddhism emphasizes ritual and yogic practices organized as praxes constellated around a variety of buddhas, bodhisattvas, and guardian deities. Its earliest beginnings trace to about the sixth century in South Asia. From there it spread throughout the Buddhist cosmopolis—the network of interconnected locales and institutions that has supported the living tradition for two and a half millennia. Tantric Buddhism is understood here as a set of praxes—that is, as dynamic relations between thought and practice that change and develop dialectically over time. Different historical contexts reveal tantra as existing autonomously, as an unrecognized strain within a tradition, or acknowledged as an alternative or higher path. In these different ways, tantra spread along the networks of the Buddhist tradition linking South Asia to Southeast Asia, Inner Asia, East Asia, and today globally. Although often rendered invisible, the tantric traditions form a coherent, loosely integrated whole—a movement.</jats:p>