On Tantra
Introduction to the Issue
The word tantra is often associated with provocative images of kinky divinized sex. In contemporary India, it is common to associate tantra with malicious magic and sorcery. While these associations alone offer a distorted picture of a complex phenomenon, there are nonetheless kernels of truth in both of them. After all, tantra’s story is partly about antinomian practices, about techniques designed to harness embodied power, and about the elevation of hidden, ‘impure’ gestures – like sex – to the status of divine portals. But the larger story of tantra is something far more fascinating and profound – a story that is still unfolding into the present day, as scholars discover and translate texts that were until now seemingly washed away by the tides of history. As these texts continue to emerge, a new community of practitioners and scholar-practitioners are engaging with them and incorporating their philosophies and perspectives into a coherent body of practices – in a way that can only be described as the burgeoning of a tantric renaissance.
While much has emerged in recent decades regarding the association of tantra with specifically Hindu Śaiva and Śākta traditions, tantra in fact was a widespread religious phenomenon that extended across India, Nepal, and other parts of Central, East, and Southeast Asia. As such, tantra had a significant impact on Vaiṣṇava, Buddhist, and Jain traditions (indeed the well-known and widely studied tradition of Tibetan Buddhism is often referred to as “tantric” Buddhism). These various traditions developed sophisticated systems of meditative visualization that incorporated mudra, mantra, and postures to alchemically transmute the body-mind toward various forms of divine attainment. Thus, even though there is a great deal of philosophical and theological variation within and between tantric traditions (making it difficult to define the movement on the basis of ideas alone), there is a common thread that can be traced along the lines of what Gavin Flood refers at as the “tantric body.”
Tantra comes from the Sanskrit verbal root “tan,” which means to “extend,” “spread,” “weave,” “display,” “put forth,” and “compose.” André Padoux adds, “By extension, it comes to mean ‘system,’ ‘doctrine,’ or ‘work.’ A Tantra is thus a work, a text – any text.”[1] Tantra therefore happens to be one of several words – together with āgama, saṃhitā, sūtra, etc – that were popularly used in a tantric period[2] that emerged in the early centuries of the common era. The early traditions were thus not referred to as “tantra” but instead as, for example, mantra mārga (or path of mantras). This feature distinguishes these early practitioners from modern ones, who have in many circumstances embraced the moniker of “tantrika” to describe their religious identity. The semantic association with “weaving” has been particularly attractive to modern practitioners, who consider the image of warp and weft to be an apt metaphor for understanding the relationship between the individuated self and the larger reality it is increasingly woven into through tantric practice.
While modern scholars have taken a special interest in this early medieval tantric phenomenon, and how it appropriated – or was appropriated by – a great many religious traditions, other students of tantra argue that its historical roots extend much earlier than this period, citing evidence for goddess traditions that preceded the period of the Kashmiri Śaivas.[3] For our purposes, it is enough to note this difference of historical perspective, without taking sides. Whatever the truth of tantra’s origins, it is now widely accepted by scholars and many practitioners that haṭha yoga derives from tantric traditions, with somewhat surprising connections to the Buddhist lineage.[4] It is perhaps unsurprising then that the tantric traditions have been particularly embraced by contemporary yoga practitioners, because tantric philosophies and perspectives seem to provide a fruitful lens through which practitioners might come to grips with the history and origins of modern postural yoga.
The tantric age most notably commented upon by scholars declined due to geo-political circumstances – first with the arrival of the Muslims and then by British colonial powers. Over the past several decades, however, as a result of the work of Swami Lakshmanjoo and a cabal of other spiritual teachers and passionate scholars translating and investigating the tantric corpus, tantra seems to be back and only growing in popularity. Given tantra’s variable emphasis on embodied transfiguration, the power of language, resistance to orthodox authority, and embrace of antinomian practices, tantric traditions are especially relevant and attractive today. With a history of philosophical treatises that easily rival those of other traditions in sophistication and complexity, they also offer radically alternative worldviews to that of our modern industrial status quo. They problematize hierarchical understandings of the divine, religion, and spirituality that are often inflected by Judeo-Christian histories and assumptions. And, while ancient, some of their esoteric technologies are arguably as practicable and relatable today as they were at the time of their historical origin.
Juxtaposed with the history of religious purity, both in Hindu Vedic contexts and in Christian, puritanical legacies (among others), there is something especially salient and enticing about tantric philosophies. The possibility of leveling up the taboo, those “bad” habits and dark places, and setting them alongside the “good” and the sanctified – this offers a welcome reprieve from the habits of shame and guilt that come with an overly simplified vision of morality. The good and the bad are often mixed up, just as shadow exits because of light, even if the popular imagination of religious narratives seem to belie this truth.
As a public, we love complex character development and our heroes are often afflicted with dark pasts, addiction, self-doubt, and forbidden love interests. In Harry Potter, Superman, Judas in the New Testament, Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita, among many others, we find reflections of ourselves in these often brave and tortured souls, and there is comfort in seeing the drama of human moral struggle enacted on a stage and apart from our own daily struggle. Yet, in the personal, day to day, a default of sin, shame, and repentance can frame not only the individual consciousness, but also the judicial systems, education, and more.
Tantric philosophies explore alternatives to this dualistic paradigm of good and bad, sin and repentance, by challenging the habits of mind that label some things good and others bad. Tantric expressions of the goddess Kālī are iconic examples of this philosophical perspective. In the later, more esoteric systems of Tantra, Kālī is embraced as the divine consciousness of which everything is a part and depicted through both saumya (pleasant) and raudra (fierce) forms.[5] As such, she represents the fullness of reality without exclusion, subsuming dualisms and binaries within a paradoxical synthesis that is commonly found throughout Hindu religions. The symbolism of her popular iconography today implies to the uninitiated a fierce, bloodthirsty goddess, and yet the devotional bhajanas to “Kālī Mā” indicate her status as the supreme mother of all. Further, in the Buddhist tradition, we have the great 8th century philosopher Nagarjuna, known for his influence in the development of the Mahayana, middle path as stating,
“Defilement and purification–
Knowing them from the perspective of ultimate reality
The one who knows [them as] one thing
Knows communion (…)
As oneself, so an enemy (…)
As one’s mother, so a whore, (…)
As urine, so wine.
As food, so shit.
As sweet-smelling camphor, so the stench from the ritually-impure
As words of praise, so revolting word (...)
As pleasure, so pain.”[6]
The question of whether or not tantric non-dualism amounts to a moral relativism is a fraught question not easily resolved – so its arbiters claim – from a “dualistic” perspective. In other words, any attempt to explain the problem of evil “non-dualistically” will fall into error precisely because there is no non-dual perspective, as such – all perspectives being predicated on a situatedness that is, by its very nature, dualistic. Therefore, the question points to a paradox that can arguably only be resolved through the embodied synthesis of tantric sādhana, or practice. While this introduction attempts to provide a brief sketch of tantra’s origins and its modern context, the articles that comprise this issue are almost exclusively inspired by Hindu Tantra and written largely by scholar-practitioners and those who engage with it from the perspective of a devotee. They offer insights into the phenomenon of tantra by attending to its various expressions of text, tradition, and practice – both ancient and modern.
This issue of Tarka includes a selection of articles that explore particular, fundamental aspects of tantra like the subtle body, kila, Matseyendranath, the role of the senses, the topic of initiation, and iconography. And, a number of comparative articles explore the development and intersection of tantra in and with diverse religious and spiritual traditions including Shaminism, Advaita, Buddhism, modern spirituality, Kashmir Saivism, Krishna devotion, and the Saiva/Shakta traditions. Additionally, this issue proudly features two visual essays, a contemporary expressive collection of artwork by the graphic and tattoo artist, India Amara and a sampling of the recent work featured in the British Museum 2021 exhibit, Tantra, researched and curated by Imma Ramos. Collectively, we hope that this assembly of approaches and topics will help to move the public appreciation of Tantra further towards a deeper understanding of the rich history and the potential philosophical impact of this tradition.
Written by Jacob Kyle and Stephanie Corigliano
Explore these articles from the issue…
Footnotes
- André Padoux, The Hindu Tantric World, Chicago: University of Chicago Press (2017: 7).
- This period has been famously coined by Alexis Sanderson as the “Śaiva Age”, although perhaps coining it the “Tantric Age”, as does Benoytosh Bhattacharyya, is preferable, given the range of traditions touched by this religious movement. Alexis Sanderson. “The Śaiva Age: The Rise and Dominance of Śaivism during the Early Medieval Period” in Shingo Einoo (ed.) Genesis and Development of Tantrism, Tokyo: Institute of Oriental Culture, University of Tokyo (2009).
- This Tantric period is often associated with the term “Kashmir” or “Kashmiri” Śaivism, due to its historical connections with the medieval culture of the Kashmir valley.
- James Mallinson has argued, for example that the text in which we first find haṭha yoga codified is the Amṛtasiddhi, which is considered a Buddhist work. James Mallinson. “Yoga: Haṭha” in Stewart Goetz & Charles Taliaferro, The Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Religion, Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell (2021)
- See, for example, Seema Bawa, “Raudra and Saumya Aspects of the Goddess A Study of Two Icons from the Cambà Valley”: https://www.academia.edu/42785306/ Raudra_and_Saumya_Aspects_of_the_Goddess_A_Study_of_Two_Icons_from_the_Cam- b%C3%A0_Valley
- Mimaki and Tomabechi (eds.), Panchakarma, vers 30-24a. Quoted in Imma Ramos. Tantra: Enlightenment to Revolution. New York: Thames & Hudson (2020).
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