Day 70 : Book Excerpt : The Power of Tantra

As most modern scholars agree, the term Tantra (or “Tantrism” or “Tantricism”) does not refer to a singular, monolithic, or neatly defined category. Rather, this is an extremely messy and ambiguous term used to refer to a “bewilderingly diverse array of esoteric precepts and practices attested across much of South, Inner and East Asia from the sixth century down to the present day.” Indeed, it covers a huge range of diverse texts, traditions, and ritual practices that spread throughout the Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain communities of India, China, Japan Tibet, Pakistan, Mongolia, and parts of Southeast Asia; and it is reflected in a wide variety of different sects and schools, such as the Pāñcarātra, Sahajiyā, Pāśupata, Kāpālika, Kaula, Krama, Trika, Śākta, Nātha Siddha, Śrīvidyā and Paścimāmnāya. As André Padoux and others have argued, the abstract category of “Tantrism”—as singular, unified “ism”—is itself a relatively recent invention, and in large part the creation of Orientalist scholars and Hindu reformers writing in the nineteenth century:

Tantrism is a protean phenomenon, so complex and elusive that it is practically impossible to define it.Tantrism is, to a large extent, a “category of discourse in the West,” and not, strictly speaking, an Indian one. As a category, Tantrism is not…an entity in the minds of those inside. It is a category in the minds of observers from outside…The term Tantrism was coined by Western Indologists of the latter part of the nineteenth century whose knowledge of India was limited…Neither in traditional India nor in Sanskrit texts is there a term for Tantrism; no description or definition of such a category is to be found anywhere.

Derived from the root tan, “to spread” or “to stretch,” the term tantra has been used since Vedic times in a huge variety of different ways, signifying everything from a loom or weaving machine, to a system of philosophy, to a drug or remedy. For example, in texts like the Kālikā Purāṇa—the most important Assamese text from the tenth to the eleventh centuries that I will use extensively in this book—tantra has a very mundane meaning: typically it means any rite or form of worship of a particular deity, such as the worship of the goddess Kāmākhyā or Vaiṣṇavī (kāmākhyā tantra, vaiṣṇavī tantra, and so on). Most commonly tantra simply means a kind of text—but one that may or may not contain the sort of tantalizing and titillating things we normally associate with “Tantra” today.

In the course of my own research in northeast India between 2000 and 2008, I interviewed hundreds of priests, devotees, gurus, and holy men and received more or less as many different answers to the question “what is Tantra?” For example, at Kāmākhyā temple in 2004, I interviewed two priests and asked for their definitions of “Tantra.” The first priest laughed and tried to explain how difficult it is to define such a complex term, but then said: “Tantra is essentially mantra—the power of sound and vibration that we use to worship the goddess.” Immediately, however, the second priest interrupted, saying, “No, no. That’s not Tantra. Tantra comes from tan and man; tan means the ‘body’ and man means the ‘mind’. So Tantra is mind and body together, the whole human being in spiritual practice.” Finally, overhearing our conversation, another (non-Tantric) sādhu from Tripura came over and decided to offer his opinion on the subject. Like many non-Tantric sādhus, he had a very low opinion of Tantra, which he dismissed as a very bad, unclean (khārāp, aśuddha) thing, mostly associated with phony magic tricks to dupe the ignorant. To illustrate his point, he pulled something out of his bag that looked like dried grass. He placed a few blades of the stuff in his mouth and said, “I’ll show you ‘Tantra.’” Once the blades were wet from his saliva, they began to wave and wiggle around. He smiled and laughed gleefully “This is your ‘Tantra,” he snickered, meaning that Tantra is little more than silly mumbo-jumbo and trickery. In sum, the meanings of Tantra, even at a single site like Kāmākhyā, are not only remarkably varied but often contradictory and reflective of a complex series of historical transformations.

~~The Power of Tantra -by- Hugh B. Urban