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Many Tantras and Vishnuite works profess to be better suited to the present age than the Vedas, and innumerable treatises in the vernacular are commonly accepted as scripture. Scriptures in India are thought of as words not writings. It is the sacred sound not a sacred book which is venerated. They are learnt by oral transmission and it is rare to see a book used in religious services.
This resemblance does not give us much assistance in chronology, for the dates of the later Upanishads are very uncertain, but it shows how the Tantras are connected with other branches of Hindu thought. The distinction between Tantras and Purâṇas is not always well-marked. As a rule the Tantras contain less historical and legendary matter than the Purâṇas and more directions as to ritual.
The Prapañcasâra Tantra professes to be a revelation from Nârâyaṇa. Śâktism and the Tantras which teach it are generally condemned by Hindus of other sects.
The figure of the Great Goddess of life and death might have fired the invention of artists but as a matter of fact her worship has paralyzed their hands and brains. Nor can I give much praise to the Tantras as literature . It is true that, as some authors point out, they contain fine sayings about God and the soul.
The striking difference between the earlier and later phases of Indian religious belief, between the Vedic hymns, Brâhmaṇas, Upanishads and their accessory treatises on the one hand, and the epics, Purâṇas, Tantras and later literature on the other, is due chiefly to the predominance in the latter of the great gods Śiva and Vishṇu, with the attendant features of sectarian worship and personal devotion to a particular deity.
A curious late tradition represents Śâktism as coming from China. See a quotation from the Mahâcînatantra in the Archæological Survey of Mayurabhanj, p. xiv. J. Bomb. See Schrader, Introd. to Pâncarâtra, p. 22. Sometimes five classes of Tantras are enumerated which are perhaps all subdivisions of the Anuttara-yoga, namely Guhyasamâja, Mâyâjâla, Buddhasammâyoga, Candraguhyatilaka, Manjuśrîkrodha.
The proceedings begin by the devotees seating themselves in a circle and are said to terminate in an indiscriminate orgy. It is only fair to say that some Tantras inveigh against drunkenness and authorize only moderate drinking. In all cases it is essential that the wine, flesh, etc., should be formally dedicated to the goddess: without this preliminary indulgence in these pleasures is sinful.
On the other hand Tantrism infected Buddhism soon after this period. The earlier Tibetan translations of the Tantras are attributed to the ninth century. MSS. of the Kubjikâmata and other Tantras are said to date from the ninth and even from the seventh century and tradition represents Sankarâcârya as having contests with Śâktas.
"All the miseries that I have suffered and am suffering, I know, O mother, to be your mercy alone." I must confess that I cannot fully sympathize with this worship, even when it is sung in the hymns of Râma Prasâda, but it is clear that he makes it tolerable just because he throws aside all the magic and ritual of the Tantras and deals straight with what are for him elemental and emotional facts.
But Prakṛiti or Nature is feminine and active: to her is due the evolution of the universe: she involves the soul in actions which cause pain but she also helps the work of liberation. In its fully developed form the doctrine of the Tantras teaches that Śakti is not an emanation or aspect of the deity. There is no distinction between Brahman and Śakti.