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Updated: June 3, 2025
Schomerus, Çaiva-Siddhânta, pp. 7 ff. and Schrader's Introduction to the Pâncarâtra. In the Raghuvaṃsa, X. 27. Âgamas are not only mentioned but said to be extremely numerous. But in such passages it is hard to say whether Âgama means the books now so-called or merely tradition. Alberuni seems not to have known of this literature and a Tantra for him is merely a minor treatise on astronomy.
A Tantra is generally cast in the form of a dialogue in which Śiva instructs his consort but sometimes vice versâ. It is said that the former class are correctly described as Âgamas and the works where the Śakti addresses Śiva as Nigamas. Some are also called Yâmalas and Dâmaras but I have found no definition of the meaning of these words.
It is said to exist in two recensions, prose and metrical, of which the former is perhaps the oldest of the Vaishṇava Âgamas. The Vârâhi Tantra is also Vishnuite. See Raj. Mitra, Sanskrit MSS. of Bikaner, p. 583 and Notices of Sk. MSS. III. , p. 99, and I. cclxxxvii. See too the usages of the Nambuthiri Brahmans as described in Cochin Tribes and Castes, II. pp. 229-233.
They were supposed to have proceeded entirely from two sources; one the Directorium Humanae Vitae of John of Capua, translated between 1262-78 from a Hebrew version, which again came from an Arabic version of the 8th century, which came from a Pehlvi version made by one Barzouyeh, at the command of Chosrou Noushirvan, King of Persia, in the 6th century, which again came from the Pantcha Tantra, a Sanscrit original of unknown antiquity.
Thus far the insular kingdom had known only the monochrome sketches of the Chinese painters, which could have a meaning for the educated few alone. The composite Tantra dogmas fed the fancy and stimulated the imagination, filling them with pictures of life, past, present and future. "The sketch was replaced by the illumination."
As this was to travel into Japan and be hailed as purest Buddhism, let us note how this tenth century Tantra system grew up. To see this clearly, is to look upon the parable of the man with the unclean spirit being acted out on a vast scale in history. In the sixth century of our era, one Asanga, or Asamga, wrote the Shastra, called the Shastra Yoga-chara Bhumi.
Whereas Christianity is sometimes accused of restricting its higher code to Church and Sundays, the opposite may be said of Tantrism. Outside the temple its morality is excellent. A work like the Mahânirvâṇa Tantra presents a refined form of Śâktism modified, so far as may be, in conformity with ordinary Hindu usage. But other features indubitably connect it with aboriginal cults.
This work is known by the analysis of Rajendralala Mitra from which it appears to be a Tantra of the worst class and probably late. Its proper title is said to be Śrîguhyasamaja. Watanabe states that the work catalogued by Nanjio under No. 1027 and translated into Chinese about 1000 A.D. is an expurgated version of it. The Śikshâsamuccaya cites the Tathâgata-guhya-sûtra several times.
If for instance the Mahânirvâṇa Tantra which is a good specimen of these works be compared with Śaṅkara's commentary on the Vedânta Sûtras, or the poems of Tulsi Das, it will be seen that it is woefully deficient in the excellences of either.
In some localities its disappearance and absorption were preceded by a monstrous phase, known as Tantrism or Śâktism, in which the worst elements of Hinduism, those which would have been most repulsive to Gotama, made an unnatural alliance with his church. I treat of Tantrism and Śâktism in another chapter. The original meaning of Tantra as applied to literary compositions is a simplified manual.
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