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Updated: June 16, 2025
This worship which in my opinion should be called Śâktism rather than Tantrism combines many elements: ancient, savage superstitions as well as ingenious but fanciful speculation, but its essence is always magic. It attempts to attain by magical or sacramental formulæ and acts not only prosperity and power but salvation, nirvana and union with the supreme spirit.
Tantrism, like salvation by faith, is a simplification of religion but on mechanical rather than emotional lines, though its deficiency in emotion often finds strange compensations. But Tantrism is analogous not so much to justification by faith as to sacramental ritual.
Of Kashmir he says that its religion was a mixture of Buddhism with other beliefs. These are precisely the conditions most favourable to the growth of Tantrism and though the bulk of the population are now Mohammedans, witchcraft and sorcery are still rampant.
In the same way although Tantrism is strong in the literature of the Lamas, none of the many descriptions of Tibet indicate that there is anything scandalous in the externals of religion. Probably in Tibet, Nepal and mediæval Magadha alike the existence of disgraceful tantric literature does not indicate such widespread depravity as might be supposed.
In Bihar from the eighth century onwards the influence of Tantrism was powerful and disastrous. The best information about this epoch is still to be found in Târanâtha, in spite of his defects. The ritual too was affected, for we hear several times of burnt offerings and how Bodhibhadra, one of the later professors of Vikramaśila, was learned in the mystic lore of both Buddhists and Brahmans.
This skilful exposition of a difficult theme is worthy of the writer of the Buddhacarita but other reasons make his authorship doubtful, for the theology of the work may be described as the full-blown flower of Mahayanism untainted by Tantrism. It includes the doctrines of Bhûta-tathatâ, Âlaya-vijñâna, Tathâgatagarbha and the three bodies of Buddha.
Târâ is an Indian and Lamaist goddess associated with Avalokita and in origin analogous to the Saktis of Tantrism. Kuan-yin is a female form of Avalokita who can assume all shapes. The original Kuan-yin was a male deity: male Kuan-yins are not unknown in China and are said to be the rule in Korea. Several Chinese deities appear to be of uncertain or varying sex.
On the other hand Târanâtha gives us the names of several doctors of the Vinaya who flourished under the Pâla dynasty. These instances show that the older Buddhism was not entirely overwhelmed by Tantrism though perhaps it was kept alive more by pilgrims than by local sentiment.
From the twelfth to the sixteenth century, when Buddhism, itself deeply infected with Tantrism, was disappearing, Śâktism was probably the most powerful religion in Bengal, but Vishnuism was gaining strength and after the time of Caitanya proved a formidable rival to it.
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.
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