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Updated: August 4, 2024
I have been informed by Tamil Pandits that at the present day the ritual in some temples is smârta or according to Smriti, but in the majority according to the Âgamas or tantric. The officiants require no special initiation and burnt offerings are presented.
It is strange too that asceticism, sacrifices and modern tantric rites which seem to us concerned with the relations between man and God are in India penetrated by a non-theistic theory, namely that there are certain laws which can be studied and applied, much like electricity, and that then spirits can be coerced to grant what the ascetic or sacrificer desires.
It may have been known as a form of popular superstition and even have been practised by individual Bhikshus, but the silence of I-Ching makes it improbable that it was then countenanced in the schools of Magadha. He complains of those who neglect the Vinaya and "devote their whole attention to the doctrine of nothingness," but he says not a word about tantric abuses.
In the tantric period she is recognized as his spouse and her images, common in northern India from the seventh century onwards, show that she was adored as a female Bodhisattva. In Tibet Târâ is an important deity who assumes many forms and even before the tantric influence had become prominent she seems to have been associated with Avalokita.
Thus we hear of Vishnuite Tantras and in this sense there is a real similarity between Buddhist and tantric teaching, for both set aside Brahmanic tradition as needlessly complicated and both profess to preach a simple and practical road to salvation.
Although Siri, the goddess of luck, is mentioned in the Pitakas, the popular deities whom they bring on the scene are almost exclusively masculine. And though in the older Brahmanic books there are passages which might easily become tantric, yet the transition is not made and the important truths of religion are kept distinct from unclean rites and thoughts.
Hence many distinguished writers err by overestimating the phase which specially interests them. For one the religious life of India is fundamentally monotheistic and Vishnuite: for another philosophic Sivaism is its crown and quintessence: a third maintains with equal truth that all forms of Hinduism are tantric.
But in the Pâla kingdom Buddhism, though corrupt, was flourishing so far as the number of its adherents and royal favour were concerned. Gopâla founded the monastery of Odontapuri or Udandapura, which according to some authorities was in the town of Bihar. It was a centre not only of tantric learning but of logic and grammar, and is interesting as showing the connection between Bengal and Tibet.
The ecstasies induced by tantric rites produce this here in a preliminary form to be made perfect in the liberated soul. This is not the craze of a few hysterical devotees, but the faith of millions among whom many are well educated. In some aspects Śâktism is similar to the erotic Vishnuite sects, but there is little real analogy in their ways of thinking.
But however much new tantric literature may be made accessible in future, I doubt if impartial criticism will come to any opinion except that Śâktism and Tantrism collect and emphasize what is superficial, trivial and even bad in Indian religion, omitting or neglecting its higher sides.
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