Tantra

[31]The occultist and businessman Pierre Bernard (1875–1955) is widely credited with introducing the philosophy and practices of tantra to the American people, at the same time creating a somewhat misleading impression of its connection to sex.

One definition, according to Padoux, is found among Tantra practitioners – it is any "system of observances" about the vision of man and the cosmos where correspondences between the inner world of the person and the macrocosmic reality play an essential role.

[13] According to the narrow definition, Tantrism, or "Tantric religion", is the elite traditions directly based on the Sanskrit texts called the Tantras, Samhitas, and Agamas.

They deal with the creation and history of the world; the names and functions of a great variety of male and female deities and other higher beings; the types of ritual worship (especially of Goddesses); magic, sorcery, and divination; esoteric "physiology" (the mapping of the subtle or psychic body); the awakening of the mysterious serpent power (kundalinî-shakti); techniques of bodily and mental purification; the nature of enlightenment; and not least, sacred sexuality.

[17] The term was introduced by 19th-century Indologists, with limited knowledge of India and in whose view Tantrism was a particular, unusual and minority practice in contrast to Indian traditions they believed to be mainstream.

It is a system, adds Brown, that gives each follower the freedom to mix Tantric elements with non-Tantric aspects, to challenge and transgress any and all norms, experiment with "the mundane to reach the supramundane".

[57] Despite Bhatta attempt to clarify, states Padoux, in reality Hindus and Buddhists have historically felt free to borrow and blend ideas from all sources, Vedic, non-Vedic and in the case of Buddhism, its own canonical works.

[59] Non-Tantrika, or orthodox traditions in all three major ancient Indian religions, hold that the worldly life of a householder is one driven by desires and greeds which are a serious impediment to spiritual liberation (moksha, nirvana, kaivalya).

"[61] The Keśin hymn of the Rig Veda (10.136) describes the "wild loner" who, states Karel Werner, "carrying within oneself fire and poison, heaven and earth, ranging from enthusiasm and creativity to depression and agony, from the heights of spiritual bliss to the heaviness of earth-bound labor".

[63] In contrast, Werner suggests that these are early Yoga pioneers and accomplished yogis of the ancient pre-Buddhist Indian tradition, and that this Vedic hymn is speaking of those "lost in thoughts" whose "personalities are not bound to earth, for they follow the path of the mysterious wind".

According to Samuel, one group of Shaiva ascetics, the Pasupatas, practiced a form of spirituality that made use of shocking and disreputable behavior later found in a tantric context, such as dancing, singing, and smearing themselves with ashes.

[96][95] Samuel also states that the sources depict them as using alcohol and sex freely, that they were associated with terrfying female spirit-deities called yoginis and dakinis, and that they were believed to possess magical powers, such as flight.

[114] Samuel writes that the Saiva Tantra tradition appears to have originated as ritual sorcery carried out by hereditary caste groups (kulas) and associated with sex, death and fierce goddesses.

The tantric mahasiddhas developed yogic systems with subtle body and sexual elements which could lead to magical powers (siddhis), immortality, as well as spiritual liberation (moksha, nirvana).

In these texts, sexual energy was also seen as a powerful force that could be harnessed for spiritual practice and according to Samuel "perhaps create the state of bliss and loss of personal identity which is homologised with liberating insight.

"[129] These sexual yogas continued to develop further into more complex systems which are found in texts dating from about the ninth or tenth century, including the Saiva Kaulajñānanirṇaya and Kubjikātantra as well as the Buddhist Hevajra, and Cakrasamvara tantras which make use of charnel ground symbolism and fierce goddesses.

[138] Though the whole northern and Himalayan part of India was involved in the development of tantra, Kashmir was a particularly important center, both Saiva and Buddhist and numerous key tantric texts were written there according to Padoux.

This new Tantric Buddhism was supported by the Pala Dynasty (8th–12th century) which supported these centers of learning and also built grand tantric temples and monasteries such as Somapura Mahavihara and Odantapuri while establishing good relations with the Tibetan Empire and Srivijaya Empire where the Buddhist Mahasiddhas of the Vajrayana tradition spread their influence via songs of realization like those collected in the Charyapada which were orally transmitted in various lineages and translated into many different languages over time.

In Shaivism, this development is often associated with the Kashmiri master Abhinavagupta (c. 950 – 1016 CE) and his followers, as well the movements which were influenced by their work, like the Sri Vidya tradition (which spread as far as South India, and has been referred to as "high" tantra).

"[156] According to Samuel, the great Advaita philosopher Shankara (9th century) "is portrayed in his biography, the Sankaravijaya, as condemning the approaches of various kinds of Tantric practitioners and defeating them through argument or spiritual power."

According to Samuel, "these new devotional styles of religion, with their emphasis on emotional submission to a supreme saviour-deity, whether Saivite or Vaisnavite, were better adapted, perhaps, to the subaltern role of non-Muslim groups under Muslim rule.

The effort was largely successful, and many modern Western practitioners of yoga for health and relaxation have little or no knowledge of its original function as a preparation for the internal sexual practices of the Nath tradition.

[182][184] Tantric materials involving the use of mantras and dharanis began to appear in China during the fifth century period, and Buddhist masters such as Zhiyi developed proto-tantric rituals based on esoteric texts.

These elements include: mandalas, mantras, internal sexual yogic practices, fierce male and female deities, cremation ground symbolism, as well as concepts from Indian Philosophy.

For example, David N. Lorenzen writes that tantra shares various "shamanic and yogic" practices, worship of goddesses, association with specific schools like the Kaulas and Kapalikas, as well as tantric texts.

[63] Christopher Wallis meanwhile, basing himself on the definition given the tantric scholar Rāmakaṇṭha, gives four main features of tantra: "1) concern with ritual modes of manipulation (of the environment or one's own awareness), 2) requirement for esoteric initiation (to receive access to the scriptural teachings and practices), 3) a twofold goal of practice: the soteriological and supramundane one of liberation (variously conceived) and/or the mundane one of extraordinary power over other beings and one's environment, and 4) the claim that these three are explicated in scriptures that are the word of God (āgama) or the Buddha (buddhavacana).

These rituals are not so much a succession of actions as a play of mentally visualized and experienced images, a situation common to all Tantric traditions, where rites, meditation, and yoga are exercises in creative identifying imagination."

Let us also note that for the nondualistic Saiva systems, the Yoginis were not active merely in the world of spirits; they were also powers present in humans – mistresses of their senses, governing their affects, which acquired an intensity and super-natural dimension through this divinization.

For example, in the "Yogini Heart" tantra, a Śrī Vidyā text, the yogi is instructed to imagine the five syllables (HA SA KA LA HRIM) of the deity's mantra in the muladhara chakra.

[227] According to Hugh Urban, Zimmer, Evola and Eliade viewed Tantra as "the culmination of all Indian thought: the most radical form of spirituality and the archaic heart of aboriginal India", regarding it as the ideal religion for the modern era.