(akasha), contact is connected to air (vayu), form
is connected to fire (tejas or agni), taste is con-
nected to water (ap or jalam) and smell is con-
nected to earth (prithivi).
Further reading: Lallanji Gopal, Retrieving Samkhya
History: An Ascent from Dawn to Meridian (New Delhi:
D. K. Printworld, 2000); Gerald Larson, Classical Sam-
khya: An Interpretation of Its History and Meaning (Delhi:
Motilal Banarsidass, 1969); Jonn Mumford, Magical
Tattwas: A Complete System for Self-Development (St.
Paul, Minn.: Llewellyn Publications, 1997).
tantra See TANTRISM.
tantric See TANTRISM.
tantric ritual sex See TANTRISM.
tantrism
Tantrism is a philosophical and religious stream
that can be found in Buddhism, JAINISM, and Hin-
duism.
Tantrism derives from the term tantra, which
in certain usages defines systems and texts that
contrast themselves with the Vaidika or VEDIC
tradition. While elements common to the tantric
traditions can easily be enumerated and analyzed,
the boundary between a system that is tantric and
one that is not is not so easily defined.
Philosophically, most Hindu tantric systems
focus on “desire” as a path of liberation. This
involves a sophisticated reversal process that
transforms what is commonly understood in
Hinduism as a barrier to liberation, that is, desire,
into an instrument for liberation. This method
can be applied to numerous aspects of normative
life and tradition that are purposely inverted or
ignored in order to harness the “lower” aspects of
existence and make them servants of liberation.
For instance, a tantric devotee might ritually eat
beef, forbidden in normative Hinduism, in order
to facilitate realization.
To be sure, many “tantric” elements infuse
ordinary ritualistic, temple-oriented Hinduism.
But the key to identifying tantrism are the distinc-
tive rituals and practices that form a complex,
usually taught to small groups of adepts by a spe-
cial GURU. These rituals and practices are almost
always practiced in secret, away from mainstream
society. Thus tantrism as a fuller, secret complex
contains an element, more or less obvious, that
runs counter to the overt “sanctioned” philo-
sophical streams.
Hindu tantrism seeks both supernatural pow-
ers (most often considered a distraction from the
goal of liberation) and liberation, worldly enjoy-
ment and release from the bonds of birth and
rebirth. It does this by embracing what is usually
eschewed. It takes the world, which is seen to be
nothing but a barrier to liberation, as divine and
by fully realizing its divinity learns to be its mas-
ter, living in it in the full presence of the divine.
For the purposes of transformation, the tran-
scendent is often seen as a passive masculine
reality, and the feminine is seen as the same tran-
scendent power in action. Using the polarity of
masculine and feminine tantrics seek to realize
both poles, finally embracing a totality that fuses,
so to speak, that which is beyond with that which
is here, or, more accurately, realizes that the two
are already fused.
Once one understands the unity of the mani-
fest and unmanifest, one also understands that
the human is the microcosm of the macrocosm;
the human is the universal. The tantric sexual
ritual, maithuna, is based on these understand-
ings. Sexual intercourse ritually replicates the
truth of existence, that the masculine is the tran-
scendent divinity and the feminine the immanent
divinity, with two human bodies. But this ritual
need not be practiced directly; many forms of tan-
trism practice maithuna metaphorically or simply
understand it at a philosophical level.K 436 tantra