Hindu tantrism can be understood as a mar-
riage of practices and beliefs from the pre-ARYAN
Goddess-oriented cults with the larger and more
philosophically encompassing Aryan Vedic (but
more directly UPANISHADIC) traditions. Tantrism
as a distinct tradition has its beginnings with the
settlement of the Aryans in fringe areas of India
(e.g., Kashmir, Bengal, Tamil Nadu). As the two
cultural complexes began to merge in the centu-
ries before and after the start of the Common Era
(with the Aryan Vedic always retaining its cultural
supremacy), the forms of tantric practice began to
become formalized.
Because of their derivation tantric practices
are neither purely Vedic nor purely indigenous,
but a fusion of the two. It is well known, for
instance, that some contemporary non-Hindu
tribal people of India still practice sexual rituals
and even orgies in fields to promote agricultural
(and human) fertility. This is a very ancient ritual,
found all over the world in conjunction with early
agriculture. It is based on the understanding that
the female is the Earth and the male is the sky
(and its rain). The two join in sexual embrace to
create the fundaments of life. The use of sexual
ritual in tantrism most surely derives from this
precise process, but it is philosophically aggran-
dized or at least explicitly philosophized (as it
may not have been before), as the union of God
and Goddess.
Likewise it is well known that many subgroups
in India, both Hindu castes and non-Hindu tribal
people, worship the Goddess with alcohol, which
is a most despised substance in Brahminical Hin-
duism. Vedic tradition does record the usage of
very small quantities of alcohol in certain obscure
rituals, but the drink is in general condemned. It
is obvious again that the use of alcohol in certain
tantric rituals, in which it is in fact ritually given
to the female (the Goddess or SHAKTI) before
sexual intercourse, is a remanent of the pre-Aryan
traditions.
The ritual egalitarianism of tantrism, which
does not observe caste divisions in ritual, also
is probably a substratum tribal value taken up
into the main complex, as mainstream Hinduism
itself is highly oriented toward social stratifica-
tion. Because the combination of pre-Aryan and
Vedic needed philosophical interpretation, certain
tantric practices such as the eating of beef can
be derived only through philosophical reversal.
Non-Hindu tribal people are not beef eaters, but
they do eat and ritually use buffalo meat. Beef, of
course, became the most forbidden substance for
all Hindus. Therefore, the ritual eating of beef in
tantric ritual is neither Aryan nor non-Aryan, but
a philosophically constructed practice.
Perhaps ironically, tantrism as a system only
became consolidated after BRAHMIN practitioners
had written numerous texts in SANSKRIT to give it
a certain orthodox sanction. Because Hinduism
itself is a mixture of the same elements as tant-
rism, even some of its normative aspects can be
said to have tantric roots.
Vedic tradition was not associated with place,
probably because of the pastoral nature of society
in the era of the Vedas. It was also quite clearly
aniconic—not using visible, external forms of the
divinities. Temple Hinduism, however, is place-
based and uses ICONS. It is quite likely that the
notions of a specific place that divinities inhabit
is a non-Aryan notion. It is undoubtedly the
case also that stone or wood images or symbols
of divinities are also non-Aryan. It is thus no
coincidence that the ritual texts that lay out the
principles for temple design, the AGAMAS, are tan-
tric in character and form part of the large tantric
tradition.
The three most important tantric sects are the
Vaishnavite tantrics, who have VISHNU as tran-
scendent divinity; the Shaivite tantrics, who have
Shiva as transcendent divinity; and the SHAKTA
tantrics, who have the Goddess as the transcen-
dent divinity. The last two are often difficult to
distinguish as they use similar terminology and
frameworks. The Ganapatyas (worshippers of
GANESHA) constitute another, small tantric sect.
Historically, there was a group of tantrics calledtantrism 437 J