TANTRIC BUDDHISM (INCLUDING CHINA AND JAPAN)experience to be found in the Buddhist tantric literature which we have studied
exhibit clear instances of"auto-interpretation with a low degree of ramification",
and that they for that reason should be of considerable interest to anyone under-
taking a comparative study of mysticism. If we examine, for instance, the
various headings proposed in the previous chapter for the description found in
HVT of the mystic state, one is struck by the fact that only a few of them can be
said to point to specifically Buddhist "ramifications".
In fact, the uniqueness of Buddhist tantricism is not, I would suggest, to be
found in the mystic experience to which the yogin aspires, but in the ritual
which - as a "means-of-approach" (upaya), i.e. as a preliminary procedure -
plays a fundamental part in the whole tantric scheme of salvation. This is true
whether the ritual was actually performed, or whether it was conceived as an
interiorised process, for in the latter case, the basic categories of the process of
consecration (the succession of Four Joys, for instance) were nevertheless
retained. Thus its insistence - and dependence -on ritual places Buddhist tantri-
cism in a rather unique position compared to the mysticism of other religious
traditions. This ritual is described in frankly-often grossly - sexual terms; in it,
in fact, we have an instance of a hieros gamos described with a sense of elabor-
ate detail and a psychological insight and subtlety which is absolutely without
parallell in the history of religions. Yet it is a hi eros gamos utterly void of con-
nection with "fertility" of any kind; its sole legitimation resides in the restoration
of the wholeness - or, which is the same thing, the "holiness" - of the Buddha-
nature, the unity of Wisdom and Means^166 • In the Buddha-nature the duality of
sarpsara and nirval)a is perceived to be illusive, and the timelessness of their
perfect unity is realized in the mystic rapture, as described in a remarkable Bud-
dhist version of the motif of the bride and bridegroom, the Premapaiicaka
("Five Stanzas of Love"), in which the unio mystica of Wisdom and Means,
although envisaged as a wholly interiorised process, is nevertheless expressed,
with complete faithfulness, in terms of the exterior ritual of consecration (A VS
p.58):
"If there was no beloved bridegroom, i.e. 'reflection' in the form of
origination-in-dependence, the loving bride, the Void, would be
regarded as no better than dead^167 •
The Void is the much-beloved bride, unequalled in beauty; and were
he separated from her, the beloved bridegroom would be fettered.
Therefore the two, bride and bridegroom, trembling come before the
preceptor who of his innate kindness creates between the two sponta-
neous, mutuallove^168 •
Such is the cleverness and extraordinary skill of the true preceptor -
the vital-breath-that the two become indestructible (niravedhya)^169 , non-
dependent, and supreme, both having plentitude of all characteristics,
both free from the four pairs of opposites, both having the nature of all
things-yet always said themselves to be without a nature of their own!"