WHAT IS HINDUISM?
The social Dimension of Tantric Hinduism ....................................................
Rarely do those who claim to study or practice Hindu
‘tantric’ teachings ever ask themselves about its social roots,
and the sort of social values and awareness from which it
first arose. For the universal awareness and values that are
the source of any particular spiritual tradition are not
identical with its symbolic forms, scriptural texts and their
social and cultural context. Tantric Hinduism transcended
the traditional religious culture, philosophy and social
values of the ‘Vedas’. That is because they were the social
and cultural expression of a new universal awareness and
value system – not that of the high-caste Vedic priests or
‘Brahmins’ but that of the Dravidian, dark-skinned, under-
privileged and low-caste sections of Indian society. At the
heart of this value system was the rejection of purely
ritualistic forms of religion, or any form of purely
hereditary or ethnic caste system, respect for women, and
above all – freedom and truth. The spirituality cultivated by
Hindu Tantricists, unlike those of the Vedic Brahmans and
Buddhists, was based not on rejection but rather on
heightened awareness of the body and its recognition and
veneration as the very abode of the gods. Culturally and
historically the term tantra initially referred to any form of
treatise expressing knowledge arising directly from bodily