TANTRIC BUDDHISM (INCLUDING CHINA AND JAPAN)(sandhyiibhii$a)], which only can be read properly by those who are initiates.
The ambiguity of tantric texts thus is deliberate. Evocative but obscure, the texts
may be taken by the uninitiated as general expressions of religious or social sen-
timent, but cannot be understood in their true purport. For initiates, the texts may
have an aesthetic appeal, but this is subordinate to their primary function, which
is to serve as a key to yogic practice.
Thus, tantric tradition has insisted that, yes, its texts are difficult to under-
stand, and this is as it ought to be. As a result, a modem scholar trying to make
sense of tantric texts must first be able to read the code in which they are
written. This is problematic, of course, because it is very difficult to read the
texts without being initiated, while for an initiate to reveal or analyse publicly
the true meanings of the texts may be a violation of her vows of secrecy.
Further, even if we accept that interpretation is possible without initiation, there
remains the problem of which interpretive scheme to apply: the concept of
'intentional language' covers a multitude of hermeneutical systems, themselves
based in differing traditions of tantric practice and exegesis.^17 There is a further
problem, however, for the very notion that tantric texts are written in code, while
widely accepted, is itself to some degree an a posteriori theoretical assumption.
In other words, tantric theories of interpretation are themselves interpretations,
often unwarranted by the texts that are to be interpreted. Thus, a modem scholar
also must be sensitive to the possibilities that (a) no interpretive scheme avail-
able truly captures the text's meaning and, more radically, (b) that perhaps inter-
pretation itself was not intended and is not needed.
When we tum back to Kal)ha, therefore, we must try to do so with an aware-
ness that while a 'figurative' reading is possible and perhaps even preferable, a
literal reading cannot be ruled out a priori. Indeed, as we examine some of the
ways in which Kal)ha' s sexual references may be interpreted, we will see that
the distinction between 'literal' and 'figurative' begins to lose some of its
clarity. At the same time, and more centrally, our analysis also will reveal that
our sense of what 'sexuality' itself is may be thrown into some doubt by
Kal)ha's songs, especially in relation to the ways of life pursued by 'mystics'.
In his pioneering study of the Bengali 'Sahajiya' tradition, S. B. Dasgupta
observes that the 'performance-song' tradition is marked by three major reli-
gious characteristics: (1) the spirit of protest and criticism, (2) aversion to recon-
dite scholarship and (3) scathing criticism of the formalities of life and
religion.^18 And, indeed, if we read Kal)ha's songs literally, it is easy to see him
as a radically iconoclastic figure, who, in Lee Siegel's description, 'renounced
his family, smeared his body with ashes, [took up] with a low-class woman ...
frequented cremation grounds, and indulged in violently orgiastic rites',^19 in
order, as Stephan Beyer puts it, to 'tear aside the veils of accumulated custom
that hide us from our authentic and joyful mode of being in the world'.^20 This
Kal).ha-or 'Bengal Blackie', as Siegel dubs him-has only a tenuous relation
to mainstream Vajrayana Buddhism. He may use some terms, such as 'voidness'
(siinyatii), nirvaiJ.a or Simultaneity (sahaja), that have Buddhist doctrinal over-