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TANTRISM
This entry consists of the following articles:
AN OVERVIEW
HINDU TANTRISM
TANTRISM: AN OVERVIEW
The term tantrism is a nineteenth-century western invention,
coined to refer to what were considered to be a body of het-
erodox religious teachings, first discovered by European
scholars in Indian works called Tantras. Although there is no
term in any Asian language for tantrism, it continues to be
applied by scholars to a bewilderingly diverse array of esoteric
precepts and practices attested across much of South, Inner,
and East Asia from the sixth century CE down to the present
day.
The most salient phenomena common to all tantrisms
are the use of man:d:alas, mantras, and ritual practices in order
to map, organize, and control a universe of powerful beings,
impulses, or forces in pandemonium. Here, it is important
to note that the specifically tantric use of man:d:alas, mantras,
and initiations first emerged in India as a religious response
to or reflection of a situation of anomie. With the fall of the
imperial Guptas in about 550 CE, much of the Indian sub-
continent was plunged into a centuries-long period of feudal-
ism, in which multiple, shifting political “centers” were in
constant flux, passing under the control of a series of often
low-caste rulers whose claim to dominion over a territory
was, from the standpoint of orthodox religious polity, illegit-
imate. In order to legitimate their power, these newly arisen
rulers called on a variety of religious specialists to ritually
consecrate them with tantric mantras, transforming them
into divine kings, and their conquered territories into equally
consecrated man:d:alas of royal power. Ronald M. Davidson
has encapsulated this feudal dynamic:
In the medieval military culture, the apotheosis of the
king served his strategy of divine right to the assump-
tion of power, irrespective of his actual lineage. Howev-
er, the process of divine royalty conversely implied the
royalty of divinity, so the apotheosis of rulers entailed
the feudalization of the gods.... [T]he great and
local deities of the period... occupied positions in
metaphysical space analogous to the positions con-
trolled by their devotees in terrestrial space, with all the
attendant rights and responsibilities. At the same time,
lesser divinities became understood as representatives of
the imperial divinity, who protected them in a complexexchange of divine services, just as the vassals owed alle-
giance and loyalty to the monarch through the ex-
changes of goods, services, land, and booty. (Indian Eso-
teric Buddhism, 2002, pp. 71–72.)
When one bears in mind the Indian feudal context within
which tantrism emerged out of preexisting Hindu, Buddhist,
and Jain religious systems, a number of specifically tantric
terms and practices become comprehensible. These include
the use of mantras (secret spells) as “weapons” ( ́sastras), “mis-
siles” (astras), and “armor” (kavaca); ritual practices of “bind-
ing the directions” (dig-bandhana) as a means to securing a
consecrated space from invasion by demonic forces; the con-
struction of tantric man:d:alas on the model of fortified pal-
ace-citadels; multiple associations of tantric goddesses with
warfare; the bearing of royal weapons or scepters (vajras) by
tantric initiates; the tantric “acts” (karmas) of pacification,
subjugation, immobilization, enmity, eradication, and liqui-
dation; and the narrative use of the language of conquest
(both military and sexual) in tantric discourse in general.
Here, the original tantric practitioner par excellence was not
the traditional religious specialist—a Bra ̄hman: priest or a
Buddhist or Jain monk—but rather the king, as exemplary
member of the laity. Much of the early history of tantrism
is intertwined with the emergence of a new type of lay reli-
gious specialist, “shamanic” ascetic practitioners who identi-
fied themselves, through their supernatural powers, with
royal gods and divine kings. To these latter, they offered a
variety of services and products, including spells and potions
for the control of women, the attainment of wealth, and the
annihilation of enemies; spirit possession; magical healing
and manipulation of the dead, demons, and other entities;
future-telling; and so on. In Hindu and Buddhist circles,
these tantric supermen were called “Perfected Beings” (Sidd-
has, Maha ̄siddhas) and “Virile Heroes” (V ̄ıras); among
S ́veta ̄mbara Jains, the “Teachers” (Su ̄ris) of the Kharatara
Gaccha sub-sect have played an analogous role.
GEOGRAPHICAL SPREAD OF TANTRISM. The origins of tan-
trism are Indian. All authentic tantric lineages—of deities,
scriptures, oral teachings, and teachers—claim to extend
back to Indian scriptures. The founders of every major tan-
tric tradition, school, or sect either trace their guru-disciple
lineages back to an Indian source, or are considered to be in-
carnations of bodhisattvas whose cults first arose in India.
The exploded pantheons of tantrism—principal multi-
headed and multi-armed deities proliferating into man:d:alas
of families or clans—are generally Indian, or at least traceable
to Indian prototypes. The great bulk of tantric legends con-
cerns Indian Siddhas and Maha ̄siddhas. The hieratic lan-
guage of tantrism generally remains the Sanskrit of medieval
India, so that for any lineage-based tantric body of practice
to be considered legitimate in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or
Tibetan tantric traditions, its translated root text has had to
be traceable back to a Sanskrit original. In these translated
sources, mantras—whose efficacy resides in their sound
shape—will not be translated, but rather frozen (at least in
theory) in the original Sanskrit. Furthermore, Sanskrit char-8984 TANTRISM: AN OVERVIEW