certain tantric traditions, the male guru’s female consort—
variously called the Yogin ̄ı, D:a ̄kin ̄ı, “Action Seal,” or “Lotus
Maiden”—is equally exalted as she is identified with the su-
preme female godhead. It is in this particular context that
sexualized ritual may be brought to the fore in tantric initia-
tion: the female consort, as the embodiment of the divine,
transmits to the initiand the transformative energy and wis-
dom of the godhead through her sexual emissions, which are
considered to be liquid gnosis. In this way, the initiand be-
comes a member of the divine family or clan of both his guru
and the godhead at the center of the man:d:ala.
Crucial to the initiation process as well as to many other
types of tantric practice is the notion that within the gross
body of the human microcosm there is a subtle, yogic body
that is the mesocosmic replica of the divine dyad, the su-
preme godhead in its male and female manifestations. This
body, comprised of energy channels and centers, drops and
winds, is itself a man:d:ala: viewed from above, the vertical
central channel of the subtle body would appear as the center
point of the man:d:ala, with the various energy centers aligned
along that channel being so many concentric circles, wheels,
or lotuses radiating outward. As such, initiation and all forms
of yogic practice involve, once again, an effort on the part
of the practitioner to return to the elevated center point of
the emanated man:d:ala. Movement toward the center, effect-
ed through a combination of external ritual and internal
meditative practices, basically entails harmonizing one’s own
energy or consciousness level with that of the (deities of the)
circle in which one finds oneself. First encountered as obsta-
cles, these divine, demonic, or animal impulses are eventually
overcome, and transformed into positive sources of energy
that carry one closer and closer to the deity at the center. Al-
ternatively, one may, having overcome them, also coerce
those same potentially destructive lower-level beings to do
one’s bidding, through various ritual technologies.
THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION AND DOMESTICATION OF
TANTRISM. As its sociopolitical contexts have changed, so
too has the content of tantrism, with persons from a broader
range of society appropriating and adapting its rituals and
their attendant metaphysics to their specific needs and aspi-
rations. In general terms, this has taken the form of an insti-
tutionalization of tantrism by Hindu Bra ̄hman:s and Bud-
dhist monks on the one hand and, on the other, the
domestication of its base from lay elites (kings, aristocrats,
and Siddhas) to wider strata of householder society. In spite
of periodic reformations or revivals of “primitive” tantrism
in various parts of the Asian world, both of these trends have
had the effect of draining tantrism of its original specificities,
of making institutional forms of tantrism look more like the
broader, conventional, or orthodox religious contexts in
which they have been embedded.
Many of the original tantric masters understood speech
to be a performative act, and intentionally subverted conven-
tional language in their teachings and use of mantras as a
means to effect a breakthrough in their disciples’ perception
of reality. Among their disciples were members of the literati,
who committed these speech acts into writing, writings that
were in turn anthologized, codified, commentated on, and
systematized into texts and canons of texts. Tantric mantras,
which were originally secret spells for coercing a wide range
of supernatural entities into doing one’s bidding, became
“semanticized” into the phonematic manifestations of pow-
erful gods and compassionate buddhas, who could be ac-
cessed through the mantras’ proper pronunciation. The term
mu ̄dra (“seal”), which originally referred to the sealing to-
gether of male and female bodies in sexual union, came to
refer to complex hand and finger positions to be maintained
while meditating, or to the parched grain that Hindu practi-
tioners consume as a tantric sacrament. The homa fire sacri-
fice rituals of early tantrism, which often involved the offer-
ing of human and animal blood and gore to ravening
demonic entities, became sublimated into either yogic prac-
tice or the meditative burning away of impediments to liber-
ation or salvation in the fire of gnosis. More fundamentally,
the tantric ritual arena came to be sealed off from the power-
ful but dangerous entities and forces of the original tantric
universe, with the pandemonium of the real world walled out
from the quiet center or the monastic cell or household
shrine.
Orthodox Hindu and Buddhist hermeneutical strategies
neutralized the heterodox and heteroprax content of early
tantrism by interpreting it in a variety of ways. On the one
hand, much of what was objectionable in the externals of
tantric practice was internalized into yogic, meditative, or
imaginative techniques. On the other, such practices were
marginalized into the purview of a limited elite—the Siddhas
and V ̄ıras of tantric legend and their emulators—with more
conventional, devotional, salvation-oriented practice recom-
mended for the religious mainstream of monks, priests, and
householders. Here, there was a trade-off between danger
and efficacy, purity and power in the world, in which cir-
cumspection was strongly advised to all but a select few. It
was the dangerous content of the early tantric rituals that
most distinguished them from those found in the orthodox
Buddhist Su ̄ tra literature and the Hindu Vedas: but for those
who dared to undertake them, and transact in prohibited
substances (sexual fluids, unclean or proscribed food) with
problematic beings (outcaste women, minions of the spirit
world) through heterodox practices (sexualized initiation rit-
uals, sorcery), self-transformation could be instantaneous
rather than the result of several lifetimes of practice.BIBLIOGRAPHY
Davidson, Ronald M. Indian Esoteric Buddhism: A Social History
of the Tantric Movement. New York, 2002.
Faure, Bernard. The Red Thread: Buddhist Approaches to Sexuality.
Princeton, N.J., 1998.
Goudriaan, Teun, and Sanjukta Gupta. Hindu Tantric and S ́akta
Literature. Wiesbaden, Germany, 1981.
Gupta, Sanjukta, Dirk Jan Hoens, and Teun Goudriaan. Hindu
Tantrism. Leiden, Netherlands, 1979.8986 TANTRISM: AN OVERVIEW