Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 2

The Mahâbhârata contains hymns to Durgâ in which she is said to love offerings of flesh and wine,696 but it is not likely that Śâktism or Tantrism—that is a system with special scriptures and doctrines—was prevalent before the seventh century A.D. for the Tantras are not mentioned by the Chinese pilgrims and the lexicon Amara Kosha (perhaps c. 500 A.D.) does not recognize the word as a designation of religious books. Bâṇa (c. 630) gives more than once in his romances lists of sectaries but though he mentions Bhâgavatas and Pâśupatas, he does not speak of Śaktas.697 On the other hand Tantrism infected Buddhism soon after this period. The earlier Tibetan translations of the Tantras are attributed to the ninth century. MSS. of the Kubjikâmata and other Tantras are said to date from the ninth and even from the seventh century and tradition represents Sankarâcârya as having contests with Śâktas.698 But many Tantras were written in the fifteenth century and even later, for the Yogini Tantra alludes to the Koch king Bishwa Singh (1515-1540) and the Meru Tantra mentions London and the English.

From the twelfth to the sixteenth century, when Buddhism, itself deeply infected with Tantrism, was disappearing, Śâktism was probably the most powerful religion in Bengal, but Vishnuism was gaining strength and after the time of Caitanya proved a formidable rival to it. At the beginning of the fifteenth century we hear that the king of the Ahoms summoned Brahmans to his Court and adopted many Hindu rites and beliefs, and from this time onward Śâktism was patronized by most of the Assamese Rajas although after 1550 Vishnuism became the religion of the mass of the people. Śâktism never inspired any popular or missionary movement, but it was powerful among the aristocracy and instigated persecutions against the Vishnuites.

The more respectable Tantras699 show considerable resemblance to the later Upanishads such as the Nṛisinhatâpanîya and Râmatâ-panîya, which mention Śakti in the sense of creative energy.700 Both classes of works treat of magical formulæ(mantras) and the construction of mystic diagrams or yantras. This resemblance does not give us much assistance in chronology, for the dates of the later Upanishads are very uncertain, but it shows how the Tantras are connected with other branches of Hindu thought.

The distinction between Tantras and Purâṇas is not always well-marked. The Bhâgavata Purâṇa countenances tantric rites701 and the Agni Purâṇa (from chapter XXI onwards) bears a strong resemblance to a Tantra. As a rule the Tantras contain less historical and legendary matter than the Purâṇas and more directions as to ritual. But whereas the Purâṇas approve of both Vedic rites and others, the Tantras insist that ceremonies other than those which they prescribe are now useless. They maintain that each age of the world has its own special revelation and that in this age the Tantra-śâstra is the only scripture. Thus in the Mahânirvâṇa Tantra Śiva says:702 "The fool who would follow other doctrines heedless of mine is as great a sinner as a parricide or the murderer of a Brahman or of a woman.... The Vedic rites and mantras which were efficacious in the first age have ceased to have power in this. They are now as powerless as snakes whose fangs have been drawn and are like dead things." The Kulârṇava Tantra (I. 79 ff.) inveighs against those who think they will obtain salvation by Vedic sacrifices or asceticism or reading sacred books, whereas it can be won only by tantric rites.

Various lists of Tantras are given and it is generally admitted that many have been lost. The most complete, but somewhat theoretical enumeration703 divides India and the adjoining lands into three regions to each of which sixty-four Tantras are assigned. The best known names are perhaps Mahânirvâṇa,704 Sâradâtilaka,705 Yoginî, Kulârṇava706 and Rudra-Yâmala. A Tantra is generally cast in the form of a dialogue in which Śiva instructs his consort but sometimes vice versâ. It is said that the former class are correctly described as Âgamas and the works where the Śakti addresses Śiva as Nigamas.707 Some are also called Yâmalas and Dâmaras but I have found no definition of the meaning of these words. The Prapañcasâra Tantra708 professes to be a revelation from Nârâyaṇa.

Śâktism and the Tantras which teach it are generally condemned by Hindus of other sects.709 It is arguable that this condemnation is unjust, for like other forms of Hinduism the Tantras make the liberation of the soul their object and prescribe a life of religious observances including asceticism and meditation, after which the adept becomes released even in this life. But however much new tantric literature may be made accessible in future, I doubt if impartial criticism will come to any opinion except that Śâktism and Tantrism collect and emphasize what is superficial, trivial and even bad in Indian religion, omitting or neglecting its higher sides. If for instance the Mahânirvâṇa Tantra which is a good specimen of these works be compared with Śaṅkara's commentary on the Vedânta Sûtras, or the poems of Tulsi Das, it will be seen that it is woefully deficient in the excellences of either. But many tantric treatises are chiefly concerned with charms, spells, amulets and other magical methods of obtaining wealth, causing or averting disease and destroying enemies, processes which even if efficacious have nothing to do with the better side of religion.710

The religious life prescribed in the Tantras711 commences with initiation and requires the supervision of the Guru. The object of it is Siddhi or success, the highest form of which is spiritual perfection. Siddhi is produced by Sâdhana, or that method of training the physical and psychic faculties which realizes their potentialities. Tantric training assumes a certain constitution of the universe and the repetition in miniature of this constitution in the human body which contains various nervous centres and subtle channels for the passage of energy unknown to vulgar anatomy. Thus the Śakti who pervades the universe is also present in the body as Kuṇḍalinî, a serpentine coil of energy, and it is part of Sâdhana to arouse this energy and make it mount from the lower to the higher centres. Kuṇḍalinî is also present in sounds and in letters. Hence if different parts of the body are touched to the accompaniment of appropriate mantras (which rite is called nyâsa) the various Śaktis are made to dwell in the human frame in suitable positions.

The Tantras recognize that human beings are not equal and that codes and rituals must vary according to temperament and capacity. Three conditions of men, called the animal, heroic and divine,712 are often mentioned and are said to characterize three periods of life—youth, manhood and age, or three classes of mankind, non-tantrists, ordinary tantrists, and adepts. These three conditions clearly correspond to the three Guṇas. Also men, or rather Hindus, belong to one of seven groups, or stages, according to the religious practices which it is best for them to follow. Śâktists apparently demur713 to the statement commonly made by Indians as well as by Europeans that they are divided into two sects the Dakshiṇâcârins, or right-hand worshippers, whose ritual is public and decent, and the Vâmâcârins who meet to engage in secret but admittedly immoral orgies. But for practical purposes the division is just, although it must not be supposed that Dakshiṇâcârins necessarily condemn the secret worship. They may consider it as good for others but not for themselves. Śâktists apparently would prefer to state the matter thus. There are seven stages of religion. First come Vedic, Vishnuite and Śivaite worship, all three inferior, and then Dakshiṇâcâra, interpreted as meaning favourable worship, that is favourable to the accomplishment of higher purposes, because the worshipper now begins to understand the nature of Devî, the great goddess. These four kinds of worship are all said to belong to pravritti or active life. The other three, considered to be higher, require a special initiation and belong to nivritti, the path of return in which passion and activity are suppressed.714 And here is propounded the doctrine that passion can be destroyed and exhausted by passion,715 that is to say that the impulses of eating, drinking and sexual intercourse are best subjugated by indulging them. The fifth stage, in which this method is first adopted, is called Vâmâcâra.716 In the sixth, or Siddhântâcâra,717 the adept becomes more and more free from passion and prejudice and is finally able to enter Kaulâcâra, the highest stage of all. A Kaula is one who has passed beyond all sects and belongs to none, since he has the knowledge of Brahman. "Possessing merely the form of man, he moves about this earth for the salvation of the world and the instruction of men."718

These are aspirations common to all Indian religion. The peculiarity of the Tantras is to suppose that a ritual which is shocking to most Hindus is an indispensable preliminary to their attainment.719 Its essential feature is known as pancatattva, the five elements, or pancamakâra the five m's, because they all begin with that letter, namely, madya, mâṃsa, matsya, mudrâ, and maithuna, wine, meat, fish, parched grain and copulation. The celebration of this ritual takes place at midnight, and is called cakra or circle. The proceedings begin by the devotees seating themselves in a circle and are said to terminate in an indiscriminate orgy. It is only fair to say that some Tantras inveigh against drunkenness and authorize only moderate drinking.720 In all cases it is essential that the wine, flesh, etc., should be formally dedicated to the goddess: without this preliminary indulgence in these pleasures is sinful. Indeed it may be said that apart from the ceremonial which they inculcate, the general principles of the Tantras breathe a liberal and intelligent spirit. Caste restrictions are minimized: travelling is permitted. Women are honoured: they can act as teachers: the burning of widows is forbidden:721 girl widows may remarry722 and the murder of a woman is peculiarly heinous. Prostitution is denounced. Whereas Christianity is sometimes accused of restricting its higher code to Church and Sundays, the opposite may be said of Tantrism. Outside the temple its morality is excellent.

A work like the Mahânirvâṇa Tantra presents a refined form of Śâktism modified, so far as may be, in conformity with ordinary Hindu usage.723 But other features indubitably connect it with aboriginal cults. For instance there is a legend which relates how the body of the Śakti was cut into pieces and scattered over Assam and Bengal. This story has an uncouth and barbarous air and seems out of place even in Puranic mythology. It recalls the tales told of Osiris, Orpheus and Halfdan the Black724 and may be ultimately traceable to the idea that the dismemberment of a deity or a human representative ensures fertility. Until recently the Khonds of Bengal used to hack human victims in pieces as a sacrifice to the Earth Goddess and throw the shreds of flesh on the fields to secure a good harvest.725 In Sanskrit literature I have not found any authority for the dismemberment of Satî earlier than the Tantras or Upapurâṇas (e.g. Kâlikâ), but this late appearance does not mean that the legend is late in itself but merely that it was not countenanced by Sanskrit writers until medieval times. Various reasons for the dismemberment are given and the incident is rather awkwardly tacked on to other stories. One common version relates that when Satî (one of the many forms of Śakti) died of vexation because her husband Śiva was insulted by her father Daksha, Śiva took up her corpse and wandered distractedly carrying it on his shoulder.726 In order to stop this penance Vishṇu followed him and cut off pieces from the corpse with his quoit until the whole had fallen to earth in fifty-one pieces. The spots where these pieces touched the ground are held sacred and called pîths. At most of them are shown a rock supposed to represent some portion of the goddess's body and some object called a bhairabi, left by Śiva as a guardian to protect her and often taking the form of a lingam. The most important of these pîths are Kâmâkhyâ near Gauhati, Faljur in the Jaintia Parganas, and Kalighat in Calcutta.727

Though the Śakti of Śiva is theoretically one, yet since she assumes many forms she becomes in practice many deities or rather she is many deities combined in one or sometimes a sovereign attended by a retinue of similar female spirits. Among such forms we find the ten Mahâvidyâs, or personifications of her supernatural knowledge; the Mahâmâtris, Mâtrikâs or the Great Mothers, allied to the aboriginal goddesses already mentioned; the Nâyakas or mistresses; the Yoginîs or sorceresses, and fiends called Ḍâkinîs. But the most popular of her manifestations are Durgâ and Kâlî. The sects which revere these goddesses are the most important religious bodies in Bengal, where they number thirty-five million adherents. The Durgâpûja is the greatest festival of the year in north-eastern India728 and in the temple of Kalighat at Calcutta may be seen the singular spectacle of educated Hindus decapitating goats before the image of Kâlî. It is a black female figure with gaping mouth and protruded tongue dancing on a prostrate body,729 and adorned with skulls and horrid emblems of destruction. Of her four hands two carry a sword and a severed head but the other two are extended to give blessing and protection to her worshippers. So great is the crowd of enthusiastic suppliants that it is often hard to approach the shrine and the nationalist party in Bengal who clamour for parliamentary institutions are among the goddess's devotees.

It is easy to criticize and condemn this worship. Its outward signs are repulsive to Europeans and its inner meaning strange, for even those who pray to the Madonna are startled by the idea that the divine nature is essentially feminine.730 Yet this idea has deep roots in the heart of Bengal and with it another idea: the terrors of death, plague and storm are half but only half revelations of the goddess-mother who can be smiling and tender as well. Whatever may be the origin of Kâlî and of the strange images which represent her, she is now no she-devil who needs to be propitiated, but a reminder that birth and death are twins, that the horrors of the world come from the same source as its grace and beauty and that cheerful acceptance of the deity's terrible manifestations is an essential part of the higher spiritual life.731 These ideas are best expressed in the songs of Râma Prasâda Sen (1718-1775) which "still reign supreme in the villages" of Bengal and show that this strange worship has really a hold on millions of Indian rustics.732 The directness and childlike simplicity of his poems have caused an Indian critic to compare him to Blake. "Though the mother beat the child," he sings,

"the child cries mother, mother, andclings still tighter to her garment. True, Icannot see thee, yet I am not a lost child.I still cry mother, mother.""All the miseries that I have suffered and am suffering,I know, O mother, to be your mercy alone."

I must confess that I cannot fully sympathize with this worship, even when it is sung in the hymns of Râma Prasâda, but it is clear that he makes it tolerable just because he throws aside all the magic and ritual of the Tantras and deals straight with what are for him elemental and emotional facts. He makes even sceptics feel that he has really seen God in this strange guise.

The chief sanctuary of Śâktism is at Kâmâkhyâ (or Kâmâkshâ) on a hill which stands on the banks of the Brahmaputra, about two miles below Gauhati. It is mentioned in the Padma Purâṇa. The temples have been rebuilt several times, and in the eighteenth century were munificently endowed by an Ahom king, and placed under the management of a Brahman from Nadia in Bengal, with reversion to his descendants who bear the title of Parbatiya Gosains. Considerable estates are still assigned to their upkeep. There are ten733 shrines on the hill dedicated to various forms of the Śakti. The situation is magnificent, commanding an extensive prospect over the Brahmaputra and the plains on either bank, but none of the buildings are of much architectural merit. The largest and best is the temple dedicated to Kâmâkhyâ herself, the goddess of sexual desire. It is of the style usual in northern India, an unlighted shrine surmounted by a dome, and approached by a rather ample vestibule, which is also imperfectly lighted. An inscription has been preserved recording the restoration of the temple about 1550 but only the present basement dates from that time, most of the super-structure being recent. Europeans may not enter but an image of the goddess can be seen from a side door. In the depths of the shrine is said to be a cleft in the rock, adored as the Yoni of Śakti. In front of the temple are two posts to which a goat is tied, and decapitated daily at noon. Below the principal shrine is the temple of Bhairavî. Human sacrifices were offered here in comparatively recent times, and it is not denied that they would be offered now if the law allowed. Also it is not denied that the rites of the "five m's" already mentioned are frequently performed in these temples, and that Aghoris may be found in them. The spot attracts a considerable number of pilgrims from Bengal, and a wealthy devotee has built a villa on the hill and pays visits to it for the purpose of taking part in the rites. I was informed that the most esteemed scriptures of the sect are the Yoginî Tantra, the Mahânirvâṇa Tantra, and the Kâlikâ Purâṇa. This last work contains a section or chapter on blood,734 which gives rules for the performance of human sacrifices. It states however that they should not be performed by the first three castes, which is perhaps a way of saying that though they may be performed by non-Aryans under Brahmanic auspices they form no part of the Aryan religion. But they are recommended to princes and ministers and should not be performed without the consent of princes. The ritual bears little resemblance to the Vedic sacrifices and the essence of the ceremony is the presentation to the goddess of the victim's severed head in a vessel of gold, silver, copper, brass or wood but not of iron. The axe with which the decapitation is to be performed is solemnly consecrated to Kâlî and the victim is worshipped before immolation. The sacrificer first thinks of Brahmâ and the other gods as being present in the victim's body, and then prays to him directly as being all the gods in one. "When this has been done" says Śiva, who is represented as himself revealing these rules, "the victim is even as myself." This identification of the human victim with the god has many analogies elsewhere, particularly among the Khonds.735

It is remarkable that this barbarous and immoral worship, though looked at askance except in its own holy places, is by no means confined to the lower castes. A series of apologies composed in excellent English (but sometimes anonymous) attest the sympathy of the educated. So far as theology and metaphysics are concerned, these defences are plausible. The Śakti is identified with Prakṛiti or with the Mâyâ of the Advaita philosophy and defined as the energy, coexistent with Brahman, which creates the world. But attempts to palliate the ceremonial, such as the argument that it is a consecration and limitation of the appetites because they may be gratified only in the service of the goddess, are not convincing. Nor do the Śâktas, when able to profess their faith openly, deny the nature of their rites or the importance attached to them. An oft-quoted tantric verse represents Śiva as saying Maithunena mahâyogî mama tulyo na saṁśayaḥ. And for practical purposes that is the gist of Śâktist teaching.

The temples of Kâmâkhyâ leave a disagreeable impression—an impression of dark evil haunts of lust and bloodshed, akin to madness and unrelieved by any grace or vigour of art. For there is no attempt in them to represent the terrible or voluptuous aspects of Hinduism, such as find expression in sculpture elsewhere. All the buildings, and especially the modern temple of Kâlî, which was in process of construction when I saw the place, testify to the atrophy and paralysis produced by erotic forms of religion in the artistic and intellectual spheres, a phenomenon which finds another sad illustration in quite different theological surroundings among the Vallabhâcârya sect at Gokul near Muttra.

It would be a poor service to India to palliate the evils and extravagances of Śâktism, but still it must be made clear that it is not a mere survival of barbaric practices. The writers of the Tantras are good Hindus and declare that their object is to teach liberation and union with the Supreme Spirit. The ecstasies induced by tantric rites produce this here in a preliminary form to be made perfect in the liberated soul. This is not the craze of a few hysterical devotees, but the faith of millions among whom many are well educated. In some aspects Śâktism is similar to the erotic Vishnuite sects, but there is little real analogy in their ways of thinking. For the essence of Vishnuism is passionate devotion and self-surrender to a deity and this idea is not prominent in the Tantras. The strange inconsistencies of Śâktism are of the kind which are characteristic of Hinduism as a whole, but the contrasts are more violent and the monstrosities more conspicuous than elsewhere; wild legends and metaphysics are mixed together, and the peace that passes all understanding is to be obtained by orgies and offerings of blood.

CHAPTER XXXIII

HINDU PHILOSOPHY

Philosophy is more closely connected with religion in India than in Europe. It is not a dispassionate scientific investigation but a practical religious quest. Even the Nyâya school, which is concerned chiefly with formal logic, promises that by the removal of false knowledge it can emancipate the soul and give the bliss of salvation. Nor are the expressions system or school of philosophy, commonly used to render darśana, altogether happy. The word is derived from the root dṛiś, to see, and means a way of looking at things. As such a way of looking is supposed to be both comprehensive and orderly, it is more or less what we call philosophical, but the points of view are so special and so various that the result is not always what we call a philosophical system. Mádhava's736 list of Darśanas includes Buddhism and Jainism, which are commonly regarded as separate religions, as well as the Pâśupata and Śaiva, which are sects of Hinduism. The Darśana of Jaimini is merely a discussion of general questions relating to sacrifices: the Nyâya Darśana examines logic and rhetoric: the Pâṇiniya Darśana treats of grammar and the nature of language, but claims that it ought to be studied "as the means for attaining the chief end of man."737

Six of the Darśanas have received special prominence and are often called the six Orthodox Schools. They are the Nyâya and Vaiśeshika, Sâṅkhya and Yoga, Pûrva and Uttara Mîmâṃsâ, or Vedânta. The rest are either comparatively unimportant or are more conveniently treated of as religious sects. The six placed on the select list are sufficiently miscellaneous and one wonders what principle of classification can have brought them together. The first two have little connection with religion, though they put forward the emancipation of the soul as their object, and I have no space to discuss them. They are however important as showing that realism has a place in Indian thought in spite of its marked tendency to idealism.738 They are concerned chiefly with an examination of human faculties and the objects of knowledge, and are related to one another. The special doctrine of the Vaiśeshika is the theory of atoms ascribed to Kaṇâda. It teaches that matter consists of atoms (aṇu) which are eternal in themselves though all combinations of them are liable to decompose. The Sâṅkhya and Yoga are also related and represent two aspects of the same system which is of great antiquity and allied to Buddhism and Jainism. The two Mîmâṃsâs are consecutive expositions of the teaching scattered throughout the Vedic texts respecting ceremonial and the knowledge of God respectively. The second Mîmâṃsâ, commonly called the Vedânta, is by far the more interesting and important.

The common feature in these six systems which constitutes their orthodoxy is that they all admit the authority of the Veda. This implies more than our phrases revelation or inspiration of the Bible. Most of the Darśanas attach importance to the pramâṇas, sources or standards of knowledge. They are variously enumerated, but one of the oldest definitions makes them three: perception (pratyaksha), inference (anumâna) and scripture (śabda). The Veda is thus formally acknowledged to have the same authority as the evidence of the senses. With this is generally coupled the doctrine that it is eternal. It was not composed by human authors, but is a body of sound existing from eternity as part of Brahman and breathed out by him when he causes the whole creation to evolve at the beginning of a world period. The reputed authors are simply those who have, in Indian language, seen portions of this self-existent teaching. This doctrine sounds more reasonable if restated in the form that words are the expression of thought, and that if thought is the eternal essence of both Brahman and the soul, a similar eternity may attach to words. Some such idea is the origin of the Christian doctrine of the Logos, and in many religions we find such notions as that words have a creative efficacy,739 or that he who knows the name of a thing has power over it. Among Mohammedans the Koran is supposed to be not merely an inspired composition but a pre-existing book, revealed to Mohammed piecemeal.