Shakti and Shâkta : essays and addresses on the Shâkta Tantrashâstra

SHAKTI AND SHAKTA

perishable and mixed with suffering. This Sadhana consists of various means and disciplines employed to produce purity of mind (Chittashuddhi), and devotion to, and worship of, the Magna Mater of all. It is with these means that the religious Tantra Shastras are mainly concerned. The Shakta Tantra Shastra contains a most elaborate and wonderful ritual, partly its own, partly of Vaidik origin. To a ritualist it is of absorbing interest.

Ritual is an art, the art of religion. Art is the outward material expression of ideas intellectually held and emotionally felt. Ritual art is concerned with the expression of those ideas and feelings which are specifically called religious. It is a mode by which religious truth is presented, and made intelligible in material] forms and symbols to the mind. It appeals to all natures passionately sensible of that Beauty in which, to some, God most manifests Himself. But it is more than this. For it is the means by which the mind is transformed and purified. In particular according to Indian principles it is the instrument whereby the consciousness of the worshipper (Sadhaka) is shaped in actual fact into forms of experience which embody the truths which Scripture teaches. The Shakta is thus taught that he is one with Shiva and His Power or Shakti. This is not a matter of mere argument, It is a matter for experience. It is ritual and Yoga-practice which secures that experience for him. How profound Indian ritual is, will be admitted by those who have understood the general principles of al] ritual and symbolism, and have studied it in its Indian form, with a knowledge of the principles of which it is an expression, Those who speak of “ mummery,” “gibberish” and “superstition ” betray both their incapacity and ignorance,

The Agamas are not themselves treatises on Philosophy, though they impliedly contain a particular theory of life, They are what is called Sadhana Shastras, that is practical Scriptures prescribing the means by which happiness, the