Shakti and Shâkta : essays and addresses on the Shâkta Tantrashâstra

SHAKTI AND SHAKTA

noW some six years ago, by Pandit Shivachandravidyarnava the Shakta author of the « Tantratattva ” which I have published under the title “Principles of Tantra.” The words in brackets are my own.

“At the present time the general public are ignorant of the principles of the Tantra Shastra. The cause of this ignorance js the fact that the Tantra Shastra is a Sadhana Shastra, the greater part of which becomes intelligible only by Sddhand. For this reason the Shastra and its Teachers prohibit their general promulgation. So long as the Shastra was learnt from Gurus only, this golden rule was of immense good. In course of time the old Sadhana has become almost extinct, and along with it the knowledge of the deep and mighty principles of the Shastra is almost lost. N evertheless some faint shadowings of these principles (which can be thoroughly known by Sadhana only) have been put before the public partly with the view to preserve ShAastric knowledge from destruction, and partly for commercial reasons, When I commenced to write Tantratattva some 25 years ago (some 31 years from date) Bengali society was in a perilous state owing to the influx of other religions, want of faith and a spirit of disputation, Shortly before this a number of English books had appeared on the Tantra Shastra which, whilst ignorant of Dharma, Sadhana and Siddhi, contained some hideous and outrageous pictures drawn by the Bengali historians and novelists ignorant of, and unfaithful to, Shastric principles, The English books by English writers contained merely a reflection of what English-educated Bengalis of those days had written. Both are even to-day equally ignorant of the Tantra Shastra, For this reason in writing Tantratattva I could not go deeply into the subject as my heart Wished. TI had to spend my time in removing thorns (objections and charges) from the path by reasoning and argument. I could not therefore deal in my book with most of the subjects which, when I

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