Shakti and Shâkta : essays and addresses on the Shâkta Tantrashâstra

THE PANCHATATTVA

knowledge of Him who is the truth (e esercitando erroneamente quello che diciamo impurita era la vera purita: quella Iddio ci comanda e virole noi pratichiamo, e senza della quale non vie maniera di trovare Iddio, che e verita) “* Where did you get all this doctrine?” The sister said “I gathered it from my natural inclinations” (L’ho ricevato dall inclinazione della natura).

Whilst it will not be necessary to tell the most ignorant Indian that the above doctrines are not Christian teaching, it is necessary (as Sellon’s remark shows) to inform the English reader that this pantheistic libertinism is not “Tantrik.” This ridiculous charge is due to the author's ignorance of the principles of Kaula SAdhan&. I will not describe all the obscene and perverse acts which these “Religions” practised. It is sufficient that the reader should throw his eye back a few lines and see that their teaching justified sodomy, lesbianism and masturbation, sins as abhorrent to the Tantra Shastra as any other. Owing however to ignorance or prejudice everything is called ‘ Tantrik ** into which woman enters and in which sexual union takes on a religious or so-called religious character or complexion. The Shastra on the contrary teaches that there is a God other than and transcending Nature, that Dharma or morality governs all men, that there is sin and that the acts here referred to are heinous impurities leading to Hell; for there is (it says) both suffering and enjoyment not only in this but in an after life. It was apparently enough for Edward Sellon to adjudge the theories and practices te be T ntrik that these women preached the doctrine of intention and of sexual union with the feeling or Bhava (to use a Sanskrit term) that man and woman were parts of the one Divine essence. A little knowledge isa dangerous thing and this is an instance of it. These corrupt theories are merely the “religious” and “ philosophical” basis for a life of unrestrained libertinism which the Tantra ShAstra as emphatically as any other Scripture condemns. The object of the

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