Shakti and Shâkta : essays and addresses on the Shâkta Tantrashâstra

SHAKTI AND SHAKTA

alleged authority. As this remark of Dr. Delacroix suggests, one must judge a doctrine (and we may instance that of the Shaktas) by what its sincere adherents hold and do and not by the practices of impostors who always hie to sects which seem to hold theories offering opportunities for libertinism.

Whilst there is a similarity on some points between Kaula teaching and some of the Western pantheistic theories above alluded to, in others the two are manifestly and diametrically opposed. There are some who talk as if intellectual and moral aberrations were peculiar to India. No country is without them but the West, owing to its chaos of thought and morals, has exhibited the worst. With the exception of the atheistic Charvakas and Lokayatas no sect in India has taught the pursuit of sensual enjoyment for its own sake, or justified the commission of any and every (even unnatural) sin. To do so would be to run counter to ideas which are those of the whole intellectual and moral Cosmos of India. These ideas include those of a Law (Dharma) inherent in the nature of all being; of sin as its infraction, and of the punishment of sin as bad Karma in this and the next world (Paraloka). It is believed and taught that the end of man is lasting happiness but that this is not to be had by the satisfaction of worldly desires. Indeed the Kaula teaches that Liberation (Moksha) can not be had so long as a man has any worldly desires whether good or bad. Whilst however there is an eternal Dharma (Sanatana Dharma) one and the same for all, there are also particular forms of Dharma governing particular bodies of men. It is thus a general rule that a man should not unlawfully satisfy his sexual desires. But the conditions under which he may lawfully do so have varied in every form and degree in times and places, In this sense, as the Sarvollasa says, marriage is a conventional (Paribhashika) thing. The convention which is binding on the individual must yet be followed, that being his Dharma. Sin again, it is taught,

BYP