Shakti and Shâkta : essays and addresses on the Shâkta Tantrashâstra

TANTRAS AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE

one division of worshippers only. Further the Tantras are concerned with Science, Law, Medicine and a variety of subjects other than spiritual doctrine or worship. Thus Indian chemistry and medicine is largely indebted to the Tantrikas.

According to a common notion the word “ Tantra’ is (to use the language of a fairly well-known work) “ restricted to the necromantic books of the later Shivaic or Sakti mysticism ” (Waddell’s Buddhism of Tibet p. 164). As charity covers many sins, so “ mystic” and “ mysticism” are words which cover much ignorance. ‘“ Necromancy ” too looms unnecessarily large in writers of this school. It is however the fact that Western authors generally so understand the term “‘ Tantra.” They are however in error in so doing as previously explained. Here I shortly deal with the significance of the Tantra Shastra, which is of course also misunderstood, being generally spoken of as a jumble of “black magic,” and “erotic mysticism,” cemented together by a ritual which is ‘“ meaningless mummery.” <A large number of persons who talk in this strain have never had a Tantra in their hands, and such Orientalists as have read some portions of these Scriptures have not generally understood them, otherwise they would not have found them to be so “ meaningless.” They may be bad, or they may be good, but they have a meaning. Men are not such fools as to believe in what is meaningless. The use of this term implies that their content had no meaning to them. Very likely; for to define as they do Mantra as “mystical words,’ Mudra as “ mystical gestures ” and Yantra as ‘‘ mystical diagrams” does not imply knowledge. These erroneous notions as to the nature of the Agama are of course due to the mistaken identification of the whole body of the Scripture with one section of it. Further this last is only known through the abuses to which its dangerous practices as carried out by inferior persons have given rise, It is stated

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