Shakti and Shâkta : essays and addresses on the Shâkta Tantrashâstra

THE PANCHATATTVA

Vamachara in which the full rites with wine and Shakti are performed, but also between a Vama and Dakshina division of the latter Ach4ra itself. It is on the former side that there is worship with a woman (Paraktya Shakti) other than the SAdhaka’s own wife (Svakiy& Shakti.) But under what circumstances? It is necessary (as Professor de la Valleé Poussin, the Catholic Belgian Sanskritist says (Adhikarma-pradipa 141) of the Buddhist Tantra) to remember the conditions under which these Tantrik rituals are, according to the Shastra, admissible, when judging of their morality, otherwise he says condemnation becomes excessive (“ Je crois d‘ailleurs qu'on a exageré la charactére d‘immoralité des actes liturgiques de Maithuna faute d'avoir fixé les diverses conditions dans lesqueles ils doivent <étre pratiqués."’, As I have said, the ordinary rule is that the wife or Adya Shakti should be co-performer (Sahadharminf) in the rite. An exception however exists where the Sadhaka has no wife or she is incompetent (Anadhik4rinf). There seems to be a notion that the Shastra directs union with some other person than the Sadhaka’s wife. This is not so. A direction to go after other women as such would be counsel to commit fornication or adultery. What the Shastra says is—that if the SAdhaka has no wife, or she is incompetent ‘Anadhik@rinf), then only may the Sadhaka take some other Shakti. Next, this is for the purpose of ritual worship only. Just as any extra-ritual drinking is sin, so also outside worship any Maithuna, otherwise than with the wife, issin. The Tattvas of each kind can only be offered after purification (Shodhana) and during worship according to the rules, restrictions, and conditions of the Tantrik ritual (See Tantrasara 698 citing Bhavachfdamani, Uttara-Kulamrita. In Ch. IV Briharnfla Tantra it is said Paradardnna gachchheran gachchhechcha prapayed yodi, but thatis for purposes of worship). Outside worship the mind is not even to think of the subject, as is said concerning the Shakti in the Uttara Tantra. 351