Shakti and Shâkta : essays and addresses on the Shâkta Tantrashâstra

SHAKTI AND SHAKTA

course of time to a point where “ superstition ’ mechanical devotion and lifeless formalism and other abuses are produced. There then takes place what is called a ‘“Reform,” in the direction of a more spiritual religion. This too is accentuated to the point of barrenness. Religion becomes sterile to produce practical result and ritual and pictorial religion recurs. So Buddhism, which in its origin has been represented to be a reaction against excessive and barren ritualism, could not rest with a mere statement of the noble truths and the eightfold path. Something practical was needed. The Mahayana (Thegpa Chhenpo) was produced. Nagarjuna in the second century A.D. (?) is said to have promulgated ideas to be found in the Tantras. In order to realise the desired end, use was made of all the powers of man, physicaland mental. Theistic notions as also Yoga came again to the force in the Yogacharya and other Buddhist systems. The worship of images and an elaborate ritual was introduced, The worship of the Shaktis spread. The Mantrayana and Vajrayana found acceptance with, what an English writer (‘The Buddhism of Tibet” by L. Waddell) describes in the usual style as its “silly mummery of unmeaning jargon and gibberish,” the latter being said to be “the most depraved form of Buddhist doctrine.” So-called Tantrik Buddhism hecame thus fully developed. A Tantrik reformer in the person of Tsongkhapa arose, who codified the Tantras in his work Lam-rim Chhen-mo. The great code, the Kah-gyur, contains in one of its sections the Tantras (Rgyud) containing ritual, worship of the Divine Mothers, theology, astrology and natural science, as do their Indian counterparts. These are of four classes, the Kriya, Charyé, Yoga, Anuttara, Tantras, the latter comprising Maha, Anu and Ati-Yoga Tantras. The Tan-gyur similarly contains many volumes of Tantras (Rgyud). Then, at length, Buddhism was driven from out of India. Braéhmanism and its rituals survived and increased, until both in our day and the nearer past we see in the 30