Shakti and Shâkta : essays and addresses on the Shâkta Tantrashâstra

TANTRA SHASTRA AND VEDA

From an outside point of view (for Ido not here deal with the subject otherwise) we must consider the age in which a particular Shastra was produced and consequently the conditions of the time, the then state of society, its moral and spiritual development and so forth. To understand some rites in the past history of this and other countries one must seek, in lieu of surface explanations, their occult significance in the history of the human race; and the mind must cast itself back into the ages whence it has emerged, by the aid of those traces which it still bears in the depths of its being of that which outwardly expressed itself in ancient custom.

Take for instance the rite of human sacrifice which the Kalikalpalata says that the Raja alone may perform (Raja naravaling dadyannAnyo ‘pi parameshvari) but in which, as the Tantrasara states, no Brahmana may participate (Brahman 4nang naravalidane nadhikarah). Such an animal sacrifice is not peculiarly ‘‘ Tantrik ” but an instance of the survival of a rite widely spread in the ancient world; older than the day when Jehovah bade Abraham sacrifice his son (Gen XXII) and that on which Sunahsepa (Aitareya Brahmana VII, 3) like Isaac was released. Reference it is true is made to this sacrifice in the Shastras, but save as some rare exception (I had a case in Court some years ago) it does not exist to-day and the vast mass of men do not wish to see it revived. The Chakra ritual similarly is either disappearing or becoming in spirit transformed.

What is of primary value in the Tantra Shastra are certain principles with which I have dealt elsewhere, and with which I deal again in part in this and the following lectures. The application of these principles in ritual is a question of form. All form is a passing thing. In the shape of ritual its validity is limited to place and time. As so limited it will continue so long as it serves an useful purpose and meets the needs of the age, and the degree of - its spiritual advancement, or that of any particular body of 61