Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch Volume II Part 30

It would be convenient to distinguish Saktism and Tantrism, as I have already suggested. The former means the wors.h.i.+p of a G.o.ddess or G.o.ddesses, especially those who are regarded as forms of Siva's consort. Vishnuites sometimes wors.h.i.+p female deities, but though the wors.h.i.+p of Lakshmi, Radha and others may be coloured by imitation of Saktist practices, it is less conspicuous and seems to have a different origin. Tantrism is a system of magical or sacramental ritual, which professes to attain the highest aims of religion by such methods as spells, diagrams, gestures and other physical exercises.

One of its bases is the a.s.sumption that man and the universe correspond as microcosm and macrocosm and that both are subject to the mysterious power of words and letters.

These ideas are not modern nor peculiar to any Indian sect. They are present in the Vedic ceremonial, in the practices of the Yoga and even in the teaching of the quasi-mussulman sect of Kabir, which attaches great importance to the letters of the divine name. They harmonize with the common Indian view that some form of discipline or physical training is essential to the religious life. They are found in a highly developed form among the Nambuthiris and other Brahmans of southern India who try to observe the Vedic rules and in the Far East among Buddhists of the s.h.i.+ngon or Chen-yen sect.[681] As a rule they receive the name of Tantrism only when they are elaborated into a system which claims to be a special dispensation for this age and to supersede more arduous methods which are politely set aside as practicable only for the hero-saints of happier times. Tantrism, like salvation by faith, is a simplification of religion but on mechanical rather than emotional lines, though its deficiency in emotion often finds strange compensations.

But Tantrism is a.n.a.logous not so much to justification by faith as to sacramental ritual. The parallel may seem shocking, but most tantric ceremonies are similar in idea to Christian sacraments and may be called sacramental as correctly as magical. Even in the Anglican Church baptism includes sprinkling with water (abhisheka), the sign of the cross (nyasa) and a formula (mantra), and if any one supposes that a child so treated is sure of heaven whereas the future of the unbaptized is dubious, he holds like the Tantrists that spiritual ends can be attained by physical means. And in the Roman Church where the rite includes exorcism and the use of salt, oil and lights, the parallel is still closer. Christian mysticism has had much to do with symbolism and even with alchemy,[682] and Zoroastrianism, which is generally regarded as a reasonable religion, attaches extraordinary importance to holy spells.[683] So Indian religions are not singular in this respect, though the uncompromising thoroughness with which they work out this like other ideas leads to startling results.

The wors.h.i.+p of female deities becomes prominent somewhat late in Indian literature and it does not represent--not to the same extent as the Chinese cult of Kwan-yin for example--the better ideals of the period when it appears. The G.o.ddesses of the R?ig Veda are insignificant: they are little more than names, and grammatically often the feminine forms of their consorts. But this Veda is evidently a special manual of prayer from which many departments of popular religion were excluded. In the Atharva Veda many spirits with feminine names are invoked and there is an inclination to personify bad qualities and disasters as G.o.ddesses. But we do not find any G.o.ddess who has attained a position comparable with that held by Durga, Cybele or Astarte, though there are some remarkable hymns[684] addressed to the Earth. But there is no doubt that the wors.h.i.+p of G.o.ddesses (especially G.o.ddesses of fertility) as great powers is both ancient and widespread. We find it among the Egyptians and Semites, in Asia Minor, in Greece, Italy, and among the Kelts. The G.o.ddess Anahit, who was wors.h.i.+pped with immoral rites in Bactria, is figured on the coins of the Kushans and must at one time have been known on the north-western borders of India. At the present day Sitala and in south India Mariamman are G.o.ddesses of smallpox who require propitiation, and one of the earliest deities known to have been wors.h.i.+pped by the Tamils is the G.o.ddess Kot?t?avai.[685] Somewhat obscure but widely wors.h.i.+pped are the powers known as the Mothers, a t.i.tle which also occurs in Keltic mythology. They are groups of G.o.ddesses varying in number and often malevolent. As many as a hundred and forty are said to be wors.h.i.+pped in Gujarat. The census of Bengal (1901) records the wors.h.i.+p of the earth, sun and rivers as females, of the snake G.o.ddesses Manasa and Jagat Gauri and of numerous female demons who send disease, such as the seven sisters, Ola Bibi, Jogini and the Churels, or spirits of women who have died in childbirth.

The rites celebrated in honour of these deities are often of a questionable character and include dances by naked women and offerings of spirituous liquors and blood. Similar features are found in other countries. Prost.i.tution formed part of the wors.h.i.+p of Astarte and Anahit: the Tauric Artemis was adored with human sacrifices and Cybele with self-inflicted mutilations. Similarly offerings of blood drawn from the sacrificer's own body are enjoined in the Kalika Puran?a. Two stages can be distinguished in the relations between these cults and Hinduism. In the later stage which can be witnessed even at the present day an aboriginal G.o.ddess or demon is identified with one of the aspects (generally a "black" or fierce aspect) of Siva's spouse.[686] But such identification is facilitated by the fact that G.o.ddesses like Kali, Bhairavi, Chinnamast?aka are not products of purely Hindu imagination but represent earlier stages of amalgamation in which Hindu and aboriginal ideas are already compounded. When the smallpox G.o.ddess is identified with Kali, the procedure is correct, for some popular forms of Kali are little more than an aboriginal deity of pestilence draped with Hindu imagery and philosophy.

Some Hindu scholars demur to this derivation of Saktism from lower cults. They point to its refined and philosophic aspects; they see in it the wors.h.i.+p of a G.o.ddess, who can be as merciful as the Madonna, but yet, since she is the G.o.ddess of nature, combines in one shape life and death. May not the grosser forms of Saktism be perversions and corruptions of an ancient and higher faith? In support of this it may be urged that the Buddhist G.o.ddess Tara is as a rule a beautiful and benevolent figure, though she can be terrible as the enemy of evil and has clear affinities to Durga. Yet the history of Indian thought does not support this view, but rather the view that Hinduism incorporated certain ancient ideas, true and striking as ancient ideas often are, but without purging them sufficiently to make them acceptable to the majority of educated Indians.

The Yajur Veda[687] a.s.sociates Rudra with a female deity called Ambika or mother, who is however his sister, not his spouse. The earliest forms of the latter seem to connect her with mountains. She is Uma Haimavati, the daughter of the Himalayas, and Parvati, she of the mountains, and was perhaps originally a sacred peak. In an interesting but brief pa.s.sage of the Kena Upanishad (III. 12 and IV. 1) Uma Haimavati explains to the G.o.ds that a being whom they do not know is Brahman. In later times we hear of a similar G.o.ddess in the Vindhyas, Maharani Vindhyesvari, who was connected with human sacrifices and Thugs.[688] Siva's consort, like her Lord, has many forms cla.s.sified as white or benignant and black or terrible. Uma belongs to the former cla.s.s but the latter (such as Kali, Durga, Camunda, Canda and Karala) are more important.[689] Female deities bearing names like these are wors.h.i.+pped in most parts of India, literally from the Himalaya to Cape Comorin, for the latter name is derived from k.u.mari, the Virgin G.o.ddess.[690] But the names Sakta and Saktism are usually restricted to those sects in Bengal and a.s.sam who wors.h.i.+p the Consort of Siva with the rites prescribed in the Tantras.

Saktism regards the G.o.ddess as the active manifestation of the G.o.dhead. As such she is styled Sakti, or energy (whence the name Sakta), and is also identified with Maya, the power which is a.s.sociated with Brahman and brings the phenomenal world into being.

Similar ideas appear in a philosophic form in the San?khya teaching.

Here the soul is masculine and pa.s.sive: its task is to extricate and isolate itself. But Prakr?iti or Nature is feminine and active: to her is due the evolution of the universe: she involves the soul in actions which cause pain but she also helps the work of liberation.[691] In its fully developed form the doctrine of the Tantras teaches that Sakti is not an emanation or aspect of the deity. There is no distinction between Brahman and Sakti. She is Parabrahman and _paratpara_, Supreme of the Supreme.

The birthplace of Saktism as a definite sect seems to have been north-eastern India[692] and though it is said to be extending in the United Provinces, its present sphere of influence is still chiefly Bengal and a.s.sam.[693] The population of these countries is not Aryan (though the Bengali language bears witness to the strong Aryan influence which has prevailed there) and is largely composed of immigrants from the north belonging to the Tibeto-Burman, Mon-Khmer and Shan families. These tribes remain distinct in a.s.sam but the Bengali represents the fusion of such invaders with a Munda or Dravidian race, leavened by a little Aryan blood in the higher castes.

In all this region we hear of no ancient Brahmanic settlements, no ancient centres of Vedic or even Puranic learning[694] and when Buddhism decayed no body of Brahmanic tradition such as existed in other parts of India imposed its authority on the writers of the Tantras. Even at the present day the wors.h.i.+p of female spirits, only half acknowledged by the Brahmans, prevails among these people, and in the past the national deities of many tribes were G.o.ddesses who were propitiated with human sacrifices. Thus the Chutiyas of Sadiya used to adore a G.o.ddess, called Kesai Khati--the eater of raw flesh. The rites of these deities were originally performed by tribal priests, but as Hindu influence spread, the Brahmans gradually took charge of them without modifying their character in essentials. Popular Bengali poetry represents these G.o.ddesses as desiring wors.h.i.+p and feeling that they are slighted: they persecute those who ignore them, but shower blessings on their wors.h.i.+ppers, even on the obdurate who are at last compelled to do them homage. The language of mythology could not describe more clearly the endeavours of a plebeian cult to obtain recognition.[695]

The Mahabharata contains hymns to Durga in which she is said to love offerings of flesh and wine,[696] but it is not likely that Saktism or Tantrism--that is a system with special scriptures and doctrines--was prevalent before the seventh century A.D. for the Tantras are not mentioned by the Chinese pilgrims and the lexicon _Amara Kosha_ (perhaps _c_. 500 A.D.) does not recognize the word as a designation of religious books. Ban?a (_c_. 630) gives more than once in his romances lists of sectaries but though he mentions Bhagavatas and Pasupatas, he does not speak of Saktas.[697] On the other hand Tantrism infected Buddhism soon after this period. The earlier Tibetan translations of the Tantras are attributed to the ninth century. MSS.

of the Kubjikamata and other Tantras are said to date from the ninth and even from the seventh century and tradition represents Sankaracarya as having contests with Saktas.[698] But many Tantras were written in the fifteenth century and even later, for the Yogini Tantra alludes to the Koch king Bishwa Singh (1515-1540) and the Meru Tantra mentions London and the English.

From the twelfth to the sixteenth century, when Buddhism, itself deeply infected with Tantrism, was disappearing, Saktism was probably the most powerful religion in Bengal, but Vishnuism was gaining strength and after the time of Caitanya proved a formidable rival to it. At the beginning of the fifteenth century we hear that the king of the Ahoms summoned Brahmans to his Court and adopted many Hindu rites and beliefs, and from this time onward Saktism was patronized by most of the a.s.samese Rajas although after 1550 Vishnuism became the religion of the ma.s.s of the people. Saktism never inspired any popular or missionary movement, but it was powerful among the aristocracy and instigated persecutions against the Vishnuites.

The more respectable Tantras[699] show considerable resemblance to the later Upanishads such as the Nr?isinhatapaniya and Ramata-paniya, which mention Sakti in the sense of creative energy.[700] Both cla.s.ses of works treat of magical formulae (mantras) and the construction of mystic diagrams or yantras. This resemblance does not give us much a.s.sistance in chronology, for the dates of the later Upanishads are very uncertain, but it shows how the Tantras are connected with other branches of Hindu thought.

The distinction between Tantras and Puran?as is not always well-marked. The Bhagavata Puran?a countenances tantric rites[701] and the Agni Puran?a (from chapter XXI onwards) bears a strong resemblance to a Tantra. As a rule the Tantras contain less historical and legendary matter than the Puran?as and more directions as to ritual.

But whereas the Puran?as approve of both Vedic rites and others, the Tantras insist that ceremonies other than those which they prescribe are now useless. They maintain that each age of the world has its own special revelation and that in this age the Tantra-sastra is the only scripture. Thus in the Mahanirvan?a Tantra Siva says:[702] "The fool who would follow other doctrines heedless of mine is as great a sinner as a parricide or the murderer of a Brahman or of a woman.... The Vedic rites and mantras which were efficacious in the first age have ceased to have power in this. They are now as powerless as snakes whose fangs have been drawn and are like dead things." The Kularn?ava Tantra (I. 79 ff.) inveighs against those who think they will obtain salvation by Vedic sacrifices or asceticism or reading sacred books, whereas it can be won only by tantric rites.

Various lists of Tantras are given and it is generally admitted that many have been lost. The most complete, but somewhat theoretical enumeration[703] divides India and the adjoining lands into three regions to each of which sixty-four Tantras are a.s.signed. The best known names are perhaps Mahanirvan?a,[704] Saradatilaka,[705] Yogini, Kularn?ava[706] and Rudra-Yamala. A Tantra is generally cast in the form of a dialogue in which Siva instructs his consort but sometimes _vice versa_. It is said that the former cla.s.s are correctly described as agamas and the works where the Sakti addresses Siva as Nigamas.[707] Some are also called Yamalas and Damaras but I have found no definition of the meaning of these words. The Prapancasara Tantra[708] professes to be a revelation from Narayan?a.

Saktism and the Tantras which teach it are generally condemned by Hindus of other sects.[709] It is arguable that this condemnation is unjust, for like other forms of Hinduism the Tantras make the liberation of the soul their object and prescribe a life of religious observances including asceticism and meditation, after which the adept becomes released even in this life. But however much new tantric literature may be made accessible in future, I doubt if impartial criticism will come to any opinion except that Saktism and Tantrism collect and emphasize what is superficial, trivial and even bad in Indian religion, omitting or neglecting its higher sides. If for instance the Mahanirvan?a Tantra which is a good specimen of these works be compared with San?kara's commentary on the Vedanta Sutras, or the poems of Tulsi Das, it will be seen that it is woefully deficient in the excellences of either. But many tantric treatises are chiefly concerned with charms, spells, amulets and other magical methods of obtaining wealth, causing or averting disease and destroying enemies, processes which even if efficacious have nothing to do with the better side of religion.[710]

The religious life prescribed in the Tantras[711] commences with initiation and requires the supervision of the Guru. The object of it is _Siddhi_ or success, the highest form of which is spiritual perfection. _Siddhi_ is produced by _Sadhana_, or that method of training the physical and psychic faculties which realizes their potentialities. Tantric training a.s.sumes a certain const.i.tution of the universe and the repet.i.tion in miniature of this const.i.tution in the human body which contains various nervous centres and subtle channels for the pa.s.sage of energy unknown to vulgar anatomy. Thus the Sakti who pervades the universe is also present in the body as Kun?d?alini, a serpentine coil of energy, and it is part of Sadhana to arouse this energy and make it mount from the lower to the higher centres.

Kun?d?alini is also present in sounds and in letters. Hence if different parts of the body are touched to the accompaniment of appropriate mantras (which rite is called nyasa) the various Saktis are made to dwell in the human frame in suitable positions.

The Tantras recognize that human beings are not equal and that codes and rituals must vary according to temperament and capacity. Three conditions of men, called the animal, heroic and divine,[712] are often mentioned and are said to characterize three periods of life--youth, manhood and age, or three cla.s.ses of mankind, non-tantrists, ordinary tantrists, and adepts. These three conditions clearly correspond to the three Gun?as. Also men, or rather Hindus, belong to one of seven groups, or stages, according to the religious practices which it is best for them to follow. Saktists apparently demur[713] to the statement commonly made by Indians as well as by Europeans that they are divided into two sects the Daks.h.i.+n?acarins, or right-hand wors.h.i.+ppers, whose ritual is public and decent, and the Vamacarins who meet to engage in secret but admittedly immoral orgies.

But for practical purposes the division is just, although it must not be supposed that Daks.h.i.+n?acarins necessarily condemn the secret wors.h.i.+p. They may consider it as good for others but not for themselves. Saktists apparently would prefer to state the matter thus.

There are seven stages of religion. First come Vedic, Vishnuite and Sivaite wors.h.i.+p, all three inferior, and then Daks.h.i.+n?acara, interpreted as meaning favourable wors.h.i.+p, that is favourable to the accomplishment of higher purposes, because the wors.h.i.+pper now begins to understand the nature of Devi, the great G.o.ddess. These four kinds of wors.h.i.+p are all said to belong to _pravritti_ or active life. The other three, considered to be higher, require a special initiation and belong to _nivritti_, the path of return in which pa.s.sion and activity are suppressed.[714] And here is propounded the doctrine that pa.s.sion can be destroyed and exhausted by pa.s.sion,[715] that is to say that the impulses of eating, drinking and s.e.xual intercourse are best subjugated by indulging them. The fifth stage, in which this method is first adopted, is called Vamacara.[716] In the sixth, or Siddhantacara,[717] the adept becomes more and more free from pa.s.sion and prejudice and is finally able to enter Kaulacara, the highest stage of all. A Kaula is one who has pa.s.sed beyond all sects and belongs to none, since he has the knowledge of Brahman. "Possessing merely the form of man, he moves about this earth for the salvation of the world and the instruction of men."[718]

These are aspirations common to all Indian religion. The peculiarity of the Tantras is to suppose that a ritual which is shocking to most Hindus is an indispensable preliminary to their attainment.[719] Its essential feature is known as _pancatattva_, the five elements, or _pancamakara_ the five m's, because they all begin with that letter, namely, _madya_, _mam?sa_, _matsya_, _mudra_, and _maithuna_, wine, meat, fish, parched grain and copulation. The celebration of this ritual takes place at midnight, and is called _cakra_ or circle. The proceedings begin by the devotees seating themselves in a circle and are said to terminate in an indiscriminate orgy. It is only fair to say that some Tantras inveigh against drunkenness and authorize only moderate drinking.[720] In all cases it is essential that the wine, flesh, etc., should be formally dedicated to the G.o.ddess: without this preliminary indulgence in these pleasures is sinful. Indeed it may be said that apart from the ceremonial which they inculcate, the general principles of the Tantras breathe a liberal and intelligent spirit.

Caste restrictions are minimized: travelling is permitted. Women are honoured: they can act as teachers: the burning of widows is forbidden:[721] girl widows may remarry[722] and the murder of a woman is peculiarly heinous. Prost.i.tution is denounced. Whereas Christianity is sometimes accused of restricting its higher code to Church and Sundays, the opposite may be said of Tantrism. Outside the temple its morality is excellent.

A work like the Mahanirvan?a Tantra presents a refined form of Saktism modified, so far as may be, in conformity with ordinary Hindu usage.[723] But other features indubitably connect it with aboriginal cults. For instance there is a legend which relates how the body of the Sakti was cut into pieces and scattered over a.s.sam and Bengal.

This story has an uncouth and barbarous air and seems out of place even in Puranic mythology. It recalls the tales told of Osiris, Orpheus and Halfdan the Black[724] and may be ultimately traceable to the idea that the dismemberment of a deity or a human representative ensures fertility. Until recently the Khonds of Bengal used to hack human victims in pieces as a sacrifice to the Earth G.o.ddess and throw the shreds of flesh on the fields to secure a good harvest.[725] In Sanskrit literature I have not found any authority for the dismemberment of Sati earlier than the Tantras or Upapuran?as (_e.g._ Kalika), but this late appearance does not mean that the legend is late in itself but merely that it was not countenanced by Sanskrit writers until medieval times. Various reasons for the dismemberment are given and the incident is rather awkwardly tacked on to other stories. One common version relates that when Sati (one of the many forms of Sakti) died of vexation because her husband Siva was insulted by her father Daksha, Siva took up her corpse and wandered distractedly carrying it on his shoulder.[726] In order to stop this penance Vishn?u followed him and cut off pieces from the corpse with his quoit until the whole had fallen to earth in fifty-one pieces. The spots where these pieces touched the ground are held sacred and called piths. At most of them are shown a rock supposed to represent some portion of the G.o.ddess's body and some object called a bhairabi, left by Siva as a guardian to protect her and often taking the form of a lingam. The most important of these piths are Kamakhya near Gauhati, Faljur in the Jaintia Parganas, and Kalighat in Calcutta.[727]

Though the Sakti of Siva is theoretically one, yet since she a.s.sumes many forms she becomes in practice many deities or rather she is many deities combined in one or sometimes a sovereign attended by a retinue of similar female spirits. Among such forms we find the ten Mahavidyas, or personifications of her supernatural knowledge; the Mahamatris, Matrikas or the Great Mothers, allied to the aboriginal G.o.ddesses already mentioned; the Nayakas or mistresses; the Yoginis or sorceresses, and fiends called D?akinis. But the most popular of her manifestations are Durga and Kali. The sects which revere these G.o.ddesses are the most important religious bodies in Bengal, where they number thirty-five million adherents. The Durgapuja is the greatest festival of the year in north-eastern India[728] and in the temple of Kalighat at Calcutta may be seen the singular spectacle of educated Hindus decapitating goats before the image of Kali. It is a black female figure with gaping mouth and protruded tongue dancing on a prostrate body,[729] and adorned with skulls and horrid emblems of destruction. Of her four hands two carry a sword and a severed head but the other two are extended to give blessing and protection to her wors.h.i.+ppers. So great is the crowd of enthusiastic suppliants that it is often hard to approach the shrine and the nationalist party in Bengal who clamour for parliamentary inst.i.tutions are among the G.o.ddess's devotees.

It is easy to criticize and condemn this wors.h.i.+p. Its outward signs are repulsive to Europeans and its inner meaning strange, for even those who pray to the Madonna are startled by the idea that the divine nature is essentially feminine.[730] Yet this idea has deep roots in the heart of Bengal and with it another idea: the terrors of death, plague and storm are half but only half revelations of the G.o.ddess-mother who can be smiling and tender as well. Whatever may be the origin of Kali and of the strange images which represent her, she is now no she-devil who needs to be propitiated, but a reminder that birth and death are twins, that the horrors of the world come from the same source as its grace and beauty and that cheerful acceptance of the deity's terrible manifestations is an essential part of the higher spiritual life.[731] These ideas are best expressed in the songs of Rama Prasada Sen (1718-1775) which "still reign supreme in the villages" of Bengal and show that this strange wors.h.i.+p has really a hold on millions of Indian rustics.[732] The directness and childlike simplicity of his poems have caused an Indian critic to compare him to Blake. "Though the mother beat the child," he sings, "the child cries mother, mother, and clings still tighter to her garment. True, I cannot see thee, yet I am not a lost child. I still cry mother, mother."

"All the miseries that I have suffered and am suffering, I know, O mother, to be your mercy alone."

I must confess that I cannot fully sympathize with this wors.h.i.+p, even when it is sung in the hymns of Rama Prasada, but it is clear that he makes it tolerable just because he throws aside all the magic and ritual of the Tantras and deals straight with what are for him elemental and emotional facts. He makes even sceptics feel that he has really seen G.o.d in this strange guise.

The chief sanctuary of Saktism is at Kamakhya (or Kamaksha) on a hill which stands on the banks of the Brahmaputra, about two miles below Gauhati. It is mentioned in the Padma Puran?a. The temples have been rebuilt several times, and in the eighteenth century were munificently endowed by an Ahom king, and placed under the management of a Brahman from Nadia in Bengal, with reversion to his descendants who bear the t.i.tle of Parbatiya Gosains. Considerable estates are still a.s.signed to their upkeep. There are ten[733] shrines on the hill dedicated to various forms of the Sakti. The situation is magnificent, commanding an extensive prospect over the Brahmaputra and the plains on either bank, but none of the buildings are of much architectural merit. The largest and best is the temple dedicated to Kamakhya herself, the G.o.ddess of s.e.xual desire. It is of the style usual in northern India, an unlighted shrine surmounted by a dome, and approached by a rather ample vestibule, which is also imperfectly lighted. An inscription has been preserved recording the restoration of the temple about 1550 but only the present bas.e.m.e.nt dates from that time, most of the super-structure being recent. Europeans may not enter but an image of the G.o.ddess can be seen from a side door. In the depths of the shrine is said to be a cleft in the rock, adored as the Yoni of Sakti. In front of the temple are two posts to which a goat is tied, and decapitated daily at noon. Below the princ.i.p.al shrine is the temple of Bhairavi. Human sacrifices were offered here in comparatively recent times, and it is not denied that they would be offered now if the law allowed. Also it is not denied that the rites of the "five m's"

already mentioned are frequently performed in these temples, and that Aghoris may be found in them. The spot attracts a considerable number of pilgrims from Bengal, and a wealthy devotee has built a villa on the hill and pays visits to it for the purpose of taking part in the rites. I was informed that the most esteemed scriptures of the sect are the Yogini Tantra, the Mahanirvan?a Tantra, and the Kalika Puran?a. This last work contains a section or chapter on blood,[734]

which gives rules for the performance of human sacrifices. It states however that they should not be performed by the first three castes, which is perhaps a way of saying that though they may be performed by non-Aryans under Brahmanic auspices they form no part of the Aryan religion. But they are recommended to princes and ministers and should not be performed without the consent of princes. The ritual bears little resemblance to the Vedic sacrifices and the essence of the ceremony is the presentation to the G.o.ddess of the victim's severed head in a vessel of gold, silver, copper, bra.s.s or wood but not of iron. The axe with which the decapitation is to be performed is solemnly consecrated to Kali and the victim is wors.h.i.+pped before immolation. The sacrificer first thinks of Brahma and the other G.o.ds as being present in the victim's body, and then prays to him directly as being all the G.o.ds in one. "When this has been done" says Siva, who is represented as himself revealing these rules, "the victim is even as myself." This identification of the human victim with the G.o.d has many a.n.a.logies elsewhere, particularly among the Khonds.[735]

It is remarkable that this barbarous and immoral wors.h.i.+p, though looked at askance except in its own holy places, is by no means confined to the lower castes. A series of apologies composed in excellent English (but sometimes anonymous) attest the sympathy of the educated. So far as theology and metaphysics are concerned, these defences are plausible. The Sakti is identified with Prakr?iti or with the Maya of the Advaita philosophy and defined as the energy, coexistent with Brahman, which creates the world. But attempts to palliate the ceremonial, such as the argument that it is a consecration and limitation of the appet.i.tes because they may be gratified only in the service of the G.o.ddess, are not convincing. Nor do the Saktas, when able to profess their faith openly, deny the nature of their rites or the importance attached to them. An oft-quoted tantric verse represents Siva as saying _Maithunena mahayogi mama tulyo na sam?sayah?_. And for practical purposes that is the gist of Saktist teaching.

The temples of Kamakhya leave a disagreeable impression--an impression of dark evil haunts of l.u.s.t and bloodshed, akin to madness and unrelieved by any grace or vigour of art. For there is no attempt in them to represent the terrible or voluptuous aspects of Hinduism, such as find expression in sculpture elsewhere. All the buildings, and especially the modern temple of Kali, which was in process of construction when I saw the place, testify to the atrophy and paralysis produced by erotic forms of religion in the artistic and intellectual spheres, a phenomenon which finds another sad ill.u.s.tration in quite different theological surroundings among the Vallabhacarya sect at Gokul near Muttra.

It would be a poor service to India to palliate the evils and extravagances of Saktism, but still it must be made clear that it is not a mere survival of barbaric practices. The writers of the Tantras are good Hindus and declare that their object is to teach liberation and union with the Supreme Spirit. The ecstasies induced by tantric rites produce this here in a preliminary form to be made perfect in the liberated soul. This is not the craze of a few hysterical devotees, but the faith of millions among whom many are well educated.

In some aspects Saktism is similar to the erotic Vishnuite sects, but there is little real a.n.a.logy in their ways of thinking. For the essence of Vishnuism is pa.s.sionate devotion and self-surrender to a deity and this idea is not prominent in the Tantras. The strange inconsistencies of Saktism are of the kind which are characteristic of Hinduism as a whole, but the contrasts are more violent and the monstrosities more conspicuous than elsewhere; wild legends and metaphysics are mixed together, and the peace that pa.s.ses all understanding is to be obtained by orgies and offerings of blood.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 680: See also chap. XXIV. as to Saktism and Tantrism in Buddhism. Copious materials for the study of Saktism and Tantrism are being made available in the series of tantric texts edited in Sanskrit and Tibetan, and in some cases translated by the author who uses the pseudonym A. Avalon.]

[Footnote 681: See _Annales du Musee Guimet_, Tome VIII.

Si-Do-In-Dzon. Gestes de l'officiant dans les ceremonies mystiques des sectes Tendai et Singon, 1899.]

[Footnote 682: See Underhill, _Mysticism_, chaps. VI. and VII.]

[Footnote 683: See Dhalla, _Zoroastrian Theology_, p. 116.]

[Footnote 684: Specially Ath. Veda, XII. 1.]

[Footnote 685: Village deities in south India at the present day are usually female. See Whitehead, _Village G.o.ds_, p. 21.]

[Footnote 686: Thus Candi is considered as identical with the wood G.o.ddess Basuli, wors.h.i.+pped in the jungles of Bengal and Orissa. See _J.A._ 1873, p. 187.]

[Footnote 687: Vaj. Sanh. 3. 57 and Taittir. Br. I. 6. 10. 4.]

[Footnote 688: Crooke, _Popular Religion of Northern India_, I. 63.

Monier Williams, _Brahm. and Hinduism_, p. 57 gives an interesting account of the shrine of Kali at Vindhyacal said to have been formerly frequented by Thugs.]

[Footnote 689: This idea that deities have different aspects in which they practically become different persons is very prevalent in Tibetan mythology which is borrowed from medieval Bengal.]

[Footnote 690: Though there are great temples erected to G.o.ddesses in S. India, there are also some signs of hostility to Saktism. See the curious legends about an attendant of Siva called Bhrin?gi who would not wors.h.i.+p Parvati. Hultzsch, _South Indian Inscriptions_, II. ii. p.

190.]

[Footnote 691: There is a curious tendency in India to regard the male principle as quiescent, the female as active and stimulating. The Chinese, who are equally fond of using these two principles in their cosmological speculations, adopt the opposite view. The _Yang_ (male) is positive and active. The _Yin_ (female) is negative and pa.s.sive.]

[Footnote 692: The Mahanirvan?a Tantra seems to have been composed in Bengal since it recommends for sacrificial purposes (VI. 7) three kinds of fish said to be characteristic of that region. On the other hand Buddhist works called Tantras are said to have been composed in north-western India. Udyana had an old reputation for magic and even in modern times Saktism exists in western Tibet and Leh. It is highly probable that in all these districts the practice of magic and the wors.h.i.+p of mountain G.o.ddesses were prevalent, but I find little evidence that a definite Sakta sect arose elsewhere than in Bengal and a.s.sam or that the Saktist corruption of Buddhism prevailed elsewhere than in Magadha and Bengal.]