The Historical Beginning of Tantra
The Vedic religion was slowly transformed in India, culminating in the writing of the Upanisads, in which there is a clear concept of Brahma. The oldest Upanisads are certainly pre-Buddhist and may be more than 3,000 years old. The later Upanisads include Shaiva texts and bear little resemblance to the early Vedic scriptures. The Atharva Veda (around 1000 BC), which was a marginal text having an ambiguous status (that is, not all Vedic orthodoxy accepted it initially) is tantric from beginning to end. It gives us a glimpse of tantric magic (avidya) with the description of mantras for doing such things as empowering a plant or killing one's neighbor out of self-preservation!!! Mystical speculation begins with reflections upon the Vedic ritual of sacrifice, and the drawing of correspondences between elements of the sacrifice and the cosmos. So different parts of a horse, for example, would correspond with different celestial bodies. There is very little evidence of the early Tantrikas and we can only refer to what Sarkar says on the subject. It would appear that there were multiple religious currents in India prior to the common era. For example, the use of vermillion and coconuts in Hindu puja is in no way connected to the Vedic religion and was an indigenous Dravidian practice that survived the Aryan migration. In any event, southern India was aryanized, not by Aryans but by indianized Aryans, so the Aryan culture has already ben transformed by the time it reached southern India. The emergence of the Pashupata cult (at least 2 AD) is important for the development of Tantra as it is a Shaeva cult, having very little Vedic influence upon it. The Pashupata cult, along with Buddhism and Patanjali, are the earliest evidence of non-Vedic yoga.
Preclassical Yoga
Yoga played a more prominent role in the Upanishads (literally "seeking truth at the foot of the guru"), and is referred to as a disciplines path taken to achieve liberation from suffering. (The idea of dividing the path into karma yoga, jñaana yoga, etc., begins only in the Bhagavadgiita) In the Upanisads gurus taught that ego (and not animals or crops as in the Vedas) should be sacrificed in order to attain liberation. Instead of performing animal sacrifices like the Aryans, it was taught that one should burn one's impurities in the fire of sadhana One of the earliest Upanishads to teach specific yoga meditation practices was the Maitrayaniya Upanishad from the second or third century BCE. It focused on breath control and Om repetition. It presented a 6-fold path including pranayama, pratyahara, dhyana, dharana, tarka (contemplation) and samadhi. Elements of this path would surface in the 2nd century CE in Patanjali's yoga sutra.
Patanjali
Patanjali inherited systems of non-Vedic practice (there is no suggestion of the Vedic religion in Patanjali). His yoga sutras are a testament to theory and not practice. They are a formulation of a philosophy of mind. He did not form a classical system of yoga practice. Patanjali only comments on four sitting postures, and the sole purpose of those asanas is to provide steadiness to the body, so that then mind is not disturbed by imbalances. By folding together the limbs, a yogi achieves a change of mood, becoming inwardly quiet The Yoga Sutra is considered the first systematic presentation of yoga, although no one knows who Pantanjali was. The Yoga Sutras are the quintessence of Raja Yoga and have no connection to the body cultures of modern Hatha Yoga. Baba refutes Patanjali's definition of yoga. Patanjali gives us the earliest record of yama and niyama (the Buddhists may have already done that, however, as Patanjali was influenced by early Buddhism). The Pashupata cult is far more important historically (for Ananda Marga) than Patanjali. The Pashupata cult (which propounds six limbs) is the basis of yoga systems of Shaeva and Buddhist Tantra. Ananda Marga draws upon the Shaeva tradition.
Buddhism
Buddhism can be described as a "religion of protest." (although it is much more than that) Buddhist practitioners were not in favor of vedic ritual, especially the animal sacrificial cult. Moreover, the Buddhists were philosophically against soul, God and creation. The Buddhist period in India began with the rule of Emperor Ashoka, who was the third emperor of the Mauryan dynasty around 5 - 3 BCE. He became disgusted with the horrors of war, and converted to Buddhism, spreading Buddhist values of non-violence and charity throughout his kingdom. People moved a lot in India in those days, and Buddhism spread along the trade routes. It became the dominant political religion along with Jainism and the Vedic religion. At Sarnath, the Emperor Ashoka erected a pillar. The four lions at its crown represent the "lions roar of the dharma" in the four cardinal directions. This symbol has been adopted by India as its national coat of arms, and is reproduced at the center of the Indian flag. Sarkar states that in the Gupta Period in India (3 - 5 CE) there were many elevated Buddhist yogis in society, but they could not influence society to the level of the common person. The Gupta Period was the height of early Indian spirituality.
Tantra's Golden Age
The term tantra means simply a system of ritual or essential instruction; but when it is applied in this special context (Shaevism) it serves to differentiate itself from the authority of the Vedas. The followers of tantra should not be seen as rebels who rejected a ritualized social order for a liberated cult of ecstacy. A person who underwent a tantric initiation was less an anti-ritualist than a super-ritualist. Tantra came to pervade almost all areas of Indian religion. Tantra continued to be the tradition of a minority; but what was called Vedic was essentially Tantric in its range of deities and liturgical forms. It differed from the Tantric in its mantras, using the Vedic mantras drawn from the Rgveda and Yajurveda, rather than the hetrerodox mantras of the Tantras. Properly Tantric worship was more or less exclusive, being emphatically centered on a certain deity. Vedic worship was inclusive, however, primarily taking the form of the worship of the five shrines in which offerings are made to the five principal deities: Siva, Visnu, Surya, Ganapati and the Goddess (Devi). By 800 CE a large body of tantric scripture had developed within the Shaiva, Buddhist and Vaesnava traditions (although there were fewer Vaesnava texts). Shaeva tantra was divided between two great branches: Atimarga (for mukti) and Mantramarga (primarily for siddhi)
The Atimarga Branch of Tantra
The principal cult was the Pashupata cult that developed around 2 AD. It was a path that allowed the renunciate to achieve liberation. The goal was the assimilation of Rudra's qualities of omniscience, omnipotence, etc. This liberation was achieved through 4 stages of discipline:
- Living in a Shiva temple.
- Moving about in public pretending to be crippled, deranged or indecent. The Pashupata provoked an exchange in which his demerits passed to his detractors and their merits to him. This is a purification through karma exchange.
- Live in a cave to practice constant meditation using the 5 mantras (later personified as the 5 faces of Shiva).
- When he perfected stage 3, that is when he had achieved an uninterrupted awareness of Rudra without the need for mantra, he moved to a cremation ground and awaited death.
This is also called the cult of Sadashiva. The temple cult, that of royal patronage, in the Sadashiva Cult is the mainstream Shaivism which had more influence on public Hinduism. The mainstream Shaiva cult of Sadashiva became central to the public temple cult. The acaryas of the Sadashiva cult would often be temple priests, as they are today in South India.
The Mantramarga Branch of Tantra
This path is primarily concerned with the quest for supernatural experience (although it does promote salvation, too). It includes siddhi as well as supernatural experience and power, such as rebirth as an Indra in heaven, or the idea of attracting gandharva maidens to come under one's control. Generally these can be described as avidya practices. It is distinguished by its association with the feminine power (Shakti). Evidence of the Atimarga is sparse, yet the Mantramarga can be studied in an enormous body of Sanskrit texts. One of the reasons why Baerava tantras are so large in number, is that the practices for siddhi were far more complex, and could be inflected in infinite varieties. They provided more scope for innovation. The focus on siddhi is probably misleading, however, as more people trod the moksa path. Bhaerava tantras come within the Mantramarga Bhaerava Tantra.
Mantramarga Bhaerava Tantra
This tantra is focused on extreme kapalik practices, and radical ritual involving evoking goddesses (yoginiis), which could also be called intermediate microvita, both positive and negative. These practices are very radical, involving all kinds of impure products, such as the by products of human sexuality. One uses these body fluids to make the deities (negative microvita) present and then using mantras to bring them under one's control.
Baba talks about seven categories of microvita, which could be synonymous with yoginiis, women who would fly down from the sky. They appear at a place where there is an element of danger, a place where the mundane and supernatural worlds meet. This could be a crossroads, a deserted temple, cremation ground, the sea shore.
The Bhaerava cult has a dominant influence on the evolution of Tantra sadhana. The Shakta cult, the cult of goddesses which emerges from Bhaerava cult, becomes the cutting edge in terms of the development of tantric sadhana, both internal and external ritual. There was widespread knowledge throughout India that people, both Shaeva and Buddhist, were doing strange things in the cemeteries. This tradition was pan-Indian. The early practices were most likely initiated in north and east India and then spread to the Deccan plateau, and further south. This is shown by the content of a play in the earth 8th century called Malatiimadhava. The fifth act opens with Madhav, the play's respectable hero, walking out to the cremation ground at midnight to sell human flesh to goblins.
Tantra is a cultural fixture by this time. One of the distinctive characteristics of the Mantra Marga, the tantric cult of both the Shaivas and the Buddhists, is that it can give one both bhukti and mukti. It is the path to both siddhi and liberation. This is something that tantikas emphasize themselves more than everything. Other traditions claim to be able to grant someone Moksa. Mahayana Buddhism does grant one the possibility to achieve Moksa, but over eons. One has to be reborn as a Boddhisattva, and perform terrible forms of penance, such as tearing out one's eyes to heal a blind person, and ripping off one's arm to feed a tiger. It is a terrible path that can take millions of lives. Tantra gives liberation in one lifetime. One could think of Bhaerava gurus as both spiritualists and used car salesman! They are trying to sell their practices, to attract others to their paths. There were all kinds of self-professed gurus and they are constantly innovating, with new practices and new goddesses developing. It was a very fertile period for tantric practices, innovating more quickly than at any other time in the history of mantra, visualization, etc. There were plenty of male deities too, but in the Bhairava cult, more and more goddesses develop. There is an association in the tradition between shakti, goddesses, and siddhi. The practitioners were large in number, but it was still a minority of Shaivas and Buddhists who engaged in Tantric practices. In the period on which the Buddhist tantrik scriptures became accepted in the major monastic centers on India, probably most monks were initiated into the tantric practice.
Buddhist Tantra
Alongside the cult of Sadashiva, Buddhist tantras were developing. They are primarily centered on the deity of Mahavairocana), who can be seen as type of Buddhist Sadashiva. As the Bhaerava cult develops in the Shaiva tradition, one gets Buddhist deities that reflect that development, too. So Buddhist deities such as Heruka, Cakrasamvara, Vajrayoginii take on the iconography of Bhaerava and goddesses become more important. In the phase of Yoginii Tantra, which is goddess-oriented Bhaerava tantra the on the Shaiva side, one gets the emergence of Buddhist yogini tantra. They do the same sort of practices for siddhi that focus on the extreme deities that exercise their authority over microvita. They have the same extreme practices such as bearing weapons, using severed heads, drinking blood and wine, having intercourse, and so on.
Tibetan Buddhism is based on the Yoginii Tantra of Indian Tantric Buddhism, which is closely derived from Shaiva yoginii tantra. They were in very close relationship in that period, with Tibetan Buddhism rewriting passages from Shaiva Tantra. Sarkar says that when writing became more popular there was more scriptural copying a closer relationship amongst the various tantric groups, the Jain, Buddhist and Shaiva tantras. During the Yoginii cult, the cult of 64 yoginiis, a common tantric culture develops, that has both Shaeva and Buddhist varieties. The practices are the same, but the religious organization is different. The Siddha Cult emerges out of the shared Shaiva-Buddhist yoginii cult, and the Natha cult emerges out of that. On the Buddhist side the orientation towards liberation is a little stronger. Texts were first written by Buddhist practitioners who were less educated (forest practitioners) yoginii tantrikas. They were well versed in practice, but not in philosophy. When they became accepted as scripture in the major Buddhist monastic centers, the intellectual centers, they undergo sophisticated interpretation. Based on those scriptures they write practice manuals. The reflection on these scriptures is primarily moksa-oriented. On the Buddhist side there was a sophisticated interpretation of the tantric tradition and a very spiritual form of meditation derived from the yogini cult.
Kashmir School of Tantra
The flowering of authored texts in the Shaiva tradition blossomed in Kashmir from 9 - 11 CE. Baba talks about the Bengali School of Tantra that was more oriented towards practice, and the Kashmir School of tantra that was more oriented towards philosophy and was more influenced by the Vedas. The Kashmiri Shaeva's were more learned, more elite, and is the school of Shaeva philosophy that is closest to Ananda Marga ideology.The idea of the universe as the manifestation of Shiva. The whole philosophy of the cosmos developed by the Kashmir Shaivas is much closer to Baba's outlook than any other Indian school of philosophy. In NKS there is no mention of Kashmiri Tantra, but many of the criticisms that Baba makes against other schools of philosophy are the save of criticisms that the Kashmir Shaivas would make. For example, the Advaita Vedanta (of Shankaracarya) philosophical system based on absolute idealism, the absolute reality of Brahma and the world being a creation of our own limited consciousness. The Kashmiri School rejects this position, saying that everything that exists is derived from consciousness. In that period Kashmir was prosperous, and had a real tradition of learning. Most likely the main religion of the people was Shaivism and had the patronage of the king.
The Kaula Reformation of the Yogini Cult
Before the Kashmiri Shaiva tradition there was the kaula reform. Because of kaulism, the nature of the practice of the yogini cult changed, allowing it to flow in the wider community of married householders. It was a period of innovation in which the Baerava cult was transformed more towards yoga, the direction of seeking bliss, and away from seeking siddhi (that is, there was more internalization). In the case of sexual yoga, in the early Bhaerava Tantra, the focus was on the sexual fluids themselves, whereas in the Kaula phase the focus seems to be more upon the sublimation of the sexual experience towards the realization of the divine consciousness. The rites of the yogini cult were called "kaulika" or "kaula." They are adjectives derived from the noun "kula" in its reference to the families or lineages of the Yoginis and Mothers. Kaulism developed from within the Yogini cults. Kula also meant the cosmic body, the powers of the eight families of the Mothers.One was believed to enter the totality (kula) through that segment of its power with which one had a special affinity, determined as before by the casting of a flower during possession (Sanderson, p 679). It is within the Kaula phase that the Siddha tradition arises (in both Buddhist and Shaiva tantra). Siddha means "perfection." Siddhas were also divine beings (Baba has incorporated this into microvita), beings beyond the scope of human understanding. The religious ideal is to become a siddha for the tantric practitioner, that is a perfect practitioner and a supernatural being.
The kaula reform is also associated with the guru Matsyendranath, the founder of the Natha cult. The early history of the Natha cult is unclear, but does seem to come out of the Kaula Siddha cult, and very possibly having a strong influence of tantric Buddhism Baba talks about the natha cult as being a fusion of Buddhist tantra and Shaiva tantra. Baba says that as Buddhist tantra began to die in India it merged with Shaiva tantra to form the Natha cult. The Natha cult moved further away from the Baerava tantras and the sexual rituals and use of substances. It moved the focus back to meditation. And at the same time developed elaborate systems of hatha yoga.
Hatha yoga was not as important in the early stages of the Natha cult. In the early scriptures that talk about the natha cult, the Kaula tantras are dedicated to the goddess Kubjika, the hunchback goddess. It is in the Kubjikarvatatantra that we find an early mention of the Nathas, and the first mention of the system of seven cakras with those names. It is one of two systems of cakras mentioned in that text. The other system is the cakras of Yoginiis and Mother Goddesses, etc., with different numbers of petals. (This tantra also pays reverence to the Natha gurus.)
This is a transitional text from the Siddha Cult to the Natha Cult. Yogis may have practiced yoga for physical health before the Natha cult, but was not important enough to mention. However, asana was more of a tool for meditation. In Medieval India the term yogi was practically synonymous with Natha cult. Gorakhanath was most likely historical, living around 12 CE. Matsyendrath seems to be more of a mysterious figure. He is mentioned in 10 CE sources as a Kaula guru, and is claimed to be the teacher of Gorakhanath. In an India college book it is mentioned that yogis can live a long time, so maybe Matsyendranath did live for a few hundred years!! The literature of the Natha cult spread from Maharashtra to Bengal.
Baba says that the Gorakhvanii is the earliest Bhojpuri literature (Nepal to Bihar). The Natha cult was important in Nepal, Bengal, Maharashtra, UP. The fire and temple rituals of early Shaiva tantra became obsolete in the Natha cult. From the 12 CE on tantric Buddhism was little practiced in India, except perhaps in the eastern parts of Bengal. The Tibetan lamas stopped looking to India for the source of gurus after the 14 CE due to the decline of Indian Buddhism.
The Shakta tradition and the Natha cult take different directions. The Shakta cults takes different forms. In Bengal we have the development of the tantras of Kali, and it is within this later traditions in Bengal that we have the development of texts such as the Satcakra Nirupama, which became the classical account of the cakras. The texts published by Woodroffe are late Bengali Kali (Shakti) tantras. This has been preserved in Bengal to the present. The Natha cult lost its importance in Bengal. What did become important was Moslem Tantra (Sufism, perhaps people converted from the Natha cult) and the Vaesnava Tantra perhaps people converted from tantric Buddhism). Orthodox Vaeśńava religion in Bengal was concerned with Kiirtana; the Tatrik Vaeśńavas practiced sádhaná, including sexual sádhaná In the Rajasthan one finds countless mandalas, suggesting strong influence of tantra in the Jain faith. What I meant was that even today you can mind countless examples of Tantric painting etc. in Rajastan, much of which was probably from Jaina Tantra.
Hatha Yoga
It first appeared in the 9th or 10th century. Despite its rather detailed philosophical underpinnings, it was little more than a small and radical sect during the post-classical period. In fact, among some Hindus of the period Hatha yoga had a reputation of being heretical in its focus on the physical and magical powers. Hatha yoga's principles arose from Tantra, and incorporated elements of Buddhism, alchemy and Shaivism. Like tantrikas, hatha yogis believed that creating polarities caused suffering and brought delusion and pain. Ha means sun and tha means moon and denotes the union of opposites. Hatha also implies that tremendous force is needed to bring together body and mind. Hatha yogis strove to transform the physical body into a subtle divine body, and thereby attain enlightenment.
The Siddha Movement
The Siddha cult flourished between the 8th and 12th centuries. Siddha means accomplished or perfected and refers to the Tantris adept who has attained enlightenment as the ultimate perfection. The Suddha is a spiritual alchemist who works on and transmutes impure matter, the human body-mind, into pure gold, the immortal spiritual essence. The most important schools of the Siddha movement were those of the Nathas (primarily Bengal) and Maheshvaras (the South, especially Tamil Nadu). It seems the foremost adept was Matsyendanath, the famous teacher of the still more famous Gorakshanath. Bhogar, a 17th century adept wrote:
Time was when I despised the body: But then I saw God within. The body, I realized, is the Lord's temple; And so I began preserving it with care infinite.Hindu tradition associates the creation of Hatha-Yoga with Goraksanath and Matsyendranath, both of whom were from Bengal (Natha means lord or master and refers to the yogi who enjoys liberation and paranormal powers. Nathism is recognized as one of the strands of modern Tantra). Some say Matsyendra was from a fisherman's caste. Other tell a story in which he was swallowed by a giant fish. The fish was attracted to bottom of the ocean where Shiva was instructing his wife Uma in secret tantric practices. Shiva "saw" Matsyendra within the fish and taught him, too. He stayed in the fish for 12 years doing deep sadhana until the fish was caught and gutted by a fellow fisherman. Goraksha lived in the late 10thand early 11th century. Kabir praised Goraksha for his teachings on cakras and shabda yoga (yoga of sound).
Goraksha
Goraksha founded the Natha sect of yogis and was considered to be a miracle worker, saint and revered teacher. In his early book, the Siddha Siddanta Paddhati, he states that the physical body is only one level of embodiment (kosa?).
Hatha Yoga Pradipika
Svatmarama Yogin, who called himself a disciple of Goraksha (even though he came a few centuries later), wrote a second treatise, the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, probably during the mid-fourteenth centure. This text describes 16 postures, most of which are variations of Padmasana, several purification rituals, eight pranayama techniques and ten mudras. As Svatmarama explained, before the mind can even hope to control the senses, the breath must calm the mind. Steady, rhythmic breathing calms the mind. This path was exclusively for the attainment of samadhi though Raja yoga (Patanjali).
Gheranda Samhita
The Gheranda Samhita, a late 17th Century manual based on the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, offers seven niyamas necessary for yoga practice: purification (acquired through shat kriyas), strength and firmness (asanas), steadfastness (mudras), calmness (pratyahara), kindness and lightness (pranayama), direct perception (dhyana) and isolation (samadhi). The manual's author, the sage Gheranda, prescribes 32 asanas and 25 mudras. But despite the emphasis on the physical body, Gheranda believed a yogi ultimately attained liberation through the grace of the guru. 19 of the 32 asanas are included in the 42 AM asanas, including: siddhasana, padmasana, vajrasana, viirasana, gomukhasana, dhanurasana, savasana, matsyasana, matsyendrasana, paschimottanasana, mayurasana, kurmasana, mandukasana, uttana mandukasana (raised frog), garudasana, salabhasana, ustrasanana, bhujangasana, yogasana.
Shiva Samhita
The Shiva Samhita is the most comprehensive treatise on Hatha Yoga and was written as late as the early 18th century. It emphasized that even a common householder can practice yoga and reap its benefits, a concept that would have started earlier proponents of yoga. It names 84 different asanas and five types of prana (and ways to regulate them). Just like all Hatha yoga philosophy, the Shiva Samhita postulates that performing asanas will cure a yogi of all diseases and bestow upon him magical powers.
