"Tantra In Modern Bengal"

  

    According to Bharati, the main characteristic of modem Hinduism is its “puritanism"; this urban, official Hinduism is very hostile to hedonistic and sensual values. Starting from about three hundred years ago, and largely due to the British impact on India, Hinduism has cut its links with the healthy sensuality that was at its core, and that is represented by Khajuraho and suchlike cultural artifacts. This increasing puritanism is evidenced in the recent trend, started by Swami Dayanand and others, to worship Shiva anthropomorphically; traditionally, he has been worshiped in the linga form, which has, however, no conscious erotic implications for the orthodox. In the case of Krishna also, this puritanism has led to the de-emphasis of his persona as lover, and the emphasis of the sexless protagonist of the Bhagavad Gita.

    Bharati argues, therefore, that this is the reason why the erotica that covers Indian temple walls, at Khajuraho and other places, still troubles modem Indians, who have deeply internalized the ideology of the British missionaries and administrators. They condemn these works as obscene; in fact, Gandhi even wished that they could be dismantled.

    The official, urban culture of India thus rejects the Tantric tradition outright. The Tantric teaching that the religious goals can be attained through “controlled sensual indulgence" is anathema to this official weltanschauung. For example, Swami Dayanand wrote a separate chapter in his “Satyartha Prakash” to denounce it. During the last few decades, whenever organized left handed practice has become known, the reactions have been extremely hostile. For instance, the Kutchi “Om Mandali”, a religious sect which was involved in some sort of left-handed practice, had its headquarters raided by the police in the early 1950’s.

    The reactions of Western scholars towards Tantrism during the period under consideration were largely negative, and Bengali intellectuals tended to echo these sentiments. So much so that Sivacandra Vidyarnava claimed that he composed his “Tantrattva” (which Woodroffe published under the title, “Principles of Tantra”) in order to rebut the English tracts written by Englishmen and by English-educated Bengalis, which gave a distorted picture of Tantrism. We can conclude, therefore, that the British influence—which provided the external input to the “cultural debate”, as per Parkin’s model—at the very least strongly reinforced the centuries-old diatribe against Tantrism, during the period we are studying.

    Let us now look specifically at the so-called “pizza -effect” aspect of the external input to the “debate”. We may recall that this refers to the phenomenon of Indians, during the past one hundred years or so, becoming interested in items of their culture, once these were appreciated by Western thinkers and scholars. This phenomenon is also increasingly evident in regard to the erotic aspects of Indian culture, it would appear. Thus, some members of the intelligentsia have come to accept the “erotic-esoteric” part of the tradition, and this small vocal group of Hindus has an increasing audience, which has even begun to appreciate the erotic sculptures of Khajuraho, etc.

    As to whether, however, the pizza-effect has had a more direct impact on the “cultural debate” around Tantrism, the evidence is rather negative. It is certainly true that Woodroffe’s efforts to promote Tantrism were rewarded with some success. Thus, although a great number of Tantric texts had been edited in India by the end of the nineteenth century, his “Tantrik Texts Series” became known to a wider public than just the devotees and admirers of Tantrism. At any rate, it opened up the field of Tantrism to scholars.

    In spite of Woodroffe, however, Tantric studies are still only incipient. Indian scholars who study Tantrism, like Benoytosh Bhattacharya, S.B. Dasgupta and Chintaharan Chakravarti—incidentally, all three are Bengalis—still do so with an air of apology. In other words, though the pizza-effect has been operative during the last one hundred years as regards the erotic aspects of Indian culture also, it has not been that much in evidence visa-vis the “debate” around Tantrism It would seem that the erotic is still rather taboo as a part of Indian religion and philosophy.

    Let us next see what the attitudes of India’s traditional groups were towards Tantrism, during our period of focus. The attitude of traditional Hindus, and of modem Hindus exposed to Western learning — as opposed to that of the alienated “official” group — was ambiguous. Some of them, mainly Bengalis, have displayed sympathy for Tantrism. Thus, the outstanding Tantric scholar Mm. Gopinath Kaviraj was an apologist for Tantrism. Like other Tantrics since the early decades of the twentieth century, he tried to show that Tantrism is really a Vedic praxis. This is done in order to make left-handed practice more palatable to the orthodox and puritanical establishment.

    Some non-Tantric pundits also do of course have an open mind with regard to the Tantrics’ claim that their sadhana is a fit one for the present Kaliyuga. They are aware that all formal non-Vedic ritual conducted by women and by non-Brahmin villagers is Tantric. In general, the orthodox in Kerala, Orissa, Assam and Bengal (all traditional strongholds of Tantrism) tend to be lenient towards left-handed practice. In fact, the term Shakta tends to be somewhat charismatic in Assamese and Bengali It is to be noted, however, that both Tantrics and their sympathizers warn of the great dangers involved in left handed methods.

    The main apologetic used by modem Tantrics is that, since religious texts have accepted sexual enjoyment for all beings — the “Kama Shastras” are in fact semi-canonical texts—their performance of the “five m’s” is really a worship of the goddess. They quote non-Tantric sources which support their view, e.g. the story of Mohini, that of Parvatf s seduction of Shiva (which led to the birth of Kumara), and the famous passage in the "Brihadaranyaka Upanishad" which narrates how a woman should be courted and made love to. Of course, the orthodox assume that the Upanishad refers to a married couple; the Tantric reply to this is that their consecration of a Shakti is of a higher order than the Vedic marriage ceremony, and that in any case its acceptance by society does not matter to them.

    We may also note at this juncture that some of the greatest figures of that period had ambiguous, if not positive, attitudes in the debate around Tantrism. As regards Rammohan Roy, Debendranath Tagore records (though somewhat sceptically) the claim of a Tantric sannyasi whom he met in Delhi in 1857, that Roy was a Tantric disciple of Swami Hariharanandanatha. Moreover, the association of Roy with the “Mahanirvana Tantra” was so close that Debendranath adapted material from it to compose one of the finest hymns used in the services of the christianized Brahmo Samaj.

    More significantly, Ramakrishna himself was directly involved with left-handed praxis at one time, though later on both he and the Ramakrishna Mission played down this aspect of his sadhana. Nevertheless, his influence was very much evident in Vivekananda’s and Keshab Chunder Sen’s references to God as Mother. Then there is Rabindranath Tagore’s link with the (Tantric) Bauls. Further, we may notice that Aurobindo’s Yoga system had also many Tantric elements. And finally, it has also been observed that the revival of Shaktism and the Indian Nationalist Movement mutually influenced each other in this period.

    We thus come to the end of our argument. We have seen that the focus of the cultural debate around Tantrism, through the centuries, was the belief that passions jeopardize the quest for moksha, which belief was of course rejected by the Tantrics. And the official culture of India in modern times has reinforced this basic conservatism of Indian society in the “debate” around Tantrism. This process has, in great measure, also been helped by the external input to the “debate”, as represented by the British rule in India.

    As regards the so-called pizza-effect dimension of the external participation in the “debate”, this has really been evident only in regard to the more secular aspects of the Indian erotic tradition; as part of the religious, however, the erotic is still taboo.