Tantra in Buddhist and Hindu traditions was a method to activate and utilize Kundalini energy (bioenergy) for the expressed purpose of spiritual advancement. The word is a composite of tapestry, web and enlightenment.
The origins and philosophy of the Tantric lifestyle can be traced to Tantric elements in both Hinduism and Buddhism, and predate Taoist philosophy. Buddhist Tantra, and Taoism are outgrowths of the original form of Tantra which began in ancient India.
The History of Sex in India
While the essence of Tantric concepts can be traced to many parts of the world including the Native American tribe of Cherokee, as well as in Polynesia, and elsewhere, the history of ritual sex can be traced back to the Harrapan tribe of the Indus Valley (4000 BCE --2000 BCE). They were agrarians who worshipped the power of the feminine, which they associated with fertility and birth. Their deity was the goddess, idolized in the form of the yoni (vulva). The Harrapan's culture was altered by the warlike nomadic Aryans who replaced the existing female deities with their male gods--often represented by the phallic lingam symbol (penis). Female deities were then relegated more to being consorts to the male gods.
Sexual intercourse was seen as a way to combine the male and female energies, which were seen as originating from the Cosmos. The manifestation of this duality are the deities Shiva (male) and Shakti (female).
Hinduism accepted an open attitude towards sex as an art and spiritual practice. The most famous pieces of Indian literature on sex is the Kamasutra. This collection of explicit sexual writings, both spiritual and practical, covers most aspects of human courtship and sexual intercourse. It was put together in this form by the sage Vatsyayana from a 150 chapter manuscript that had itself been distilled from 300 chapters that had in turn come from a compilation of some 100,000 chapters of text. The Kamasutra is thought to have been written in its final form sometime between the third and fifth century CE .
Over time, in the history of the evolution of Hinduism, almost every sexual technique conceivable was practiced and venerated in one sect or another. Fellatio, cunnilingus, prostitution, masturbation (with an impressive array of aids), anal sex, bestiality and even necrophilia were discussed, tolerated or encouraged. Against this historic backdrop, it is not surprising that Tantrism, a sect that utilized sex as a means to spiritual evolvement, would flourish.
The Birth of Tantrism
Although its true origins are unknown, there is speculation that Tantrism, like many other religious movements before and after, was a response to prevailing social and political structures. At the time, only Brahmans, the highest caste, were allowed to perform the sacred religious rites. Many of its practices were deliberately aimed at breaking the caste system, while others flouted convention in lesser ways by using drugs, magic, and sexual intercourse as part of religious ritual.
Tantrism can also be seen as a backlash against the ideal of an ascetic lifestyle. An equally convincing argument can be made that Tantrism was a natural theological spin-off of a religion and culture that was steeped in sexual myth.
The Tantric movement peaked between 700--1200 CE. Tantrism is so called because the practitioners follow the teachings in the Tantra scriptures. The Tantra scriptures are thought to have been written around 300 CE. Tantrism is considered to be firmly in the camp of the group of Hindu sects, the Shaktis, who venerate the feminine. This is in contrast to the Lingayatis who primarily worship male deities.
While there is little information as to the precise number of followers that Tantrism was able to attract, speculation is that its appeal was widespread throughout Indian society. Although it is thought that originally Tantrism drew its following from the middle and lower castes, it would eventually be the Brahmans that would practice the most elite form of the belief.
Later, Tantric missionaries carried their religion to China (around 1000 CE). In the 14th century, while the Mongols ruled China, yet another stream of Tantric missionaries from Tibet revitalized the faith in a variation that held little of the Taoist elements of the original. The literature indicates the continued practice of Tantrism in India and China but provides little detail on the number of practitioners and depth of their practice. Specific reference is made of a Tantric sect in Bengal as recently as 1980.
Tantric Theology
The basic belief of Tantrism was that if the world was a reflection of the cosmic order, then people should seek enlightenment through experiencing it. Rather than pursuing asceticism, which was seen as a repudiation of the tactile, Tantrikas believed that a higher spiritual awareness could be achieved through indulgent (but controlled) sensory experience. The argument was that, if the world was an expression of divinity, then what was in it must be divine, worthy to be worshipped rather than renounced. It was an apparently hedonistic creed, and its appeal must have been immense.
What was common of all the other different systems of the Hindu religion was that they were all ways to achieve freedom from perpetual reincarnation. The different systems accomplished this in different ways but all, with the exception of Tantrism, shared a philosophy of rejection. Among these were Nyaya, which advocated logic and clarity of thought, and Yoga, as well as Vedanta whose practitioners raised their spirituality through meditation. Tantrism turned all of this on its head. It offered its practitioners freedom in one lifetime, not through study or meditation (at least in the lower stages), but rather through indulgence in that which the others were given to eschew.
Acquiring Female Energy
The way to accomplish union with the divine according to Tantrism, was to become one with the "World Soul" itself. Since Tantrism was a sect of the feminine it envisioned the "World Soul" as being encapsulated in the image of the goddess (Shakti). Another source depicts the most venerated Tantric deity as being a Shiva-like figure with both male and female parts. This manner of being was known as an ardhanari (hermaphroditism). In this situation Shakti is seen as the female component of Shiva and is often viewed as being in perpetual coupling with him. But even in this scenario, it is the female energy of the god that is coveted because it is this that will augment the male energy of the Tantric practitioner and hence enhance his spirituality.
Back in the mundane earthly world, there existed a microcosm of the cosmic order. The sought-after female energy could be found in earthly women. Although all men and women had both male and female energies in them, women naturally possessed more of the female force (this is what made them women). The way to appropriate some of this energy was through sexual intercourse. "The essence of Tantra is this union of male and female energy, a union that is both mental and physical. Due adoration cannot be paid to the mother goddess unless a man has sexual intercourse with a woman, as representing the Shakti, or female energy." The perceived necessity of acquiring this balance between male and female energies led some sects to require periodic sexual liaisons between monks and nuns.
This process was deemed so crucial to spiritual advancement that temples were built for this purpose. The most famous was built in 1565 CE in Guahati, Assam and dedicated to the goddess of love Kamakhya or simply Kama. As legend has it, it is on this site that a distraught Shiva dropped the genitals of a dismembered Shakti after her death, in fond remembrance of their long love-making sessions. The inner sanctum of the temple is a cleft that represents Sakti's yoni and is kept moist by a natural spring. "Kamakhya was worshipped not only by sexual intercourse but also in human sacrifice. Under British rule the human sacrifice was replaced by sacrificial goats."
Rituals and Practices
As in other Hindu sects, Tantric worship was through very codified ritual. In this instance it took the form of the repetition of mantras and supervised religious ceremony. The more devoted practitioners were required to meditate and participate in more intricate ceremony.
Mantras
A mantra is a phrase or collection of syllables that was said deliberately and repeatedly, like a fugue in music. Mantrum is used as a form of meditation or brain entrainment. Their purpose is to concentrate and direct spiritual energy, by removing or quieting mind. The most commonly used and most popular Tantric mantra is "Om Mani Padme Aum" which literally translates to "the jewel is in the lotus" or is another way of saying "the lingam is in the yoni."
Circle Worship
Chakrapuja which translates to "circle worship," was the basic religious ceremony for most Tantric practitioners. A small group of people would gather in the presence of their guru. It was the duty of the guru to supervise the proceedings and to make sure that the evening did not stray from it's holy purpose and deteriorate into an orgy. The male members of the group are referred to as vira ("heroes"), the female, as Shakti ("potencies").
The evening started with a mind heightening soma (such as wine or hashish), after which the couples proceeded to the other "four of the five enjoyments." These were: meat, grain, fruit and sexual intercourse. It is hypothesized that all five represented mild breaking of taboos of orthodoxy while connecting to the earth. The evening culminated in sexual intercourse, and it is this aspect of their worship that was most developed and which also deserves further analysis.
Coitus Reservatus and Obstructus
From the perspective of the male practitioners, sexual intercourse in these circumstances was very purposeful. There were strict guidelines to follow. The goal was to increase the concentration of female energy in the male body. This was accomplished through extreme discipline and by following a prescribed methodology. Intercourse could only take place when the woman was sexually excited, after which, depending on the sect, the man would not ejaculate at all or would do so only after the woman had at least one, or preferably many orgasms. The reasoning derived from the Hindu belief that through intercourse, semen -- both male (bindu) and female (amrita), could be concentrated in the body. It was then preferable to redirect the semen through the body rather than outside it as this then appropriated the female energy to the benefit of the male practitioner.
The practice of coitus reservatus was referred to as askanda and was represented in Hindu artwork at the time by images of a flaccid lingam known colloquially as "down penis" or nicha medhra. The famous statue of the Jain saint, Gomatesvara, is depicted with such a "pendulous" penis.
It would appear that the process was not one of mutual sharing but rather of one party gaining power at the expense of the other. Done improperly then, the ritual could have the opposite effect. Writings warn that the male stood the chance that the situation would be reversed and the woman would gain his energy and strength! Thus he who knew the secret of sexual intercourse turned the good deeds of woman to himself but he, who without knowing this, practices sexual intercourse, his good deeds woman turn into themselves.
The idea of "cultivating" sexual energy from the woman by deferring or avoiding ejaculation can be found in Taoism. Taoists believed that women had much larger sexual appetites and the capacity for multiple orgasms and hence had more sexual energy. It was assumed that a woman could experience innumerable orgasms without experiencing any physiological, psychological, or sexual harm - and still be 'enlightened', whereas a man "once he ejaculates falls into a deep sleep, totally drained of all of his strength." Therefore, a man should strive to bring a woman to many orgasms and delay his own because he would then benefit from her energy (her yin). The longer that a man could stay within the "jade chamber", and the more orgasms he could solicit from the woman, the more yin energy he could absorb.
Advice to the Male Practitioner
It is important to note that the motivation for prolonged intercourse and encouraging sexual pleasure and orgasm in women was a sly and selfish male desire to gain female yin. To attain this goal men were instructed to learn how to delay their own orgasm for as long as possible. They were advised to use mental meditative powers, self discipline and manual intervention (coitus obstructus). To avoid "premature ejaculation" (by Tantric standards), Master Tung-hsuan, a Chinese physician in the seventh century, advised that at the last moment, "the man closes his eyes and concentrates his thoughts: he presses his tongue against the roof of his mouth, bends his back, and stretches his neck. He opens his nostril wide and squares his shoulders, closes his mouth, and sucks in his breath. Then he will not ejaculate and the semen will ascend inward on its own account."
As Tantrism spreads from India into China (700 CE), there is more evidence of advice to men on this matter. From the "Important Matters of the Jade Chamber," we get an account of the technique for coitus obstructus. "When, during the sexual act, the man feels he is about to ejaculate, he should quickly and firmly, using the fore and middle fingers of the left hand, put pressure on the spot between scrotum and anus (called the "million dollar point"), simultaneously inhaling deeply and gnashing his teeth scores of times, without holding his breath. Then the semen will be activated but not yet emitted, it returns from the Jade Stalk and enters the brain."
Once proficient in the ways of reliably gaining female energy (without the process backfiring), the Tantric practitioner engaged in regular ritual intercourse as a way of getting constant infusions of female energy. The Tantric interpretation of events was very similar to that of the Taoists. During intercourse, preferably in one of the convoluted positions advocated, a complex interaction between the female energy and the male navel chakra resulted in the conversion of the vital but previously constrained male semen into a vital force (referred to as bindu) which then, "... whisked up through ... to the chakra at the top of the head, "the thousand-petalled lotus," which opened into the void, the eternal bliss of nothingness. Thus the true Tantric adept became one with the dual-sexed World Soul."
For the majority of practitioners, this union would seem to have been a fleeting thing. More advanced Tantric practitioners sought a more permanent blissful state by employing a more sophisticated strategy. Interestingly, the prescribed rituals were such that the (male) practitioner would eventually be free from dependence on women.
Advanced Tantric Practices
For the dedicated Tantric practitioner who wished to attain the promise of bliss in a single lifetime, the rituals were to become increasingly solitary. At first, the (male) practitioner moved up the hierarchy through an initiation ceremony that involved having ritual intercourse with specially trained women known as a dakinis. The man, now known as a sadhaka, embarked on a process of intense meditation which included "liturgies, the uttering of mantras, mental visions, yogic postures, and what one authority charmingly describes as 'manipulation of the conjoined male and female energies.'"
The goal in this last practice was to develop the male and female energies that were now part of the practitioners body by the process of what could be conceptualized as "intercourse with oneself." The same result that was achieved fleetingly through sexual intercourse with women, could now be reliably reproduced within the male body thus enabling him to reach union with the divine.
Conclusions
The mystique of Tantric practices has fascinated the world since the days of it's peak in India. As the practices and rituals became known by other cultures, Tantrism was claimed by the cultures that "discovered it." This appropriation was often in a "smorgasbord" fashion where bits and pieces were selectively claimed. The Chinese codified the practices into elaborate sexual manuals that could be consulted by the average citizen. Later in history, the coitus obstructus technique, was used by the Turks, Armenians, and the islander of the Marquesas, and the North American native Cherokees. Even later still, Masters and Johnson in the late 1970's rediscovered that it was possible for men to be trained to experience the pleasure of orgasm (possibly several times) without ejaculation. When the western world "rediscovered" the same thing in very old eastern "Tantric" tradition, a renewed interest in the rituals and practices of Tantrism was sparked.
In studying history, religious or otherwise, it is important to be aware of three things (among others); The perspective of the writer of the text that is being studied, the readers own cultural biases in trying to analyze the information presented and the context of situation being studied. These three caveats are very important in trying to understand Tantrism while saddled with a western point of view.
Much of the analysis of Tantrism has come from the "western" point of view which can be subtly (or overtly) tainted by the Judeo-Christian (very) sex-negative perspective. It is this perspective that leads to the interpretation of Tantrism as a "depraved" phenomena and conjures echoes of a Sodom and Gomorrah. Like any other sect, Tantrism had its fanatics but it was founded on well established practices and beliefs and served as a viable way for its practitioners to achieve spiritual enlightenment.
Regardless of the neutrality of the source, the western reader is also faced with a conceptual hurdle in studying Tantrism. There is something that will strike most as "intuitively" scandalous about "orgies" as worship. The impression that is left with most is that Tantrism was an excuse for an over-sexed society to practice its favorite form of recreation. This was precisely the response of the British during the years that they colonized India. Their cloistered Protestant sensibilities were appalled by the "debauchery" around them. Indian scholars take pains to point out that Tantrism was a religious and not a sexual movement. As one scholar points out, Hindu and Buddhist critics "have constantly suggested that the Tantrika uses religion as a mantle for sexual desire and debauchery; the Tantrikas have constantly answered that the complicated, elaborate, and exceedingly difficult procedure followed by them would not at all be necessary to gratify sexual desire, whose objects are much easier to obtain without any [such rigorous] trappings." In other words, if having sex was the goal, there were easier ways to do it. Again, we should recognize and respect Tantrism for what it was, a valid effort to achieve spiritual enlightenment.
Once we have assured ourselves that as much as possible, we are free of our ethnocentric blinders, we can then examine the records of history in the context of the time. It is in this exercise that we discover that despite the "sex-positive" environment, Tantrism, like many other sects of many other religions was a patriarchal construct. This is evidenced by the focus on the male practitioner and the non-egalitarian motivations of the rituals. Most of the record of Tantric writing focus on the male practitioner. It could be argued that if we were able to gain insight into the female perspective at the time, it may become apparent that things were not as bad as they appear. However, the fact that there is an obvious lack of the woman's perspective is quite telling in itself and is indicative of a marginalized role for women in the Tantric movement.
That said, it should be noted that the fact that woman's energy was so coveted, did result in a higher status for women than would have otherwise been true. Tantric texts occasionally mention that a man has a responsibility to "cherish his wife." Rudeness to women was not tolerated, women were not to be exchanged for money in marriage and rape was punished with the execution of the perpetrator. In addition, Tantrism contributed many positive female images to the lexicon of Hinduism and provided women an option other than the status quo. Tantrism was primarily aimed at a male audience and was structured specifically to assist those same males to attain that which they desired, even if it was at some expense to women. While it is not possible to deny the sexism inherent in the ideology, today the Goddess movement, and the proliferation of the Wiccan traditions has begun to establish a balance.