Buddhist Thought

7 Mantranaya/Vajrayāna – Tantric Buddhism in India *

Introduction

As this book has demonstrated, scholarly understandings of, and attitudes towards, the history of Buddhist institutions and thought in India have changed considerably in recent years. Tantric Buddhism, with its focus on particular sorts of meditation and ritual, is no exception. The present chapter takes on the task of depicting the ‘sort of animal’ that tantric Buddhism is, a task that in a number of respects should deter the wise. One problem is the lack of availability of materials, although this has begun to improve over the last decade. A large number of primary texts – tantric scriptures, commentaries and related works – survive in Sanskrit, and in Chinese and Tibetan translation, yet only a few have either been edited (to give a reliable text from surviving manuscripts) or translated into European or other modern languages.¹ This has inevitably limited attempts to understand the nature and development of tantric Buddhism in India. The tantric tradition is also complex and multiform, containing what may appear to the beginner as a baroque and dizzying array of deities, practices and symbols that challenge his or her previous understanding of Buddhism. As a result many introductory works make little more than passing reference to tantric Buddhism.²

A further problem concerns attitudes, both scholarly and popular. Until comparatively recently scholarly investigation of tantric Buddhism has been unfashionable. One reason for this has to do with a set of presuppositions held by some scholars who were involved, particularly in the early period of Buddhist scholarship in the West, in what Donald Lopez (1996: 99) has termed the ‘European construction of an original Buddhism’.³ In this perspective tantric Buddhism was seen as degenerate – typified by disgusting practices and a welter of gods – and far removed from the conception of (early and ‘true’) Buddhism as a rational, humanistic and morally uplifting philosophy, free from the taints of magic and idolatory otherwise found in Indian religion. Buddhism was clearly not a tantric ‘sort of animal’. To take just one example of this type of thinking, Cecil Bendall, an early editor of Buddhist tantric material, commented in 1903 that what was ‘shown in the [Buddhist] Tantraliterature’ was ‘decay, decrepitude and dotage’, warning readers that the contents ‘will be distasteful and even sometimes repulsive’.⁴ Not surprisingly, evaluations such as these contributed both to the neglect of the field and the paucity of available materials.

Today, the academic study of tantric Buddhist is more acceptable. The project of reconstructing an ‘original Buddhism’ is seen to be misguided, as is the attempt to narrowly identify religion with soteriology. There is a growing interest in the ritual dimension of religion – a dominant feature of tantric Buddhism – allied with a recognition that understanding a religious tradition requires a balance of textual, anthropological, and archeological perspectives. In consequence, a number of more recent (generally non-introductory) publications dealing with Buddhism and the religions of India give tantric Buddhism, and tantric traditions in general, a weighting that is more appropriate to their historical and religious importance.⁵

Non-scholarly attitudes, especially in the contemporary West, are also often problematic. Words like ‘tantra’, ‘tantric’, ‘tantrism’, have an array of popular, but on the whole misleading, connotations derived from a range of representations of Indian tantric traditions. The negative associations these words carried for scholars in the past are now largely absent. On the contrary, more often they carry a sense of allure and excitement. Contemporary connotations are generally sexual – i.e. ‘Tantra’ is about (particularly exciting and unusual) sex, or sexual ritual. Perhaps it is the very antinomian and sexual elements in Indian (Buddhist and otherwise) tantric religion that have laid hold of both scholarly and popular imaginations and received contrary evaluations. The difficulty with such popular representations is not that there is no sex, or sexual ritual, in Indian tantric religion. There is – though it may not be the sort of thing constructed by (for differing reasons) past scholars or present popular imaginings. The problem is that any attempt to identify tantric religion with forms of sexuality (or transgressive behaviour) is to understand it too narrowly. In tantric Buddhism – and this is not the place to address the issue within Indian religion as a whole – sexual elements come to play a role comparatively late in the development of the tradition.

How significant is tantric Buddhism, then, to the understanding of Buddhism in India? If we define tantric Buddhism as the set of religious ideas and practices promulgated in, or related to, texts classed as tantra-s by the Buddhist tradition itself, then tantric texts appear by the third century CE and continue to appear until Buddhism’s decline in India at the end of the 12th century. Yet to think of the third century as the starting point for tantric Buddhism is somewhat misleading. As a self-conscious tradition within the Mahāyāna tantric Buddhism probably does not appear until the mid to late seventh century. In the preceeding centuries texts appear describing rituals and containing features – increasing in number over time – that came to typify tantric Buddhism. However, there was no sense of these texts and practices belonging to a tradition with a distinct and separate identity (see Gray 2009b: 2–3). None the less, given the presence of these features it is not surprising that the later tradition came to classify texts from this (preseventh century) phase as ‘tantric’.⁶

From around the beginning of the eighth century tantric techniques and approaches increasingly dominated Buddhist praxis in India. One reason for this was that tantric meditation and ritual were increasingly seen as powerful and effective tools in the quest for Buddhahood, as well as a means for attaining worldly powers and goals. In other words, tantric Buddhism emphasises its soteriological function. A further factor in tantric Buddhism’s rise to eminence in early medieval India was its ability to attract significant levels of royal patronage.⁷

Some idea of the importance of tantric Buddhism in India can be gained by the very large number of Indian Buddhist tantric texts that have survived in their original language or have been preserved in Tibetan translation. More than 1,500 different Sanskrit works are known to survive and the actual total – the work of identifying and listing extant manuscripts continues – remains to be ascertained: Isaacson (1998: 26) suggested it may be over 2,000. The Tibetan Kanjur (bKa’ ’gyur) collection of scriptures – works regarded as the word of the Buddha, translated mainly from Sanskrit – contains more than 450 texts classified as tantras, and the Tenjur (bsTan ’gyur) collection of (again mainly Sanskrit) commentaries and other authored works has, in its tantric section, more than 2,400 texts.⁸

Tantric Buddhism in India did not evolve in isolation from the rest of Indian religious culture. The development of tantric forms of religion was a pan-Indian phenomenon, which had a profound and pervasive effect on the group of traditions that have come to be known as ‘Hinduism’. Much of contemporary Hinduism shows the influence of tantric ideas and practices. The Jains also developed a tantric tradition in western India, which has as yet been little studied. A sense of the broader Indian tantric tradition can give a deeper understanding of tantric Buddhism, and an encouraging feature of more recent scholarship is the recognition, and increasingly nuanced discussion, of the relationship of tantric Buddhism to this broader Indic context (see, for example, Sanderson 1994, 2009; White 2005; Samuel 2008).

Although this is a book about Indian Buddhism, it is worth noting that tantric Buddhism spread well beyond the bounds of India. This suggests that its traditions were held in some prestige. Arriving via Central Asian trade routes (i.e. the ‘Silk Route’) and also by sea via Southeast Asia, tantric Buddhism took root in China, where it became known as the Zhenyan school. By the mid-eighth century it was playing a significant role in upper echelon Chinese society, receiving increasing patronage from Tang dynasty emperors. In the eighth century tantric Buddhism spread from China to Korea and also to Japan where, as the Shingon school, it still flourishes. Tibet, inheriting Indian Buddhism in two phases from the eighth to the 12th centuries, developed a tradition that was thoroughly tantric in complexion, with the result that all schools of Tibetan Buddhism regard tantric Buddhism as Buddhism’s highest and most effective form. Tantric Buddhism also took root in the Kathmandu valley of Nepal where it is still practised by the Newar community, alongside tantric forms of Hinduism. Southeast Asia was also influenced by tantric Buddhism in the early medieval period, both in Java and more latterly in the Khmer culture of Cambodia.⁹

Returning to the question of what ‘sort of animal’ we are dealing with, it has been noted that tantric Buddhism is in general concerned with particular types of meditation and ritual that are seen as especially powerful and efficacious. The goals of these practices may be both worldly – alleviation of illness, protection from danger, control over weather – and (more latterly) soteriological. Tantric techniques are generally centred on the ritual evocation and worship of deites who are usually conceived of as awakened, enlightened. Key to this process is the use of mantras – utterances of various kinds understood to have especial power – and methods of visualisation. Successful evocation of a deity would give the practitioner power to achieve his, or probably less often, her (see below ‘Tantric practitioners: women in tantric Buddhism’) desired goal. Access to tantric practice is not open to all, but restricted to those who have received initiation, a ritual that empowers the practitioner to evoke a particular deity and perform associated rituals. Monastic vows are neither a necessary nor sufficient qualification for tantric practice. Leaving aside for the time being the question of tantric Buddhism’s origins, it is clear that these techniques were generally located within the context of Mahāyānist soteriological and ontological thinking.¹⁰ Over time, however, tantric Buddhist ritual and Mahāyānist doctrinal categories can be seen modifying one another. None the less, insofar as tantric Buddhism is concerned largely with technique, it can be viewed – from within the perspective of Mahāyāna doctrine – as being primarily within the sphere of compassionate method or ‘means’ (upāya) rather than that of wisdom (prajñā).

A significant point in the history of tantric Buddhism occurs, probably sometime during the mid to late seventh century, with the appearance of the term Vajrayāna, ‘The Diamond Way’. This expression, which was to become one of the standard self-descriptions of tantric Buddhism in India, emerged at a time when the word vajra, meaning equally ‘diamond’ and ‘thunderbolt’, had assumed a major symbolic role in certain texts, standing for the indestructibility and power of the awakened, enlightened, state (bodhi). It is worth stressing that the term ‘Vajrayāna’ was not employed before this period, and that, therefore, the expressions ‘Vajrayāna Buddhism’ and ‘tantric Buddhism’ are not synonymous. What is true of Vajrayāna Buddhism is not necessarily true of tantric Buddhism as a whole. Thus, while Vajrayāna Buddhism has the speedy attainment of Buddhahood as a central goal, this is not the case for tantric Buddhism as a whole, where the goal of Buddhahood is marginal, if present at all, for perhaps its first 200 years or more.

An earlier term used to distinguish tantric from other forms of practice was mantranaya, ‘the path (naya) of mantras’. This expression was paired with pāramitānaya, ‘the path of perfections’ (i.e. the path elaborated in the Mahāyāna Perfection of Wisdom literature).¹¹ Together, the two paths were considered to constitute the Mahāyāna. The value of the Mantranaya was understood to be its particular efficacy in aiding the bodhisattva’s compassionate activity in the world for the benefit of suffering sentient beings. Two points should be noted here. First, the label ‘Mantranaya’ indicates that the use of mantras was perceived to be the distinctive and distinguishing feature of tantric practice. Second, Indian tantric Buddhism, in its pre-Vajrayāna phase at least, saw itself as part of the Mahāyāna, a fact which can be obscured by suggestions that Buddhism is comprised of three paths – the so-called ‘Hīnayāna’, Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna.

Significant Features of Tantric Buddhism

Attempts to specify the nature of tantric Buddhism in any detail quickly run into difficulties since it proves hard to formulate a definition without excluding or including too much. Donald Lopez, who deals with the problem of defining tantric Buddhism at some length (1996: 83 ff.), tables the possibility that a search for one common defining characteristic is misplaced. If this is the case, then what makes something an example of tantric Buddhism is not the possession of a single feature, but, according to this argument, the possession of a significant proportion of a set of features. This way of defining, rooted in Wittgenstein’s notion of ‘family resemblences’, and which can be termed ‘polythetic’ as opposed to ‘monothetic’, leaves the problem of how to decide on the base set of features on which individual instances of ‘tantric Buddhism’ draw.

Despite the limitations of this approach, it is worth enumerating some of tantric Buddhism’s more important features, if only for the purpose of gaining a better overview of tantric Buddhist terrain, before turning to examine the nature of specific historical phases and perspectives.¹² None the less, it is important to remember that, in accordance with the notion of polythetic definition, individual features may or may not be present at any given historical or functional level of the tradition. The central concern of tantric Buddhism with technique has been noted, as has the importance of the evocation and worship of deities, the use of mantras and visualisation, and the necessity for initiation before undertaking tantric practice. Other features, some of which will be revisited at greater length later, include the following.

Esotericism

Tantric Buddhism is often termed esoteric, a notion that is related to the requirement of initiation. In contrast to the exhortations contained in many Mahāyāna sūtras that they should be promulgated and recited in public, tantras are to be hidden. They can threaten dire consequences to those who reveal their contents to the uninitiated. The Vajrabhairava Tantra, for example, after describing a number of rites, warns that ‘these deeds must not be spoken of to others. Should the foolish devottee do this he will certainly fall into hell’ (Vajrabhairava Tantra, trans. Siklós: 35). The same text (op. cit.: 43) also states that a painting of the deity Vajrabhairava should not be displayed openly. Another way in which secrecy was maintained was to use varying degrees of allusive, indirect, symbolic and metaphorical forms of language (samdhyābhāşā).¹³ This tradition can give rise to acute problems of interpretation. Not only is there the issue of whether statements are to be understood literally or not, there is also the question of how to understand them once it is agreed they are intended metaphorically. Indian tantric commentators themselves, aware of these problems, often failed to agree on an interpretation, as well as admitting that a passage could have multiple meanings.¹⁴

Importance of The Teacher

The role of the teacher (guru) or Vajra-master (vajrācārya) in tantric Buddhism is especially important. It is the teacher who gives access to tantric practice and who transmits the teachings of the various tantric scriptures. The Guhyasamāja Tantra (see Snellgrove 1987: 177–8) identifies the tantric teacher as both the bodhicitta (‘awakening mind’ q.v.) and as the father and mother of the Buddhas (in that the existence of Buddhas depends on their having teachers). The Guhyasamāja also portrays the bodhisattva Maitreya being frightened on hearing this teaching, which suggests that the accordance of such high status to Vajra-masters was a new development.

Deriving from this status is the view that one should never speak ill of one’s teacher. Again, the Guhyasamāja Tantra, while apparently recommending the contravention of all major ethical precepts, adds the qualification that ‘those who speak ill of their teacher never succeed despite their practice’ (quoted in Snellgrove 1987: 170). In the later phases of tantric Buddhism the teacher’s instruction is essential to the successful practice of what became quite complex psychophysical meditation techniques. Also, the teacher is identified, in meditation, with the deity at the centre of the maṇḍala.

Ritual Use of Maṇḍalas

The employment of maṇḍalas – two, occasionally three, dimensional representations (or creations) of a sacred space or enclosure, often understood as the particular domain of a deity – is an ubiquitous feature of tantric Buddhism, used both in initiation rituals and in post-initiatory practice. (See below, under ‘Elements of practice’, for fuller discussion.)

Transgressive and Controversial Practices

It is apparent that not everyone accepted tantric Buddhism, more especially in its latter phases, as genuinely Buddhist. There is evidence that a number of monks at Bodhgayā found the tradition sufficiently offensive to warrant the destruction of tantric texts and images (Sanderson 1994: 97). Controversial features included the use of impure and forbidden substances as offerings, the (seeming) advocacy of unethical behaviour, the employment of sexualised ritual, and the worship of terrifying, wrathful, blood-drinking deities. (See below, ‘Impure substances and antinomian acts’, for fuller discussion.)

Revaluation of the Body

It is not hard to find negative evaluations of the body in both mainstream and Mahāyāna Buddhism (e.g. Chapter 8 of Śāntideva’s Bodhicāryavatāra) that often emphasise its impurity and disgustingness with a view to lessening our attachment to it, and its cravings. Tantric valuations, on the other hand, are often highly positive.

Without bodily form how should there be bliss? Of bliss one could not speak. The world is pervaded by bliss, which pervades and is itself pervaded. Just as the perfume of a flower depends on the flower, and without the flower becomes impossible, likewise without form and so on, bliss would not be perceived.

(Hevajra Tantra II: ii, 36–7, trans. Snellgrove 1959)

Revaluation of the Status and Role of Women

In the later phases of tantric Buddhism female deities become increasingly prominent, either at the centre of the maṇḍala as the sole principal deity, or as the (wild and dancing) attendants of the central figure or figures. In scriptures women are given high status, and regarded as the embodiment and source of wisdom. In the milieu of tantric practice there is evidence that women functioned both as practitioners and teachers. (See below, under ‘Tantric practitioners’, for fuller discussion.)

Analogical Thinking

Employment of sets of correspondences and correlations is characteristic of much of tantric Buddhism. This approach involves the systematic elaboration of connections between the features of key aspects of tantric practice – such as deities, maṇḍalas, mantras, practitioners’ bodies – and other elements or factors that they are seen to symbolise or embody. As Wayman has noted (1973: 30), this sort of thinking can be observed in India from as early as the (pre-Buddhist) Ṛg Veda.¹⁶

One of the more developed sets of correspondences is based on the group of five cosmic (‘directional’) Buddhas from the Vajradhātu maṇḍala of the Tattvasaṃgraha. These become associated with a whole range of other sets of five: directions, colours, hand-gestures, elements, aspects of awakened cognition or gnosis (jñāna), aggregates (skandha), negative mental states (‘taints’; kleśa), to name but a few (see Table 7.1). Significantly, some of these correlations link saṃsāra, or that which is unawakened – for example, the aggregates and negative mental states – to what is awakened, i.e. the five Buddhas. Correlations of this type may be seen as reflecting a view that negative mental states can be co-opted as part of the path (see next feature).

Table 7.1 Correspondences established between the Five Buddhas of the Yoga tantras and other sets of five

More generally, iconographical features of deities are encoded in terms of doctrinal categories. For example when the deity Samvara is portrayed trampling on Hindu deities, it might be explained as symbolising the destruction of craving and ignorance, or as the avoidaṃce of attachment to either saṃsāra or nirvāṇa. Correspondences can also be established between microcosmic and macrocosmic levels. Thus, a maṇḍala and its deities come to be identified with the body of the practitioner and/or with the cosmos as a whole. Identifications may also be multi-layered. The yogin’s staff can symbolise his female partner, who in turn symbolises awakened wisdom (prajñā). Analysed into its components, the staff may then be the subject of further identifications.

Revaluation of Negative Mental States

The notion that mental states ordinarily conceived of as negative could be employed as a means of effectively traversing the path to Buddhahood becomes a significant feature of the Vajrāyana phase of tantric Buddhism. The Hevajra Tantra (II: ii, 51) declares that ‘the world is bound by passion, also by passion it is released’. It gives a homeopathic argument by way of justification: ‘One knowing the nature of poison may dispel poison with poison – by using the very poison that a little of would kill other beings’ (op. cit.: II: ii, 46).¹⁷

Of the passions, it is sexual desire and pleasure that tend to be placed in the foreground, sexual bliss being homologised with the great bliss of awakening. The French Indologist Madeleine Biardeau once summarised tantric doctrine as ‘an attempt to place kāma, desire, in every meaning of the word, in the service of liberation’ (cited in Padoux 1987: 273). Although this will not do for tantric Buddhism as a whole, it satisfactorily epitomises much of later Vajrayāna ideology.

Tantric Buddhist Literature: Evolving Traditions

The aim of this section is to provide an overview of the development of tantric Buddhist perspectives by looking at how the contents and concerns of tantric Buddhist literature evolve. We have seen that a large number of tantric Buddhist texts survive in their original language, as well as in Chinese, Tibetan and Mongolian translation. These texts are of diverse kinds. There are the scriptures, many of which have one or more commentaries devoted to them, some of considerable length. There are ritual manuals and compendia. These contain detailed prescriptions for a range of rituals associated with, for example, the consecration of monasteries, temples and statues, the preparation and construction of maṇḍalas, initiation and empowerment (abhiṣeka), the evocation of tantric deities as well as rituals focused on mundane or worldly goals (see under ‘Kriyā tantras’ below for further discussion of these). The texts prescribing the method for evoking deities, known as sādhanas, came to form their own literary genre. There are also collections of tantric songs, hymns of praise to individual deities, as well as independent treatises.

The classificatory energies of Indian tantric Buddhist writers were focused on their primary texts, the tantric scriptures, or tantras. Their classifications, which as we shall see evolved over time, were often broadly chronological in nature. This allows us to use one such system to structure a discussion of the evolution of tantric Buddhism. This procedure has the merit of employing a significant self-representation developed by the Indian tantric tradition itself. It should be borne in mind, however, that the project of classification was essentially scholastic in nature, and reflected the attempts of exegetes to give some order to the extensive and growing array of tantric texts they were faced with. Their own concerns were neither chronological nor historical. At the same time, the terminology of tantra types is pervasive in contemporary scholarly literature and some familiarity with it is invaluable. As a consequence, some account of Indian tantric typologies is appropriate at this point.¹⁸

Classification of Tantric Scriptures

The classification of scriptures by the Indian commentarial tradition is not a straightforward matter, however. There are a number of classifications and no wholly consistent terminology. To complicate matters, the classification used in many secondary – especially introductory – sources (i.e. books on Buddhism) appears not to be one used in the Indian context. Some categorisation of tantric scriptures into classes had occurred at least by the mid to late eighth century, when a tripartite division of texts as either Kriyā (‘Action’), Caryā (‘Practice’) or Yoga tantras is found.¹⁹ On the whole these three categories reflect a chronological ordering. Kriyā tantras are generally earlier than the Caryā, with the Caryā generally preceeding the Yoga tantras. Following the appearance of Yoga tantras, scriptures often display an awareness of the classification tradition. One then sees a development and expansion of exegetical categories, particularly of the Yoga tantra class, and scriptures begin to use these categories to describe themselves as tantras of particular kinds.

A classification that appears to have been fairly widely adopted by the end of the development of tantric Buddhism in India, at least as suggested by its usage in commentaries, is a fivefold division of scriptures into Kriyā, Caryā, Yoga, Yogottara and Yoganiruttara tantras. This classification may be seen as an expansion of the earlier tripartite division, accomplished by an expansion of the Yoga tantra class into three by the addition of two ‘superior’ categories, Yogottara (‘Higher Yoga’) and Yoganiruttara (‘Highest Yoga’). Alternative terminology is found for these two categories. Yogottara tantras are also called Mahāyoga (or ‘Great Yoga’) tantras, with Yoganiruttara tantras also known as Yoginī tantras. Here, the term yoginī refers to a class of female deities that play a crucial role in these texts. (See below, ‘Yoginī tantras’, for more on these figures.)²⁰

This fivefold classification continues to broadly reflect historical developments in Indian tantric Buddhism. Thus scriptures called Yogottara or Mahāyoga generally appear before those called Yoganiruttara or Yoginī, and both types generally appear after the Yoga tantras. In what follows, I shall use the terms Mahāyoga and Yoginī rather than Yogottara and Yoganiruttara for the fourth and fifth classes. One reason for this is that for a non Sanskrit reader the former terms are a little more distinctive. Also, they are becoming increasingly common in academic writing on Indian tantric Buddhism (see, for example, Davidson 2002a, Dalton 2004, Jackson 2005, Gray 2007a, Wedemeyer 2007b).

It should be remembered, however, that other categorisations of tantric scriptures were used by some commentators, though these can generally be related to the fivefold division. For example, the great teacher Atiśa, writing in the mid-eleventh century, distinguishes seven categories, adding Upāya (‘Means’) and Ubhaya (‘Dual’) tantras between the Yoga and Mahāyoga tantras of the fivefold system. The different classes, moreover, are not discrete. A number of texts are clearly transitional, and there was not always agreement as to how to assign individual cases, or what the defining features of the different categories were.

It should perhaps be noted that in many books on Buddhism this fivefold division into Kriyā, Caryā, Yoga, Mahāyoga and Yoginī tantras is not found. A common classification is fourfold, into Kriyā, Caryā, Yoga and Anuttarayoga (‘Highest Yoga’) tantras. In this system, the Anuttarayoga class is further divided into Father tantras and Mother tantras, sub-divisions that broadly correspond to the Mahāyoga and Yoginī categories of the fivefold classification. Despite its ubiquity there are disadvantages in using this fourfold categorisation to understand the nature and development of tantric Buddhism in India. Firstly, the amalgamation of the Mahāyoga and Yoginī classes into one Anuttarayoga class tends, despite their recognition as Father and Mother subdivisions, to obscure similarities between Yoga and Mahāyoga texts as well as differences between Mahāyoga and Yoginī texts. Secondly, the fourfold classification appears to be Tibetan rather than Indian in origin, and one that represents a particular Tibetan conceptualisation of the Indian tradition. Moreover, the name Anuttarayoga has not been found in any of the surviving Sanskrit manuscripts (Isaacson 1998: 28).²¹

Kriyā Tantras

The Kriyā class is by far the largest. Over 450 works are assigned to this category in the tantra section of the Tibetan Kanjur.²² The earliest texts classified as Kriyā tantras date from perhaps as early as the second century ce.²³ They continue to appear until about the eighth century – by which time tantric Buddhism had become a self-conscious tradition – with some perhaps continuing to expand subsequently. The term kriyā means ‘action’, and in this context denotes ritual action. And indeed, the Kriyā tantras form a miscellaneous collection of largely ritual texts generally focused on the achievement of a variety of worldly (laukika) goals. The range of these pragmatic ends is wide: protection from misfortune and danger, alleviation of illness, control of weather, generation of health and prosperity, opposition and destruction of obstacles and enemies, and placation of angered deities. Kriyā tantra rituals may employ mantras, mudrās (ritual hand gestures), early forms of maṇḍalas and the visualisation of deities. Their performance may also require initiation (abhiṣeka). However, the word ‘tantra’ – the common title for tantric texts in the later period, but literally meaning little more than ‘text’ – rarely occurs in the title of Kriyā texts. A variety of other names are more common: dhāranī, kalpa, rājñī, or sūtra. Thus the Mahāmegha Sūtra (‘Great Cloud Sūtra’), a work concerned with the control of weather, is classified as a Kriyā tantra despite being titled a sūtra. One reason for this is that the exegetical classification of these texts as ‘tantras’ was for the most part retrospective. The rationale for the designation of a text as a tantra was as much to do with content – prominence of rituals employing mantras etc. – as with its particular title. Indeed, it is not until the period of Yoga and Mahāyoga texts that the title ‘tantra’ comes into general use.

Two individual Kriyā tantras worth noting are the Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa and the Susiddhikara. The Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa (‘The Root Ritual Instruction of Mañjuśrī’), is a large and somewhat heterogeneous text probably compiled by or in the eighth century (Wallis 2002: 9–11). The bodhisattvas Mañjuśrī and Avalokiteśvara play important roles in the text and in its maṇḍala, and the female bodhisattva Tārā is mentioned, although her role is not prominent. The Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa also exemplifies an early stage in the development of the notion that deities can be grouped into ‘families’. Depicted within a somewhat sprawling, non-symmetrical maṇḍala are three groups of figures comprising the Buddha, Lotus (padma) and Vajra (‘thunderbolt’) families, with peaceful and fierce deities assigned to the Lotus and Vajra families respectively (for a translation of the relevant passage, see Snellgrove 1987: 192–4). The Susiddhikara, to my knowledge the only longer Kriyā text that has been fully translated into English (Giebel 2001), is wholly focused on worldly goals. It also employs the division of deities into Buddha, Lotus and Vajra families, as well as a number of other tripartite classifications. For example, rituals are divided into those that pacify (śāntika), nourish (pauşţika) or destroy (ābhicārika).

A distinctive type of Kriyā text is the dhāraṇī. Many Kriyā ‘tantras’ are either dhāraīs or texts that locate dhāraṇīs within a broader ritual context. Dhāraṇīs may be shorter or longer, comprised of strings of words, more or (more often) less intelligible, that are understood to bear in condensed form a particular meaning or intention, often that of a teaching of the Buddha. They were seen as having a particular power when read or recited, a power either in the world (e.g. to avert danger) or on the mind of the reciter (e.g. to improve memorisation). The notion that dhāraṇīs could have an impact in the world is rooted in the idea that the memorised dhāraṇī contains the power of the word of the Buddha (Matsunaga 1977: 170–71). The word dharaṇī, found only in Buddhist contexts, derives from the verbal root dhṛ, meaning ‘to support’ or ‘to hold’ (the word dharma derives from the same root). Strings of words, taken as summarising or ‘holding’ the teaching of the Buddha, could therefore function as utterances of ‘magical’ power, much in the same way as the paritta (‘pirit’) verses of early Buddhism and contemporary Theravāda. A number of non-tantric Mahāyāna sūtras contain dhāraṇīs, for example the Lotus Sūtra, and the Perfection of Wisdom work, the Heart Sūtra. The fact that a text is a dhāraṇī is not, therefore, in itself grounds for claiming the text (or the tradition employing it) is tantric.²⁴ As part of a ritual involving other tantric elements, however, a dhāraṇī can be considered to play a tantric ritual function. Dhāraṇīs also resemble mantras insofar as they are both utterances of power, and indeed the terms are sometimes used synonymously.

Although the goals of Kriyā texts are generally mundane, ultimate or soteriological goals are present to some degree. In the Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa, for example, the Buddha Śākyamuni says of the practitioner of a particular ritual that ‘success for that person will certainly be unfailing, fruitful, happiness will arise, happiness will ripen. Success will arise concerning worldly knowledge, leading to the hindrance of all unfortunate rebirths, and leading always to his attainment of awakening’ (trans. Wallis 2009: 170). Wallis comments that this accommodation of multiple (including ultimate) goals is a ‘pronounced feature’ of the Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa.²⁵

It appears that Kriyā tantra texts and rituals were not superseded by later tantric developments in India, in the way that the traditions of the Caryā and Yoga texts often were, by the supposedly more advanced methods of the Mahāyoga and Yoginī tantras. Such sustained interest is almost certainly the result of the significant worldly focus of these texts – the likely reason why they have received less attention by western scholars. Monastic specialists who could perform Kriyā tantra rituals addressed needs and offered services that continued to be important and attractive, especially perhaps to the royal patrons upon whose support monastic institutions depended. And, of course, the more powerful and efficacious the rituals were perceived to be, the more effective they would be in attracting patronage.

In summary, texts that came to be designated as Kriyā tantras span the period up to around the eighth century during which tantric Buddhism gradually evolved as a distinct tradition within the Mahāyāna. Their focus is primarily ritual, with primarily (though not always) mundane ritual purposes. Also, Kriyā texts are far from monolithic. Examination of their translation into Chinese reveals how the number of tantric features gradually increases over time. In consequence, it is hard to draw a clear chronological (let alone conceptual) line between tantric and non-tantric forms of Buddhism.²⁶

Caryā Tantras

In contrast to the Kriyā, very few texts are standardly assigned to the Caryā Tantra class. In the Tibetan Kanjur classification there are just eight, making it the smallest of the five categories. The word caryā means ‘practice’ and its precise sense in this context is not fully clear. In general, however, one sees in Caryā tantras an increased incorportation of inner ‘practice’ – generally involving meditative visualisation – along with the ritual emphasis of the Kriyā texts. The most important Caryā text is the Mahāvairocana Tantra, known more fully as the Mahāvairocanābhisambodhi Tantra, probably composed during the early to middle seventh century.²⁷ Also in this group, and possibly earlier than the Mahāvairocana, is the Vajrapānyabhiseka Tantra (see Yoritomi 1990: 700). Apart from occasional quotations in commentaries, neither of these works survives in its original language of composition. An important commentary on the Mahāvairocana Tantra was written by the mid-eighth century figure, Buddhaguhya, who also composed commentaries on Kriyā texts.

A significant feature of Caryā tantras is the role played by the Buddha Vairocana, ‘The Luminous One’. In the Mahāvairocana Tantra he is depicted at the centre of a symmetrical maṇḍala, with four other Buddhas placed in the cardinal directions. It has been observed (Orzech 2005a) that Vairocana’s centrality is founded on his role as a symbol of ultimate reality developed in two non-tantric Mahāyāna scriptures, the Gaņḍavyūha and Daśabhūmikā Sūtras. These are both part of the large composite work, the Avatasaka Sūtra (q.v.). For the Gaņḍavyūha Vairocana is the Buddha, residing in a transcendent world of luminosity, fluidity and magical transformation, while simultaneously being present at all levels and in all things. From this perspective Śākyamuni, the historical Buddha, is a magical transformation produced for the benefit of suffering sentient beings. In the Mahāvairocana Vairocana is presented as the cosmic Buddha. Moreover, he appears as all deities and as revealing all religions, suggesting the omnipresence of Buddhism.

The world of the Gaņḍavyūha Sūtra can be transformed at will by the mental acts of Buddhas and advanced bodhisattvas. It provides an eminently suitable perspective for the tantric practitioner, who from this point onwards is increasingly concerned to transform, within the context of visualisation meditation, the appearance (and hence the reality) of him- or herself and of the external world. The idea of the tantric practitioner developing intense meditative identification with the deity being evoked is in place by the period of the Caryā texts. Practitioners identify themselves, visualise themselves, as the awakened deity occupying a luminous universe that can be magically transformed, precisely in the way that it can be transformed in the Gaņḍavyūha.

In the Mahāvairocana the goal is to become the Buddha Mahāvairocana, using (in part) this technique of self-visualisation as the deity. The concern with soteriology here is significant. Awakening is now increasingly centrestage as a goal of tantric practice. From this period tantric Buddhism begins to promote itself not only as an effective way to gain worldly ends and powers, but also as an especially powerful method of gaining Buddhahood. The Mahāvairocana can arguably be seen as the first fully-fledged tantra. As Hodge (2003: 29–30) comments, it is a doctrinally sophisticated work, demonstrating influence from a range of sources including the Avataṃsaka Sūtra, Yogācāra texts such as the Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra, as well as Tathāgatagarbha works. It promotes tantric methods (mantras, maṇḍalas, visualisation) as the most effective. At the same time, on the grounds that all effective methods are manifestations of the compassion of Mahāvairocana, it is not intolerant of other approaches.

Yoga Tantras

The number of texts usually designated as Yoga tantras makes it a slightly larger class than the Cārya (some 15 works in the Tibetan Kanjur). The key text here is the Tattvasaṃgraha, also known as the Sarvatathāgatatattvasaṃgraha Sūtra. Other works in this category include the Sarvadurgatipariśodhana, Sarvarahasya, and Vajraśekhara Tantras, and the short but influential Nāmasaṃgīti (‘The Chanting of Names’). This last text enumerates the dimensions or ‘Names’ of wisdom as embodied in the figure of Mañjuśrī, who in this context is conceived of as the non-dual wisdom underlying all phenomena. Yoga tantra commentators of the eighth century include Buddhaguhya, Mañjuśrīmitra, and Vilāsavajra. Buddhaguhya wrote a Tattvasaṃgraha commentary, the Tantrāvatāra, which has a subcommentary by Padmavajra. Mañjuśrīmitra and Vilāsavajra wrote commentarial and other works focused on the Nāmasaṃgīti.²⁸

Historically, it appears that the Yoga tantras closely followed the Caryā. Matsunaga (1977: 177–8) dates the Tattvasaṃgraha in its earliest form to the beginning of the eighth century. More recently Yoritomi (1990: 702) has suggested that it was virtually complete by the latter half of the seventh century, and that in its original form it is older than the Mahāvairocana Tantra. The centrality of Vairocana continues in the Yoga tantras, as does the use of maṇḍalas with a symmetrical arrangement of five principal Buddhas. The names and directions assigned to Buddhas varies somewhat from text to text in the Yoga tantras. Over time, the arrangement of the Vajradhātu maṇḍala of the Tattvasaṃgraha became standard with Vairocana in the centre surrounded by Buddhas Akṣobhya (east), Ratnasaṃbhava (south), Amitābha (west), and Amoghasiddhi (north).²⁹

Although the Tattvasaṃgraha is arguably not as doctrinally sophisticated as the Mahāvairocana, it contains two important and influential narrative episodes. One is a retelling of the story of the historical Buddha’s awakening. The other recounts how the Hindu god Śiva is, out of compassion, violently subjugated by the bodhisattva Vajrapāni. The stories provided two models. The first demonstrated the necessity of tantric practice on the grounds that the Buddha himself received and then followed tantric instruction (see below, ‘Vajrayāna – how distinct a way?’, for further discussion). The second acted as a template and justification for acts of compassionate violence performed by wrathful deities, whose role was to become increasingly prominent in tantric Buddhism.

The concern with soteriology seen in the Mahāvairocana continues in the Yoga tantras. The Yoga tantras also see an increase in the number of families deities were grouped into. The three families of some Kriyā texts – Buddha, Lotus, Vajra – expand to four in the Tattvasaṃgraha with the addition of a Gem (ratna) family. In the Vajraśekhara a fifth family, that of Action (karman), appears. Each of the five principal (‘cosmic’) Buddhas of the maṇḍala was now considered to have his own retinue or ‘family’, comprised of bodhisattvas, offering goddesses, and so on. Historically, the system of five families developed after the system of five Buddhas, onto which it was subsequently mapped. The Vajraśekhara also contains a reference to a sixth family, that of Vajradhara, a Buddha (or principle) seen as the source, in some sense, of the five Buddhas. From this perspective Vajradhara takes on the foundational role played by Vairocana. This is a function also given in some contexts to the figure of Vajrasattva. A further shift that occurs with the expansion of the number of families is that all five (or six) families can be conceived of as ‘Buddhafamilies’ in that they each have a presiding Buddha surrounded by awakened or near-awakened figures. This is in contrast to the three-family system of the Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa, for example, where only members of the central Buddha family were recognised as awakened. Members of the Lotus and Vajra families were unawakened peaceful and fierce deities that had allied themselves with the Buddhist tradition.

The combination of the five-Buddha and five-family system encouraged the establishment of sets of correspondences between the Buddhas, their families and other sets of five. Table 7.1 gives some of these, although not all shown were established by the Yoga tantras. The correlations with the aggregates (skandha) and poisons (‘taints’; kleśa) were made by the Guhyasamāja Tantra (a Mahāyoga tantra) and the Hevajra Tantra (a Yoginī tantra) respectively.

Mahāyoga Tantras

Historically, Mahāyoga tantras, appearing by the end of the eighth century, have clear connections with Yoga tantras. Indeed, there is evidence that these texts were not initially seen as distinct from the Yoga tantras.³⁰ As has been noted, and as their name suggests, Mahāyoga tantras can be seen as an additional division of the Yoga tantra class. The most influential work classified as Mahāyoga is the Guhyasamāja Tantra.³¹ Also included in this class are the Vajrabhairava³² and Māyājāla Tantras, the latter of which is seen by Yoritomi (1990: 708–9) as the exemplar for the Guhyasamāja. The Father tantra section of the Tibetan Kanjur – the equivalent class of the Mahāyoga tantras – contains 37 texts.

The Mahāyoga tantras maintain the five-Buddha and five-family system of the Yoga tantras. However, the Guhyasamāja Tantra has Akṣobhya as its central deity. This reflects a general shift in the Mahāyoga tantras away from the Caryā and Yoga tantra emphasis on Vairocana. Akṣobhya and his Vajra family move to the foreground, paving the way for the ascendance of semi-fierce and fierce deities that dominate the last period of development of tantric Buddhism in India as represented by the Yoginī tantras. Two other features of the Mahāyoga tantras should be noted: the use of sexuality and the (ritual) consumption of forbidden and impure substances. The sexual elements are immediately apparent in the iconography of the five cosmic Buddhas, who are depicted sitting (peacefully and multi-armed) in sexual union with female partners. Also, according to the ritual manuals, an initiand was required to engage in sexualised ritual involving intercourse as part of initiation into the observances and practices of this class. Although sexualised ritual is not completely new – it has a marginal presence in some Yoga tantras – it is in the Mahāyoga tantas that it is first given prominence. The male and female figures in sexual union – whether in iconographical or ritual contexts – are given symbolic value, as are all elements of a maṇḍala, a process known as ‘purification’. The female figure is equated with wisdom (prajñā), and the male with compassionate method (‘means’; upāya). Their union represents the union of wisdom and method, the twin aspects of awakened cognition.

Use of impure or otherwise forbidden substances appears in descriptions of post-initiatory practice, where the consumption of alcohol, meat, and bodily substances such as urine and faeces, is recommended. The issue of transgressive activity is discussed later. For the present, it can be noted that one reason for such behaviour lies in the idea of non-dual (advaya) practice, that is, practice that transcends dualistic categories such as permitted and forbidden, pure and impure. This idea is in turn rooted in the view that the true nature of cognition is in some sense non-dual, and that this non-dual and awakened state can appropriately be approached through non-dual practice. Further, if reality is ultimately non-dual then it can also be argued that all is ultimately pure. Again, purity and impurity become limited conceptual constructs.³³

Within the Mahāyoga commentarial literature, two traditions of Guhyas-amāja Tantra exegesis evolved, retrospectively known as the Jñānapāda and Frya schools, after the names of those that came to be seen as their founders. The Jñānapāda school, almost certainly the earlier of the two traditions, stressed the importance of interpreting the Guhyasamāja Tantra within the doctrinal context of the Mahāyāna. Named after Buddhajñānapāda, who had traditionally studied with the famous Perfection of Wisdom exegete Haribhadra (late eighth century CE), the Jñānapāda school continued to have a following in India for some three hundred years. For example, the famous tantric scholar Abhayākaragupta (late 11th to early 12th century) was said to belong to this school.

The Ārya school was named after (Ārya) Nāgārjuna who wrote an influential work on the stages of tantric meditation, the Pañcakrama. It is generally agreed by scholars that this Nāgārjuna is not the same figure as the philosopher who wrote the Madhyamakakārikā. Other Ārya commentators also had names associated with eminent Mādhyamika thinkers. Thus the Pradīpoddyotana, a Guhyasamāja commentary, and the Caryāmelāpakapradīpa, an important independent treatise, are attributed to Candrakīrti and Āryadeva, respectively. Wedemeyer (2007a) has argued that linking these (and other) texts to names of eminent Mādhyamika authors was likely an intentional strategy to give the texts and the tradition authority. Generally, however, the Yogācāra tradition provided much of the doctrinal framework for tantric Buddhism – its analysis of consciousness, theory of Buddha bodies, and enumeration of types of gnosis (jñāna), to take a few examples. Nevertheless, the Ārya school did give a significant role to the Mādhyamika notion of two truths (conventional and ultimate) in its account of the stages of tantric practice.³⁴

Yoginī Tantras

Texts designated as Yoginī tantras are generally thought to have appeared during the ninth and tenth centuries, and may be taken as representing the final phase of tantric Buddhism in India. The Mother tantra division of the Tibetan Kanjur, the equivalent of the Yoginī class, contains some 82 works, making it the second largest category of tantric scriptures. Yoginī tantras take a variety of figures as the principal deity of the maṇḍala, some of whom have more than one tantra associated with them. As a result, it is possible to speak of the Yoginī tantras as comprising a number of different tantric ‘cycles’ (i.e. comprised of a number of tantras and associated works that centre on particular figures). A major Yoginī cycle is that of the deity Hevajra (‘Oh Vajra!’) and its principal work, the Hevajra Tantra, was the first major tantra to be translated into English. Another Yoginī tantra, the Caṇḍāmahāroṣaṇa Tantra, also named after its principal deity, places Caṇḍamahāroṣaṇa at the centre of the maṇḍala. The tradition associated with Caṇḍamahāroṣaṇa became established in Nepal where there are still shrines dedicated to him (see Gellner 1992: 256). Arguably the earliest of such cycles centres on the important figure of Śrī Heruka (also known as Samvara). Its principal or root tantra is the Cakrasamvara Tantra, also known as the Herukābhidhāna (‘The Discourse of Heruka’). Over time a number of other texts – the Abhidhānottara, Samvarodaya, Yoginīsaṃcāra, Vajraḍāka and Ḍākārṇava Tantras – came to be associated with the Cakrasamvara as explanatory tantras. The Cakrasamvara Tantra itself is a comparatively short (some 700 stanzas) and elliptical text with little direct reference to Buddhist terms or themes, and which displays strong Śaiva influence. None the less, it formed the core of one of the major tantric Buddhist traditions, generating an extensive secondary literature of commentarial and practice related works.³⁵

The Yoginī tantras continue to place most importance on Akṣobhya’s Vajra family, and all the deities mentioned above are fierce or semi-fierce in appearance. Employment of sexual and transgressive elements also continues. What is distinctive about the Yoginī class is its incorporation of symbolism, deities and practices associated with cremation grounds. These are traditions that were strongly influenced, if not dominated, by tantric Śaivism (i.e. traditions focusing on the Hindu god Śiva as the ultimate deity). It is this context that determines the appearance of Yoginī tantra deities. Mahāyoga figures such as Guhyasamāja, though multi-headed and multi-armed, wear the ornaments and attire of royalty, typical of non-tantric Mahāyāna Buddhas and bodhisattvas, and are generally peaceful in appearance. The multi-limbed Yoginī tantra deities, on the other hand, have human bones for ornaments, flayed human and animal skins for clothes, are garlanded with strings of skulls or severed heads (fresh or decaying), and drink blood from cups made of human skulls. They are generally portrayed standing, often in a dancing posture, in sexual union with a female partner of similar appearance. Grimacing expressions, protruding and bloody fangs, flaming hair and eyebrows, and a third eye in the centre of the forehead, indicate their ferocious and wrathful nature.

Although figures of wrathful or angry appearance are present in the Kriyā, Caryā, Yoga and Mahāyoga tantras and their associated practices, they generally fulfil secondary functions, particularly those of protection and subjugation – as, for example, with the bodhisattva Vajrapāṇi’s subjugation of Śiva in the Tattvasaṃgraha. Wrathful deities in the Yoga and Mahāyoga tantras may be fully awakened (i.e. Buddhas, or manifestations of Buddhas) but their maṇḍalas are subsidiary to those of iconographically peaceful figures. In the Yoginī tantras, however, it is the central (and fully awakened) deity who is fierce in appearance and demeanor. How was the ferocity of these figures understood? First and foremost, as a manifestation of a Buddha’s compassion, and thus, essentially, as (just) an appearance of anger. This sort of wrath was seen as being particularly effective in removing obstacles, both external and internal (those obstructing one’s progress on the path). From this perspective the Nāmasaṃgīti (v. 30) can state that ‘the great festival that is great hatred [is] the great enemy of all defilements’.³⁶

The title given to the Yoginī tantras derives from the importance and distinctive roles accorded to female figures in them. The central maṇḍala deities, whether alone or in sexual union, are generally surrounded by dancing female figures called yoginīs or ḍākinīs, whose appearance mirrors that of the central figure or figures. Thus, Hevajra and his consort Nairātmyā are standardly encircled by eight Yoginīs.³⁷ Yoginī tantra maṇḍalas can also have female figures as their central deity. For example, Cakrasamvara’s consort, Vajravārāhc, is important in her own right as a deity who apprears without a male consort at the centre of the maṇḍala.³⁸ Vajrayoginī, Vajraḍākinī, and Kurukullā – the last often seen as a form of Tārā – are among a number of other female figures that also function in this way.

Two further Yoginī tantras should be mentioned. These are the Kālacakra Tantra and one sometimes alluded to, somewhat confusingly, as the Samvara Tantra,³⁹ a short form for the rather daunting Sarvabuddhasamāyogaḍākinījāla-samvara Tantra. The Kālacakra Tantra, which refers to the threat of Muslim incursions, and is generally therefore dated to the early 11th century, is probably the last major scripture of Indian tantric Buddhism. This tantra is familiar to some in the West as a result of the large initiations given into its practice by the present Dalai Lama. It contains a myth of a Buddhist world saviour hidden in the land of Shambhala (prototype for the Shangri La of James Hilton’s 1936 novel Lost Horizon) and a prophesy of future world peace and harmony. As well as having a highly elaborate maṇḍala the Kālacakra differs from other Yoginī works in being composed in a fairly sophisticated classical Sanskrit verse-form. This contrasts with the Sanskritised Middle Indo-Āryan dialects and irregular Sanskrit typical of many Yoginī tantras. It is also a religiously syncretistic text, in the sense that it appropriates ideas and terminology from non-Buddhist traditions. Wallace (2001: 31–42) has suggested that this is in fact a strategy for the conversion of non-Buddhists.⁴⁰

The Samvara Tantra, in contrast, may well be one of the earliest Yoginī works and also the exemplar for the Hevajratantra (Yoritomi 1990: 710). The second part of its full title, ḍākinījālasamvara, ‘the assembly (samvara) of the host of ḍākinīs,’ is a key expression for the Yoginī tantras. It denotes both the assembly of practitioners, who come together for ritual celebrations (gaṇacakra), and also the maṇḍala, or assembly, of Buddhas and their emanations that the assembly of practitioners mirrors and recreates.⁴¹ The full title of the Samvara – ‘the assembly of the host of ḍākinīs, which is the fusion of all the Buddhas’ – denotes the (ritual) identity of these two assemblies. Moreover, the unified gathering of all the Buddhas, equated with that of the ḍākinīs, can also be seen as identical with, or emanating from, a single Buddha. This is an idea articulated in the Hevajra’s full title, Śrīhevajraḍākinījālasamvara, ‘The Assembly of the Host of ḍākinīs, [namely] the Glorious Hevajra’. Implicit in the understanding of these titles is also a play between the meanings of samvara (‘assembly’) and Śamvara (‘bliss’). These are words that were not always distinguished in Indic scripts. The assembly of ḍākinīs, or of practitioners, was also one that gave rise to bliss, which could be homologised with the great bliss (mahāsukha) that was seen as characterising the experience of the final goal, awakened cognition or gnosis.

Another expression found in these texts to describe the non-dual and blissful gnosis of awakening is the rather opaque but important term mahāmudrā (‘the great seal’) which has a complex history and a wide range of meanings and applications (and hence possibilities for confusion). All its usages, however, ultimately derive from the basic sense of the word mudrā to mean a ‘seal’ or ‘sealing mark’. So, for example, in Vilāsavajra’s Nāmasaṃgīti commentary mahāmudrā is identified as bodhicitta (‘the awakening mind’), since bodhicitta ‘marks’ (or is the ‘great mark’ of) all forms of gnosis (Tribe 1994: 97). Mahāmudrā comes to stand for that which is seen as the essential mark or characteristic of mind or reality. Thus in Yoginī tantra literature it can denote emptiness (śūnyatā) – as the ultimate mark of phenomena – as well as the great bliss (mahāsukha) that marks the mind realising that emptiness. Two more senses of mahāmudrā should be noted. By extension it comes to refer to practices leading to the (blissful) realisation of emptiness, including those incorporating visualisation and sexual yoga. At the same time, in other contexts, the term comes to signify forms of non-conceptual contemplation beyond visualisation and sexual yoga, where mind is realised as naturally luminous, blissful, empty and nondual.⁴²

Emerging perhaps by the end of the tenth century, the term siddha (‘accomplished one’) or ‘great siddha’ (mahāsiddha) came to be used for practitioners of Yoginī tantra traditions. A late account of the legendary and often unconventional lives of siddhas is found in Abhayadatta’s Caturaśītisiddhapravṛtti (‘Lives of the Eighty-four Siddhas’). Siddhas were often critical of the world around them, Buddhist or otherwise. Targets of their criticism – which could be witty and biting – included monastic lifestyle and institutions, overpreoccupation with ritual and even yogic practice itself (this despite their writing being imbued with the language and ideology of the Yoginī tantras). An important term, or principle, employed by the siddhas was sahaja, literally ‘born (-ja) together/at the same time (saha-)’, and meaning ‘congenital’, ‘innate’, or ‘natural’. This expression, which has a complex history of development in tantric Buddhism, was employed by siddhas to denote the innate, natural, and hence spontaneous nature of the awakened mind. This idea underpins their cultural critique. Untrammeled natural behaviour, free from artifice, is more aligned with how things are. Much of the unconventional behaviour characteristic of siddhas can be seen in this light. From the perspective of conventional society, they appear to be crazy. From their point of view, however, they are delighting in the spontaneity of blissful non-dual cognition.⁴³

A number of works composed by siddhas survive. These include commentaries on tantras – for example, Kāṇha’s Yogaratnamālā (on the Hevajra Tantra) and Nāropa’s Sekoddeśaṭikā (on a text related to the Kālacakra Tantra). There are short pithy, sometimes witty, semantically complex songs called dohā. Those by Saraha, Kāṇha, and Tilopa were gathered into collections (Dohākoṣa). Also there are collections of variously attributed Caryāgīti (‘Performance Songs’) and Vajragīti (‘Vajra Songs’) that were used in ritual contexts.⁴⁴ Many of these songs have an immediate as well as a personal quality that makes them particularly appealing.

Mantras don’t do a thing, and neither do tantras:
embrace your innermost mistress, and indulge in play.
Until the mistress descends to her inmost home,
why not entertain the five senses?

(Kāṇha, trans. Jackson 2004: 127)

Altogether, there are a very large number of commentarial and other secondary works on the Yoginī tantras, many of which are preserved only in Tibetan translation. Important authors include the towering and prolific figure of Abhayākaragupta,⁴⁵ whose work includes invaluable summaries of maṇḍalas and maṇḍala rituals (Niṣpannayogāvalī and Vajrāvalī), Advayavajra (Advayavajrasaṃgraha), and Ratnākaraśānti (also known as Śanti pa), the Yogācāra exegete. The large Kālacakra Tantra commentary, the Vimalaprabhā, quickly became an influential work and in Tibet was given canonical status.

Vajrayāna – How Distinct a Way?

We have seen that tantric Buddhism from the time of the Yoga Tantras conceived of itself as the Vajrayanā, ‘The Diamond Way’. The Sanskrit word vajra has two primary meanings, ‘thunderbolt’, the weapon of the Vedic god Indra, and also ‘diamond’. Both are significant in the context of its emerging importance within tantric Buddhism. The power of the thunderbolt was seen as symbolic of the power of tantric methods to achieve both worldly and transworldy goals. In the Pāli Suttas the vajra appears as the weapon of Śākymuni’s yakṣa guardian Vajrapāṇi, a name meaning ‘Vajra-in-hand’. Vajrapāṇi, after undergoing a transformation of status into an advanced bodhisattva, becomes a prominent figure in Vajrayāna texts, often functioning as the Buddha’s principal interlocutor. The meaning ‘diamond’ for vajra also has important connotations. Diamonds are the hardest of gems. They are also precious, beautiful and translucent. In the symbolic language of the Yoga tantras, the ultimate nature of things was also diamond-like, pure and radiant, but also strong and indivisible. The Tattvasaṃgraha, in the reworking of the story of Śākyamuni’s awakening, has him visualise an upright vajra in his heart. The visualised vajra is portrayed as stabilising – giving indestructible strength to – the bodhicitta (‘awakening mind’) in Śākyamuni’s heart, and also as symbolising his inner nature. As a result Śākyamuni is given the name Vajradhātu, ‘Vajra-Sphere’, on his attainment of the state of Buddhahood.

In the Kriyā tantras the word vajra in a deity’s name indicated a wrathful nature. Moreover, there was no assumption that such figures were awakened. By the time of the Yoga tantras, however, the word tended to indicate a deity’s awakened, or vajra-, nature. Their appearance may or may not be wrathful. From this point on one sees a proliferation of vajra names. For example, the maṇḍalas of the Tattvasaṃgraha have Vajrapuṣpā (‘Vajra-flower’) and Vajranṛtyā (‘Vajra-dance’) as offering goddesses, bodhisattvas such as Vajraratna (‘Vajragem’), Vajrarāja (‘Vajra-king’) and Vajrarāga (‘Vajra-passion’), and gate-keepers named Vajrapāśa (‘Vajra-noose’) and Vajrāṇkuśa (‘Vajra-hook’). Two other figures with vajra names should be mentioned: Vajradhara (‘He who holds a vajra’) and Vajrasattva (‘Vajra-being’). Both of these have central and complex roles as Tathāgatas in a range of Vajrayāna texts. Snellgrove (1987: 134 ff.), who has traced the ex-yakṣa Vajrapāṇi’s rise to prominence, suggests that Vajradhara and Vajrapāṇi are essentially the same figure.

In its adoption of the vajra as a symbol for the nature of reality the Vajrayāna sets about what may be called a vajra-isation of Buddhism. Thus the name Vajradhātu, given to Śākyamuni in the Tattvasaṃgraha, vajra-ises the Mahāyāna concept of the Dharmadhātu, the ‘dharma-realm’ or ‘dharma-sphere’, the totality seen as it truly is by the awakened, enlightened, mind. The vajra-ised bodhicitta of the Tattvasaṃgraha is embodied as the Tathāgata Bodhicittavajra, an important (albeit transitional) figure of Yoga and Mahāyoga tantras. The role of the vajra as a core symbol in tantric Buddhism continues for the remainder of its history in India, vajra names being characteristic of both Mahāyoga and Yoginī tantra deities. For example, the principal figures of the Mahāyoga Guhyasamāja cycle are Akṣobhyavajra and Mañjuvajra (based, respectively, on Akṣobhya and Mañjuśrī), and Hevajra (from the Hevajra Tantra), Vajrayoginī and Vajravārāhī are all major figures of the Yoginī tantras.

The vajra also became a key ritual object for the Vajrayāna. Generally made of metal, it is comprised of a central sphere from which two prongs emerge at 180 degrees to each other. These prongs may each be surrounded by a number of other prongs – usually four, though occasionally two or eight – that also emerge from the central sphere, curving away from and then back towards the central prongs. Held alone, usually in the right hand, the vajra stands in general for the non-dual and indestructible nature of awakened awareness. In particular, the unity of the two sets of prongs in the central sphere are seen as representing the unity of wisdom (prajñā) and compassion (karuṇā). Held together with a bell, the latter usually in the left hand, the vajra now symbolises compassion and the bell wisdom. Together they stand for the non-dual unity of the awakened mind. As has been noted, this unity can also be symbolised by the sexual union of male and female tantric deities. This sexual unity can itself be symbolised by holding the vajra and bell in a particular way, known as the embrace gesture (mudrā). The vajra thus comes to be associated with the male figure in sexual union. In some contexts the vajra stands more specifically for the penis, a process of association probably aided by the phallic shape of the ritual object. The bell, on the other hand, did not come to stand for the vulva, a role often taken by the lotus flower, anatomical comparisons again probably being influential in the choice.

It is not until this period, then, that the vajra appears to have been accorded any symbolic status in Buddhism, and its rise to prominence within tantric Buddhism probably led to the use of the term Vajrayāna for the path followed by its proponents. The new nomenclature raises the question of the relationship between the Vajrayāna and the Mahāyāna. How distinct a ‘way’ (yāna) is the Vajrayāna? Is it a special path that is none the less part of the Mahāyāna, or is it a path that is distinct from and supersedes the Mahāyāna? The classical hierarchy of three yānas – Hīnayāna, Mahāyāna, and Vajrayāna, (where ‘Hīnayāna’ is, of course, the pejorative Mahāyānist term for mainstream non-Mahāyāna Indian Buddhism) – seems to suggest that Vajrayānists saw themselves as following a path distinct from the Mahāyāna. But, as we have seen, pre-Vajrayāna tantric Buddhism – the Mantranaya – took itself to be a branch of the Mahāyāna. On the whole, Vajrayānist commentators maintained this position, locating the Vajrayāna as a special path within the Mahāyāna. Nevertheless, the inclusion of Buddhahood as a legitimate tantric goal made the Vajrayāna an especially significant, for some even necessary, aspect of the Mahāyāna.

Just as the Mantranaya was an especially efficacious way of attaining this-worldly goals, so the Vajrayāna saw itself as also especially efficacious in the task of attaining the goal of awakening. In particular, it was seen as enabling the practitioner to traverse the path at a much faster rate than before. The Nāmasaṃgīti describes itself as ‘the quick success of those bodhisattvas implementing their practice by means of mantras, and the realisation in contemplation for those intent on the perfection of insight’ (trans. Davidson 1995c: 120). Instead of taking three incalculable aeons to attain Buddhahood – the time generally required according to non-tantric Mahāyāna texts – one could collapse the process into a single lifetime by following the Vajrayāna.

What, then, made the Vajrayāna so effective? One answer, developed in the later Vajrayāna, was to depict its efficacity as owing to its being a ‘Result-Path’. In contrast, the non-Vajrayāna is typifyed as a ‘Cause-Path’. A non-Vajrayānist, in this light, pursues the goal of Buddhahood through the careful maturation of the causes (hetu) that lead to it, for example through the practice of the six or ten Perfections (pāramitā). That is, he or she attains Buddhahood through following the classical bodhisattva path. Vajrayānaists, on the other hand, following the result-path, assume that they have achieved the ‘result’ (phala) – the goal of Buddhahood – already. They perceive themselves, through visualisation and other techniques, as fully awakened, and as inhabiting a pure and radiant world (i.e. the world ‘as it really is’), the external reflex of their awakened cognition. In other words, Vajrayānists, through the process of tantric ritual and meditation, are said to make the result (Buddhahood) part of the path. This is what, according to this view, is unique to the Vajrayanā and what makes it so particularly effective. It should perhaps be reiterated that this conception of the Vajrayanā still locates it as part of the Mahāyāna.

Is there, none the less, a case for saying Vajrayāna goals (and therefore paths) differ from those of the Mahāyāna? Although new conceptions of the goal are found in the Vajrayāna, it is hard to say whether these amount to the goal changing. The use of the expression ‘great bliss’ (mahāsukha) as descriptive of the goal has been noted, as had the fact that it signposts a Vajrayāna revaluation of the significance of pleasure. Also, Vajradharahood is sometimes used in lieu of Buddhahood, though, again, it is not clear that becoming a Vajradhara is essentially different from becoming a Buddha. Snellgrove, who argues that the Vajrayāna is ‘as distinguishable from the Mahāyāna as this is distinguishable from the so-called Hīnayāna’ (1987: 129), takes the view that the word Vajrasattva (‘diamond being’) denotes the Vajrayānist conception of the highest state. It is formed on analogy with its Mahāyāna equivalent, bodhisattva (‘awakening being’) (op. cit.: 131). However, this equation seems problematic in that, practically speaking, the term ‘bodhisattva’ stands not for the goal but for one who is aiming at the goal. Technically at least, the bodhisattva is precisely one who has not attained the goal. Approaching the issue of yānas from a different direction, Gellner (1992: 261) has suggested that separate soteriological ideals – arhat, bodhisattva, and siddha – can be assigned to the Śrāvakayāna (mainstream Buddhism), Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna respectively. The siddha is perhaps a better Vajray-ānist equivalent of the bodhisattva, and the typology serves to give a sense of the differing emphases of the traditions (though the siddha is not present as a type during the early Vajrayāna). Strictly speaking, however, the three ideals are not equivalent. This is because the siddha and arhat have attained the highest goals of their yānas, whereas, even the most advanced bodhisattva has not (though some Mahāyāna sūtras point out the futility of trying to distinguish a tenth stage (bhūmi) bodhisattva from a Buddha).⁴⁶

Although the Vajrayāna is more often than not seen as part of the Mahāyāna, it may, none the less, be seen as a necessary part, in which case tantric initiation and post-initiatory practice become mandatory. But if this view is to be consistently maintained, the historical Buddha cannot be an exception. He too should have been initiated into tantric practice. Yet none of the traditional Mahāyānist or mainstream accounts of the life of Śākyamuni refer to such an event. This omission is remedied by reworking the life story of the Buddha. The first and paradigmatic tantric version of the Buddha’s awakening may well be the one found in the Tattvasaṃgraha.⁴⁷ Here, the future Buddha, known by the variant name ‘Sarvārthasiddhi’ (rather than Siddhārtha), seated on the seat of awakening under the bodhi-tree, is visited by a host of Tathāgatas who tell him that he will not gain awakening by acting like that. Sarvārthasiddhi asks for instruction and the Tathāgatas give him a number of mantras to recite. These generate a series of visual images in his heart, which produce and then stabilise the bodhicitta, ‘the awakening mind’. Next, all the Tathāgatas enter Sarvārthasiddhi’s heart and he is empowered with their combined wisdom. At this point he too becomes a Tathāgata, and is given the name Vajradhātu (‘Vajra-Sphere’). The newly awakened Buddha, accompanied by all the Tathāgatas, is then taken to a palace on the summit of mount Meru where he is installed on a lion-throne. Around him four other Tathāgatas each takes a place in one of the cardinal directions to form a maṇḍala of five Buddhas. Later in the text, the Buddha returns to the bodhi treee on the banks of the river Nairañjanā and the traditional awakening story is resumed.

This retelling of the Buddha’s awakening is remarkable in a number of ways. Not only does it legitimise the place of tantric practice as a key part of the Buddhist path, it also provides the exemplar for tantric initiation and practice. Thus, the tantric practitioner can be seen as rehearsing the actions and experience of the Buddha. The centrality of vajra symbolism is repeatedly underscored: Sarvārthsiddhi sees a vajra in his heart, understands his vajranature, is consecrated as a Tathāgata by all the Tathāgatas entering the vajra in his heart, and given a vajra name.

Elements of Practice

Mantras

Despite the vajra’s symbolic centrality, the use of mantras was at the heart of actual Vajrayāna practice, just as it was for pre-Vajrayāna tantric Buddhism, which as we have seen, identified itself precisely as the Mantranaya, the ‘Way of Mantras’. But what exactly are mantras? Earlier, in the introduction, they were provisionally described as utterances understood to have especial power. They may consist of a syllable or a word, or a series of syllables, or a series of words, and they may or may not make sense. What is important about a mantra is that it has some effect (or power) beyond that of just uttering the sounds of which it is composed. Mantras may be understood as a form of what the philosopher J. L. Austin called ‘performative utterance’. This is an utterance that does something, that functions as action as well as speech.⁴⁸ In the right context the action of a mantra is guaranteed. The mantras given to Sarvārthasiddhi in the Tattvasaṃgraha account of his awakening are described as ‘successful by nature’. Accordingly, he has only to utter the mantra oṃ bodhicittam utpādayāmi, ‘Oṃ I generate the bodhicitta’, and the bodhicitta arises in his heart.

The ‘right context’ for the use of mantras – outside narrative contexts found in scriptures – is that of ritual, and mantras have a range of functions in the effecting of a variety of ritual ends within tantric Buddhism. One common enumeration of (worldly) rituals expands the threefold list of the Susiddhikara mentioned earlier to four: pacifying, nourishing, subjugating and destroying. The narrative of the Tattvasaṃgraha provides an example of a mantra’s use to subjugate, in this case to subjugate Hindu gods.

Then Vajrapāṇi pronounced his own vajra-syllable: HŪṂ! As soon as he pronounced this, all the great gods who belong to the threefold world, fell down on their faces, emitting miserable cries, and they went to Vajrapāṇi for protection.

(Trans. in Snellgrove 1987: 137)

Perhaps the most important use of mantras in tantric Buddhism is in the ritual evocation and visualisation of deities and the universes they inhabit. Mantras – appropriately called ‘seed-mantras’ – generate both the maṇḍala and its deities. Following the primacy of sound over image in Indian religion, the utterance of the mantra almost invariably precedes the visual form. Thus the mantra bhrūṃ creates a floor made of vajras for the maṇḍala; and Tārā and Mañjuśrī emerge from – are transformations of – their respective seeds, tāṃ and dhīḥ.

Once a deity has been fully visualised different mantras – often called ‘heartmantras’ – are employed for its contemplation or for performing functions as the deity. These mantras are generally flanked by mantra particles, which may function independently in other contexts. Thus, a heart-mantra often opens with oṃ and may close with svāhā, hūṃ, or phaṭ. The heart mantras of Tārā and Mañjuśrī are oṃ tāre tuttāre ture svāha and oṃ a ra pa ca na dhīḥ, respectively. The former is usually understood to be a set of variations on her name, and the central five syllables of Mañjuśrī’s are regarded as the opening of an esoteric syllabary.⁴⁹ Uses of mantra particles include the empowering of objects and deities – oṃ, āḥ and hūṃ, for example, for body, speech and mind – and the introduction of deities into a maṇḍala. Thus deities are summoned by jaḥ, drawn in by hūṃ, bound by vaṃ, and made to pervade the maṇḍala by hoḥ The particle phaṭ can be put to use as a weapon mantra to deal with obstacles and foes. Also, mantras are frequently accompanied by ritualised hand gestures (mudrā), for example when making visualised offerings to a deity (for diagrams of some of these see Beyer 1973: 147 ff.).

Historically, the use of mantras is not restricted to tantric forms of religion, and they certainly predate their development. Their origin can be traced at least as far back as the Vedic period where, within the context of brahmanical ritual, they were employed for inviting the various gods to the sacrifice. It would be a mistake, however, to think that the existence of mantras in tantric Buddhism simply represents a borrowing from Hinduism. There are significant continuities between the non-tantric and tantric Buddhist traditions. In Pāli and Theravāda Buddhism paritta verses function similarly to mantras, being used as protective formulae and as talismanic or auspicious words.⁵⁰ In the non-tantric Mahāyāna context, the use of dhāraṇīs in sūtras has been noted. Also, the ‘recollection the Buddha’ (buddhānusmṛti) practices of sūtras such as the Pratyutpanna and the Saptaśatikā Prajñāpāramitā recommend single-minded mantra-like repetition of a Buddha’s name in order to evoke a vision of that Buddha.

Visualisation and Self-Identification with the Deity

Visualisation plays a central role in tantric praxis. Whether the goal is awakening or the protection of a locality’s crops, the relevant ritual usually requires the visualisation of a deity or set of deities, often located within the sacred space of a maṇḍala. Underlying this process is the notion that visualisation transforms the world of appearances to accord more closely with its actual nature, thereby allowing greater opportunity for the practitioner to enact change. This idea becomes prominent from the period of the Cārya tantras, which took the luminous, translucent, magical world of the Gaṇḍavyūha Sūtra as the measure for how awakened cognition would perceive the world.

The employment in tantric praxis of visualisation as such is nothing new: visualisation plays an important role in mainstream and Mahāyāna ‘recollection of the Buddha’ practices (see Beyer 1977 for a broader contextualisation). Arguably, what is new is the self-visualisation of the practitioner as the deity. Doctrinally, this transformation is underpinned by the Mahāyāna doctrine of emptiness (śūnyatā). This is the view that the individual is a not a fixed entity but a changing process that is empty of – depending on one’s allegiance – either intrinsic existence (Mādhyamika), subject-object duality (Yogācāra) or impurity (Tathāgatagarbha). In this perspective, the practitioner is not adopting the identity and powers of an external deity when visualising him- or herself as a deity. On the contrary, the practitioner when seen with the eyes of awakened perception is the deity. Moreover, if the universe is characterised by emptiness then the fluid world of appearances created by tantric visualisation is more real than the hard-edged world of ordinary perception. As Beyer (1973: 69) comments, ‘[i]n a universe where all events dissolve ontologically into Emptiness, the touching of Emptiness in the ritual is the re-creation of the world in actuality’. Without the metaphysical context, however, such self-identifications, and the ritual processes by which they are achieved, look very similar to the local traditions of possession found throughout South and Southeast Asia (Gombrich 1996: 155). Also, the doctrine of emptiness can cut both ways. While the deity is no more real than the practitioner, the deity is also no less real. It is not inconsistent with the Mahāyāna perspective, therefore, to consider tantric deities as actual external entities.

The process of tantric visualisation can be strikingly dynamic. Visual elements transform into one another, or are transformed out of mantras, also visualised. Light rays emanate from and return into deities, acting for the benefit of and transforming the world. The central figure or figures generally dominate a tantric visualisation, and their appearance may be prescribed in minute detail. The Samvarodaya Tantra instructs the practitioner to visualise the deity Heruka (i.e. Samvara) as follows (for a description of Tārā, see Gomez 1995: 320):

He should imagine the auspicious Heruka situated in the midst of the solar disc. He is the hero, three-faced, six-armed and standing in the posture of āliḍha. His central face is deep black; his right face is like a kunda-flower; and his left face is red and very terrible, and is adorned with a crest of twisted hair. Treading on Bhairava and Kālarātrī, he abides in the great pleasure (mahāsukha), embracing Vajravairocanī in great rejoicing of desire of compassion.

(Samvarodaya Tantra, trans. Tsuda 1974: 283)

Maṇḍalas

The role of mantras in the visualisation of a maṇḍala has been noted. Whether within the context of initiation rituals or post-initiatory practice, maṇḍalas play a key role in much of tantric Buddhism. The word maṇḍala is the common Sanskrit word for a circle, disk or wheel. Early Indian political theory used the term to refer to the circle (or circles) of power and influence exerted by a king. Drawing on and modifying this usage, tantric Buddhists employed the word to denote a (generally circular) auspicious sacred space or enclosure.⁵¹ At the centre of the Buddhist maṇḍala, in place of a king, is an awakened deity. The maṇḍala represents the deity’s domain, which may be occupied by a number of subsidiary figures or deities. Since the central figure, the ‘lord of the circle’ (cakreśa), is fully awakened, the maṇḍala may also represent the universe as perceived by awakened cognition. Two further distinctions of usage are worth noting. A ‘maṇḍala’ may denote the abode of the deities – their ‘residence’. It may also denote the deities who occupy the abode – its ‘residents’. And perhaps more usually, the term includes both residence and residents.

Commentarial discussions of maṇḍalas reinforce and elaborate on the notion of a maṇḍala as a sacred space. Employing the tradition of hermeneutical etymology (nirukti), one account explains that the word maṇḍala means ‘that which recieves (-la) an adornment (maṇḍa-)’, deriving the word from the Sanskrit root maṇḍ, to adorn. For this explanation to make sense one needs to understand that the Indian Sanskrit (especially poetical) tradition did not view an adornment as something arbitrary. On the contrary, an adornment is seen as an elaboration, or organic expression, of that which is being adorned. In this interpretation then, a maṇḍala is an expression of the nature of the central deity. An alternative, though not incompatible, explanation is that maṇḍala means ‘that which contains (-la) the essence (maṇḍa-)’, maṇḍa being taken in its sense of ‘essence’ or ‘best part’.⁵² A maṇḍala, in this reading, is that which envelopes the central deity as its essence.

Some features of any given maṇḍala depend on the nature of its central deity. Others are common to most Buddhist maṇḍalas, especially those from the period of the Yoga tantras onwards. Thus, the maṇḍala as a residence, conceived of as a temple-palace, is comprised of a square courtyard, with a gateway in the centre of each side. The central courtyard will occasionally have one or more other courtyards surrounding it concentrically, each with four gates. For instance, the maṇḍala of the Kālacakra Tantra has three major courtyards (see Brauen 1998). The gateways are surmounted by more or less elaborate archways, which like the courtyard walls are adorned and ornamented. In addition there may be an inner circular pillared space within the main courtyard. The whole complex rests on a floor composed of interlinked vajras, and is enclosed within a protective circle, which is frequently composed of three sub-circles of lotus-flower petals, vajras and, on the outside, flames. Once the residence has been constructed, the maṇḍala deities can take their place, with the main deity, or deity and consort, enthroned at the centre, surrounded by the remaining figures of the ‘retinue’, such as Yoginīs, Buddhas, bodhisattvas, offering goddesses, and gate-keepers.

As noted, maṇḍalas were created (and still are, in Tibetan Buddhism) for use within ritual contexts in which a deity was evoked. They could be created either physically or mentally through visualisation (or both); their design might simple or highly elaborate, with a few or hundreds of maṇḍala deities. Occasionally three-dimensional maṇḍalas were built, but two-dimensional representations were more common. More permanent maṇḍalas would be painted on cloth (paṭa), or onto temple walls as murals. Less permanent were maṇḍalas constructed from coloured powder or sand and used for the duration of a particular ritual. It can take a little practice to ‘read’ two-dimensional maṇḍalas since they represent the three-dimensional temple-palace (minus the roof but with the door archways) viewed simultaneously in plan and section view. Descriptions of maṇḍalas are found in both tantric scriptures and commentarial material. Important sources for the study of maṇḍalas and their associated rituals are Abhayākaragupta’s Niṣpannayogāvalī and Vajrāvalī, composed during the late 11th and early 12th centuries. The first contains detailed descriptions of 27 maṇḍalas from across the range of tantric texts; the second deals with rituals that precede initiation into a deity’s maṇḍala.

A range of factors appear to have contributed to the evolution of the standardised and stylised symmetrical maṇḍalas depicted by Abhayākaragupta. Part of the process of development may have involved the symbolism and circular architectural form of the stūpa – an important type of Buddhist monument, in origins a burial mound – combining with Mahāyānist conceptions of Pure Lands and cosmic Buddhas (Leidy 1997: 17 ff.). The oldest surviving Buddhist maṇḍala is arguably the remarkable monument at Borobudur, in central Java, which dates to around the late eighth or early ninth century. Although Borobudur clearly shows the influence of the Yoga tantras (Wayman 1981), it is none the less a composite work that can equally be seen as a complex form of stūpa. Temple murals of Yoga and Mahāyoga type maṇḍalas, dating from the late 11th to early 12th century, have survived at Alchi in Ladakh, and Tabo in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh.⁵³

Maṇḍalas came to play a major role in Indian tantric Buddhist thought and practice. One reason for this was their ability to apply to a range of levels (or ‘domains’). A maṇḍala could represent the whole universe, and also – often concurrently – the body of the individual practitioner. It could also denote a discrete geographical area or social group. In other words maṇḍalas have macrocosmic, microcosmic and mesocosmic levels of application that can, as necessary, be identified with one another. The idea that a maṇḍala of an awakened deity, for example Hevajra, could be identified with a practitioner’s body is linked with the notion that a maṇḍala is identical with the deity at its centre. If Hevajra, like Mahāvairocana, is ultimately identical with the cosmos then the ‘residents’ of the maṇḍala are aspects or emanations of Hevajra.

Further, if the practitioner is ultimately identical with Hevajra (which realisation is the ultimate goal of practice), then the practitioner is ultimately identical not only with Hevajra, but with Hevajra’s whole maṇḍala and, as well, with the whole cosmos. The practice of visualising the maṇḍala in (or as) one’s body was seen as purificatory, a way of undermining or deconstructing one’s everyday (deluded and limited) self-view of existing as a separate, independent and isolated actor. As Gray (2006: 294) observes, this ‘practice tradition encourages a construction of self-identity based on a rather different set of assumptions than those common in the West … [ones that are] considerably more expansive and fluid’.

Sādhana – the Framework of Practice

Mantras, visualisation and maṇḍalas are brought together in texts called sādhanas (literally, ‘means of accomplishment’), works specifically designed to guide the tantric practitioner through a sequence of practice focused on a particular deity. Most sādhanas came to have a broadly similar structure. The components of the sādhana may be more or less elaborated, depending on factors such as the tantra class of the principal deity, the sādhana’s purpose, and the interpretive perspective (and enthusiasm) of the author. Three main phases can be distinguished: (i) preliminaries; (ii) main visualisation(s); (iii) conclusion.⁵⁴ The preliminaries often have as their primary function the situation of the main ritual within a Mahāyānist ethical and doctrinal context. This involves what Beyer (1973: 29, 33) has appropriately called the ‘ritualization of moral attitudes’, and ‘the ritualization of metaphysics’. The ethical setting is characteristically established by a liturgy that develops the positive emotional and altruistic attitudes embodied by the ‘divine abodes’ (or ‘abidings’) (brahmavihāra), and that generates the ‘awakening mind’, the bodhicitta. Also, a more or less elaborate worship (pūjā) may be offered, using mantras and ritual hand-gestures (mudrā) to a visualised assembly of Buddhas and bodhisattvas.⁵⁵ To set the doctrinal context, an experience of the ultimate nature of things – its emptiness or natural purity – is ritually evoked. This is achieved by the recitation of one or more mantras. For example, the ultimately pure nature of reality is evoked with the mantra, oṃ svabhāvaśuddhāḥ sarvadharmāḥ svabhāvaśuddho ’haṃ (‘Oṃ all things are pure by nature, I am pure by nature’).

The visual evocation of the main deity – either identified with or as distinct from the practitioner, or sādhaka (‘one who practices a sādhana’) – follows these preliminaries. It may be more, or less, complex. When the deity is fully evoked, the ritual purpose of the sādhana, worldly or otherwise, may then be affected. The conclusions bring the sādhaka out of the ritual space, back to the ordinary world of ‘public non-reality’ as Beyer nicely puts it (op. cit.: 130). One way of structuring the main visualisation phase of a sādhana should be mentioned. This employs a distinction between what is called the ‘conventional being’ (samayasattva) and the ‘gnosis being’ (jñānasattva). The former expression is used refer to the main deity as initially visualised. This figure is understood to be the deity in appearance only, i.e. the deity ‘by convention’. This ‘conventional being’ is seen as prūparing the way for the actual deity (or the actuality, the jñāna, of the deity), the jñānasattva. Often sādhanas have a phase where the jñānasattva ritually descends into the samayasattva, merging with it. At that point the sādhaka becomes the deity, or the deity ‘really’ appears.

From roughly the time of the Guhyasamāja Tantra all of the above came itself to be seen as a preliminary stage of practice. Termed the ‘creation (or ‘generation’) stage’ (utpattikrama) it was contrasted with a ‘completion (or ‘perfection) stage’ (niṣpannakrama). According to this perspective, even the merging of the samayasattva and jñānasattva is seen as prūparatory, and part of the generation stage. The business of ‘really’ becoming the deity now falls to the completion stage. Completion-stage practices (or ‘yogas’ as they are often called) are less focused on maṇḍala visualisation and more on the body of the individual practitioner. More specifically, they comprise a whole range of yogic practices that manipulate the energies (or ‘winds’; prāṇa) of the subtle body, thought to underlie the gross physical body, with a view to generating a subtle awareness often characterised as luminous, blissful and non-dual. Also, it is at this stage that sexual or erotic elements in yogic practice come more to the fore.⁵⁶ One well-known set of completion-stage yogas is the ‘Six Teachings of Nāropa’, traditionally compiled and transmitted orally to Nāropa by his teacher Tilopa.⁵⁷ During these yogas the sādhaka generally continues to visualise him or herself as the deity. At their conclusion the visualisation of the deity is often dissolved and the sādhaka remains in a blissfully radiant and awakened but formless state. This is not the end, however, for now the sādhaka emerges from this formless state, arising instantaneously as the deity, ‘like a fish leaping from water’, in order to relieve the suffering of sentient beings. Now the sādhaka really is the deity.⁵⁸

Individual Mahāyoga and Yoginī tantra traditions developed different terminologies, structures and conceptual frameworks for practices associated with the completion stage. Thus the Guhyasamāja Jñānapāda school elaborated on a four-limbed sādhana and a six-limbed yoga mentioned in the Guhyasamāja Tantra. The Guhyasamāja Ārya authors, on the other hand, founding their exegesis on (for the most part later) explanatory Guhyasamāja tantras, developed a five- or six-stage model (seen in Nāgārjuna’s foundational Pañcakrama, and Āryadeva’s Cāryamelāpakapradīpa, respectively). The details of these systems can be complex and are beyond the scope of the present work, but it is worth noting that the Guhyasamāja Ārya school took the view that the task (and especial ability) of tantric practice was the production of a Buddha’s form body (rūpakāya) – for the sādhaka to use in his or her post awakening altruistic activity in the world. This, they felt, was the arena where the non-tantric Mahāhyāna, as a consequence of possessing ineffective means, was deficient. On the grounds that the production of an awakened form body was in essentials not dissimilar to that of ordinary birth, the Ārya school focused on the mechanics of the processes occurring in the subtle body (and subtle mind) during ordinary death and rebirth. If these could be practised and mastered through completion stage yogas, awareness could be maintained during the events of actual death and rebirth – and of the intermediate stage between the two when one is thought to possess a subtle body – and the goal achieved.

Access to Tantric Practice: Initiation and Empowerment

As has been emphasised earlier, tantric practice is not available simply by virtue of being a Buddhist who has taken either lay or monastic vows. In addition to any such vows, it is necessary to receive consecration or empowerment (abhiṣeka)⁵⁹ through a ritual of initiation. In any given initiation ritual the pupil, who has previously requested initiation from a tantric teacher or – within the context of the Vajrayāna – Vajra-master, may receive a number of empowerments. These have the function of introducing the pupil to the deity, and legitimising and requiring post-initiatory practice. The empowerments take place within a ritual space that contains the maṇḍala of the appropriate deity. The precise number of empowerments bestowed depends on the nature of the tantric cycle involved. Generally speaking, initiations into Mahāyoga and Yoginī tantras require more empowerments than those into Yoga, Cārya and Kriyā tantras.

In detail empowerment rituals are often complex. The history of their development is as yet only partially understood. Despite considerable overlap, the number of empowerments, as well as their interpretation, varies somewhat from text to text in each phase of the tradition. Nevertheless, by the time of exegetes such as Abhayākaragupta some standardisation is apparent. His Vajrāvalī describes a set of six or seven empowerments regarded as preliminary for initiation into Mahāyoga and Yoginī tantras. These may be taken as typifying those required for Yoga tantra initiation.⁶⁰ The set of seven is composed of the garland, water, crown, vajra, bell, vajra-name and Vajra-master empowerments. Omitting the Vajra-master empowerment, which is required only for those intending to conduct tantric rituals themselves, gives the set of six.

The first empowerment, the garland, determines the initiand’s Buddha-family and follows a number of preliminary rites. It broadly proceeds as follows. The pupil is led blindfold before the maṇḍala and given a flower. He (or, more occasionally, she) imagines himself to be the flower, visualises the central maṇḍala deity in front of him, and casts the flower to the deity. The place where it lands on the maṇḍala – east, south, west or north of the centre, or on the centre – reveals the identity of his Buddha-family. The flower is then fastened in the pupil’s hair as part of the garland from which the empowerment takes its name. Next, the blindfold is removed and the rest of the empowerments continue. As they do so, the Vajra-master is engaged in what may be quite complicated visualisations that accompany the external ritual actions. Thus, an empowerment ritual into the Hevajra maṇḍala contains the following instructions to the Vajra-master for the water empowerment:

Then from the three places (forehead, throat and heart) of Hevajra he [the Vajra-master] envisages manifestations coming from lightrays and filling the sky, and the (eight) goddesses thus manifest hold a jewelled jar and they consecrate the pupil on the top of the head with a stream of bodhicitta. Thus he envisages it, as he takes the water in the scoop and bestows the Water Consecration, reciting the mantra: OṂ Vajra-Jar consecrate HŪṂ!

(Prajñāśrī, Abhiṣekavidhi, trans. in Snellgrove 1987: 254)

The water empowerment is clearly linked with ideas of purification, and in Prajñāśrī’s text water is homologised with bodhicitta (‘the awakening mind’), the latter understood as being what is truly purifying. Prajñāśrī also links the water empowerment and the four that follow with the five Buddhas (Akṣobhya etc.), giving the ritual an extra layer of symbolism. Thus, in the fourth and fifth empowerments the initiand is given the vajra and bell. As the two major Vajrayānist ritual implements, these already carry a heavy load of symbolic meaning. Onto this Prajñāśrī adds all that Amitābha and Amoghasiddhi stand for. The mandatory part of the ritual culminates with the vajra-name empowerment. Here, the pupil is given a new name, which is determined in part by his or her Buddha-family as identified during the first empowerment.

If one desires initiation into the maṇḍala of a Mahāyoga or Yoginī tantra deity, for example Guhyasamāja or Samvara, further empowerments are required. The earlier set of six or seven is now taken together and counted as a single empowerment, sometimes known as that of the jar. To this two or three further, or ‘higher’, empowerments are added. These additional empowerments are generally known as ‘the secret’, ‘the knowledge-of-wisdom’ – or just ‘wisdom’ (prajñā) – and, when it occurs, ‘the fourth’ (caturtha). This nomenclature of the final empowerment does no more than describe its place in the new fourfold series that starts with the (multiple) jar empowerment.

The secret and wisdom empowerments were controversial in India for the sexual elements in them. They may still seem shocking today. The secret empowerment, which follows the completion of the jar empowerments, requires the pupil being initiated, who in the texts is generally presumed to be male, to lead the female who will be his tantric partner to the Vajra-master. The Vajra-master sexually unites with her. After ejaculating, the Vajra-master collects some of the combined sexual fluids, symbolically equated with bodhicitta, from the woman’s vagina. This he places on the tongue of the pupil, who must swallow it without hesitation, exclaiming, according to the Caṇḍāmahāroṣaṇa Tantra (3.62), ‘O Bliss!’. For the wisdom empowerment, the Vajra-master returns the woman to the pupil, who in turn unites with her. As he does so, the pupil should (in theory) experience a series of four states of joy (ānanda).

These are understood to arise progressively as a result of this union of wisdom (i.e. the female partner) with compassionate method (i.e. the male partner). The fourth empowerment, if it occurs, may consist of the Vajra-master explaining to the pupil the nature of the four blisses that he has just experienced. During this the Vajra-master may quote from tantras and songs composed by the siddhas.⁶¹

This highly abbreviated description of Mahāyoga and Yoginī tantra empowerments broadly follows the more extended summary of Abhayākaragupta’s Vajrāvalī given by Sanderson (1994: 90). It should be sufficient to indicate the reason for their controversial nature. One reaction to such practices and the texts that justified them was to argue that they could not be Buddhist. This was the response of at least some Indian Buddhists, as it was of Chinese Buddhists, including those who followed the Vajrayāna of the (somewhat expurgated) Yoga tantras (Sanderson 1994: 97). If, however, they are accepted as Buddhist practices, then for a monk to receive the secret and wisdom empowerments as described would be to infringe monastic vows of celibacy. Moreover, if it is accepted that this form of tantric Buddhism is necessary for the attainment of the highest goal, an especially awkward consequence follows. It appears that the goal is now only available to non-monastics or laypersons. Even if these practices are regarded as no more than highly efficacious means of realising the goal, they still appear to be closed to the monastic Sangha.

Aside from the rejection of the controversial empowerments and their associated practices as non-Buddhist, it is possible to distinguish three sorts of strategy that evolved in India in response to these issues. The first takes the position that sexual elements are a mandatory part of the secret and wisdom empowerments. Monks therefore should not receive them. Atiśa takes this stance in his Bodhipathapradīpa, but qualifies it by adding that as long as the Vajra-master empowerment has been taken, a monk may listen to and explain all tantras, and may practice and officiate in appropriate tantric ritual. He further states that the omission of these empowerments does not impair a monk’s wisdom in any way (see Sherburne 1983: 176–8).⁶² This tactic, while admitting the necessity of sexual activity in the secret and wisdom empowerments, downplays their value.

A second strategy was to argue that monks could take the secret and wisdom empowerments, but only by using an imagined (jñānamudrā) rather than an actual (karmamudrā) partner. This approach rests on reading textual descriptions of outer physical actions (i.e. of sexual acts) as symbolising, or as ideally symbolising, internal actions and experiences. Thus, texts can be interpreted either as intending visualised partners, or as intending physical partners only for those of poor spiritual capacities. Downplaying the importance of actual sexual activity becomes increasingly typical of the later, and largely monastic, exegetical literature. A shift in this direction be seen in the Pañcakrama’s (ii: 37) comment that ‘he who does not join vajra (i.e. penis) and lotus (i.e. vagina) in the conventional way (i.e. physically) will achieve success through the power of yoga, even if he has experienced it (in that way) just once’.⁶³ Here, ‘just once’ can be read as referring to the occasion of initiation. In other words, actual sexual intercourse may be necessary during the secret empowerment itself, but after that a visualised partner is preferable.

Abhayākaragupta (Vajravalī) and Darpaṇācārya (Kriyāsamuccaya) adopt a third approach by arguing that monastics (as well as non-monastics) can take all the ‘higher’ empowerments, understood literally, i.e. as requiring actual sexual intercourse. They can do so, moreover, without contravening the monastic code. There is, however, the proviso that they have attained insight into the empty nature of things. The purpose of this qualification is to ensure that candidates’ motives are pure and that they will be capable of benefiting from the empowerments. In defence of this position there could be an appeal to the relativist ethics of the Mahāyāna. This permits that ‘even the forbidden is allowed in the case of the man who is compassionate and intent on the welfare of others’ (Kriyāsamuccaya, quoted by Sanderson 1994: 101). Thus, according to these authors at least, there is no contradiction between a individual’s vows as a monk and as a Vajra-master of the Mahāyoga and Yoginī tantras.

Impure Substances and Antinomian Acts: the Transgressive Dimension of Tantric Buddhism

The sexual elements in initiation rituals and post-initiatory practice were not the only aspects of the Vajrayāna that had the potential to shock. The existence of a transgressive dimension as a feature of tantric Buddhism has been noted, as has the use of impure or forbidden substances as a characteristic of Mahāyoga tantras. Mahāyoga tantras are also striking for their seeming recommendation that the practitioner should contravene fundamental Buddhist ethical precepts. Passages referring to both of these types of activity are also prominent in Yoginī tantras.

Post-initiatory gatherings (gaṇamaṇḍala) – often referred to as ‘tantric feasts’ – of tantric practitioners can be seen to particularly focus on the impure and forbidden. The Hevajra Tantra (II: vii 8) recommends corpses or corpseshrouds for the participants’ seats, both highly impure because of their association with death. For the feast itself the text specifies that there should be alcohol to drink (forbidden to monks), and to eat there should be ‘spiced food’ – a mixture, according Kāṅha’s Yogaratnamālā commentary, of cow, dog, elephant, horse and human meat – as well as ‘kingly rice’. This ‘kingly rice’ is the flesh of particular sorts of humans. Consumption of impure substances is also emphasised in descriptions of individual post-initiatory observance. As a part of yogic practice with his female partner, the practitioner is enjoined (among other things) to ‘drink her mouth-wash and wash-water of her Lotus’, and to ‘wash his mouth with the wash-water of her anus’ (Caṇḍāmahāroṣaṇa Tantra vii: 9–10, trans. George 1974).

In the earlier discussion of the Mahāyoga tantras, it was suggested that an important notion underlying the use and consumption of what was considered impure or forbidden was that of non-dual (advaya) practice. This is the idea that since awakened cognition or gnosis (jñāna) is in some sense non-dual, the tantric practitioner can approach that non-dual state by transcending attachment to dual categories such as pure and impure, permitted and forbidden. Thus the Caṇḍāmahāroṣaṇa Tantra (op.cit.: vii: 18–9) states that ‘never should the practitioner think in terms of “edible” or “inedible,” “to be done” or “not to be done”’; on the contrary, he ‘should remain with a composed mind, the embodiment of Innate Bliss alone’. The Guhyasamāja Tantra (v: 7) concurs, declaring that ‘it is thus that the wise man who does not discriminate achieves buddhahood’ (quoted in Snellgrove 1987: 171). From this perspective, since contact with what was considered impure would be repulsive to many Indians at this time, it was precisely such contact that needed to be practised.⁶⁴

Another factor possibly at play here is related to a view that tantric forms of religion are at heart concerned with the quest for power or, more precisely, powers (siddhi), whether worldly or soteriological. One sphere where power is to be found is in those things or activities that are seen as impure. As Gombrich (1996: 155) notes, Indian (largely Brahmanical) ideas and rules of purity presume ‘that the world is full of dangerous forces’ that have to be controlled and contained. One way of doing this is by designating them as impure. From this perspective, contact with the impure is a means to harness its inherent power, and within a ritual context it can be drawn upon, but in a controlled way. The power and benefit of using the impure is acknowledged in the Caṇḍāmahāroṣaṇa Tantra (vii: 14–5) when it explains that eating unclean things is like applying manure to a tree so that it will become fruitful.

The apparent endorsement of unethical behaviour found in Mahāyoga and Yoginī tantras can be illustrated by Vajradhara’s declaration in the Guhyas-amāja Tantra (v: 4–5) that ‘those who take life, who take pleasure in lying, who always covet the wealth of others, who enjoy making love, who purposely consume faeces and urine, these are the worthy ones for the practice’ (quoted in Snellgrove 1987: 170–1). Almost identical recommendations are found in the Hevajra Tantra (II: iii 29): ‘You should kill living beings, speak lying words, take what is not given, consort with the women of others’. How should these passages be understood? Should they be taken literally, as further instance of non-dual practice, or of the drawing of power from the forbidden? The passages quoted invert the universal Buddhist precepts concerning killing, stealing, lying and sexual activity. The intention seems, in part at least, to be to shock. In the Guhyasamāja Tantra the assembled bodhisattvas all faint and fall to the ground on hearing Vajradhara’s words.

Whether these recommendations were ever taken literally or not, non-literal interpretations are often found in adjacent passages of the same texts. Thus, the Hevajra Tantra follows its statement with explanations. For example, to kill is develop one-pointed cognition by destroying the life-breath of discursive thoughts. To lie is to vow to save all living beings. The whole device – of saying something that appears shocking and then explaining what is really meant – is reminiscent of passages from the Perfection of Wisdom sūtras. An alternative interpretive strategy is to see such passages in the light of the expanded and relativistic perspective Mahāyānist ethics. Under certain circumstances precepts may be broken if compassion is the motive. Both of these approaches are found in the commentarial literature. For instance, by using the Mahāyāna device of explicit (or definitive, nītārtha) and implicit (neyārtha) meanings, the Vimalaprabhā commentary to the Kālacakra Tantra gives two explanations for each exhortation to unethical activity. Hence, at the explicit level, killing denotes a Buddha’s ability to kill in some specific situations. At the implicit level, killing refers to the (yogic practice of) retaining of semen (Broido 1988). In conclusion, the recommendations to transgress Buddhist ethical norms seem not intended to be taken in their most literal sense. In contrast, those advocating association with what is impure do seem, for the most part, so intended.

Tantric Practitions

If we ask who were the practitioners of tantric Buddhism, the answer will depend, as so often, on the phase of tantric Buddhism being considered. The evidence suggests that the practitioners of the Kriyā and Cārya tantras were probably monks. We have seen how these texts tend to speak of their rituals as valuable tools for the bodhisattva following the Mantranaya, the ‘Way of Mantras’, conceived of as part of the Mahāyāna. Despite the existence of late Indian texts describing the practices of householder bodhisattvas, these forms of tantric Buddhism probably had their primary location in the monastic arena. It is not clear whether this changes at all with the appearance of the Vajrayanā as a self-conscious tradition in the Yoga tantras. The issue of the origins of tantric Buddhism, to be discussed in the next section, should not be confused with the question of who its practitioners were. Although it may well be the case that a number of the rituals found in these three classes of tantras had their origins outside the Buddhist monastic context it is still likely that they were in the large practised by monastics. Significantly, the major figures in the transmission of the Cārya and Yoga tantras to China in the eighth century – Śubhakarasiṃha, Vajrabodhi and Amoghavajra – were all monks.

With the Mahāyoga and the Yoginī tantras the characteristics of the practitioner change. The ideal of the Yoginī tantras is the siddha, typically portrayed in Abhayadatta’s Caturaśītisiddhapravṛtti (‘Lives of the Eighty-Four Mahāsiddhas’) as a non-monastic, non-celibate yogin or Yoginī, living on the margins of society, frequenting cremation grounds, and generally behaving in an unconventional manner. Abhayadatta’s text, however, is written perhaps some 200 years after many of the figures it portrays were alive. It also has a somewhat stylised and stereotyped presentation. In consequence, as a source of historical evidence, its descriptions have to be treated with caution.

Nevertheless, it is clear that the Yoginī tantras were also practised in a monastic setting – witness the debate over whether monks should or should not take the secret and wisdom empowerments. That both householder and monastic Vajra-masters coexisted during this period is also clear from a passage in the Vimalaprabhā that (revealing its monastic bias) criticises monks who take a householder Vajra-master as their teacher in preference to a monk Vajra-master when one was available (Sanderson 1994: 92). The same text also denounces the use of married Vajra-masters to perform rituals of consecration for monasteries. Scholars disagree on the issue of whether the Yoginī tantras were initially practised by monastic or non-monastic Buddhists. The tendency of some Yoginī tantra commentaries to give internal or symbolic readings of the more controversial material in the primary texts can be taken as evidence of monastic Buddhism incorporating forms of practice that were initially non-monastic. Alternatively, some practices may have been incorporated directly into a monastic context from outside the Buddhist tradition.

Women in Tantric Buddhism

The introduction to this chapter suggested that the high status and crucial roles given to women and to female deities could be counted as one of tantric Buddhism’s distinctive features. This characterisation seems applicable, essentially, to just the phase of the Mahāyoga and (more especially) the Yoginī tantras. The earlier discussion of Yoginī tantras observed that they derive their name from the central role that female figures play in them. As Yoginīs and ḍākinīs, they comprise the maṇḍala deities surrounding the central figure. As (among others) Tārā and Vajrayoginī they may function as the central deity.⁶⁵ There is no question as to the high status accorded to female figures in the Yoginī texts:

Women are heaven, women are the teaching (dharma)

Women indeed are the highest austerity (tapas)

Women are the Buddha, women are the Sangha

Women are the Perfection of Wisdom.

(Caṇḍāmahāroṣaṇa Tantra viii: 29–30)

This same text warns (in Chapter 6) that those who slander women will be tortured in hell for three aeons. Rather, women should be honoured and respected as embodiments of female deities. Non-tantric Mahāyāna texts often take a perspective that appears – in spite of the rhetorical intent – to contrast vividly:

You have plenty of filth of your own. Satisfy yourself with that! Glutton for crap! Forget her, that other pouch of filth!

(Sāntideva, Bodhicāryavatāra 8: 53, trans. Crosby and Skilton 1995)

The shift in attitude towards women exemplified in the Caṇḍāmahāroṣaṇa Tantra can be seen as part of the broader revaluation of (sexual) pleasure and the body found in these texts. Moreover, if what is impure is not to be seen as disgusting, but is to be equally embraced with the pure, then Śantideva’s emphasis on the impurity of women becomes counterproductive.

Despite the status given to women in the Yoginī tantras there is controversy as to whether this status was mirrored ‘on the ground’ in the world of tantric practitioners. Freedom from social subordination does not necessarily follow from high ideological status.⁶⁶ One perspective is that tantric Buddhism, whatever its rhetoric, was generally for men. This is the view of Snellgrove (1987: 287), who argues that ‘despite the eulogies of woman in these tantras and her high symbolic status, the whole theory and practice is given for the benefit of males’. It has further been suggested that not only were the practices of these tantras essentially for men but that, in the process, women – particularly low-caste women used as tantric consorts – were often exploited. A very different view of the role of women in late tantric Buddhism has been advanced by Miranda Shaw (1994). Shaw argues that not only did women have a key role in tantric theory but that they were prominent as adepts in tantric circles, and that they figured as founders and pioneers in tantric Buddhism’s history. She suggests, moreover, that their position in relation to male tantric practitioners, was not one of being exploited but, on the contrary, one of intimacy and equality, if not of superiority (as their teacher).

The comparative paucity of historical evidence makes the assessment of the social realities of eighth to 12th century tantric Buddhism especially problematic, and the issue of the actual role of women in this phase of the tradition is likely to remain controversial. In support of Shaw’s case, there is evidence of women functioning as tantric teachers as well as practitioners, and a number of tantric texts are attributed to women.⁶⁷ Many of siddhas in Abhayadatta’s Caturaśītisiddhapravṛtti receive decisive teachings from their female tantric partners, who are often also portrayed as their long-term companions.⁶⁸ On the other hand, the Mahāyoga and Yoginī tantras generally (the Caṇḍāmahāroṣaṇa Tantra is a partial exception⁶⁹) fail to provide for women taking the secret and wisdom empowerments, and although women play key roles as tantric partners in Abhayadatta’s ‘biographies’, only four of the 84 siddhas are women. Given the difficulties associated with straightforwardly viewing Abhayadatta’s text as a historical document, such roles that women have may be as much symbolic as actual. Also, despite the existence of some tantric texts written by women, the vast majority are written (or at least attributed) to men.⁷⁰

Origins and Influences

That tantric Buddhism did not evolve in isolation from the broader religious culture of its time has been noted. Traditions focused on the gods Śiva and Viṣṇu, as well as Devī (the Goddess), became an increasingly prominent part of Indian religion after the rise of the Gupta dynasty (c. 320–550 CE) in the north. Also significant, especially from about the seventh century, were tantric forms of religion centred on these deities. In particular, tantric Śaivism (traditions focused on Śiva) had a following in areas such as Kashmir (and, more latterly, Bengal) that were centres for tantric Buddhism. Indeed, by the seventh century, in the face of such competition, Buddhism seems to have been somewhat in decline. This, at least, is the picture conveyed by the journal of the famous seventh century Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Xuanzang (Hsüan-tsang). In any case, it is clear that Buddhism was vying with other traditions for both patronage and adherents.⁷¹

In response to the competing attractions and soteriologies of these non-Buddhist traditions, tantric Buddhism adopted a number of strategies. Essentially all of these can be seen as forms of inclusion, whereby non-Buddhist deities and rituals are incorporated as forms of Buddhism. One approach was to contend that the traditions concerned were never anything but Buddhist. Thus the Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa reveals that the rituals of the non-Buddhist deities Tumberu and his sisters were originally taught many aeons ago by the Buddha. It is only recently that they have been taught by Śiva.⁷² A more general form of this strategy is found in the Mahāvairocana Tantra where non-Buddhist traditions are presented as having been taught by Buddhas who, out of their compassionate skill in teaching according to individuals’ differing needs, took the form of figures such as Maheśvara (Śiva) and Nārāyaṇa (Viṣṇu) (Hodge 2003: 52). From this perspective, all religion becomes Buddhist.

A second type of strategy is the (sometimes forcible) subjugation of non-Buddhist deities. Subjected deities go for refuge to the Buddha, after which their rituals may be incorporated though with new mantras substituted for the non-Buddhist ones. A highly vivid, as well as influential, example of this form of incorporation occurs in the Tattvasaṃgraha. This text contains a detailed narrative of the subjugation of Śiva by Vajrapāṇi. Śiva is particularly resistant to conversion, however. He has to be killed and revived, and finally trampled underfoot, along with his wife Umā, by Vajrapāṇi. After receiving tantric empowerments in this position from Vajrapāṇi’s foot, Śiva achieves awakening and, renamed, becomes a Buddha in a distant world system.⁷³ Davidson (1995a) has suggested that this story, which was to become one of Tibetan Buddhism’s central myths, had its origins in the story-telling of itinerant Buddhist teachers who had to deal with competing religious traditions as they wandered from village to village. Only later, he argues, was it incorporated into the textual and monastic traditions.

With the Mahāyoga and Yoginī tantras, questions of origins arise in somewhat different form. Some scholars argue that these texts, and especially the Yoginī tantras as typified by the Hevajra Tantra with its adoption of cremation-ground practices, represent a radically new form of tantric Buddhism (see, for example, Snellgrove 1987: 180–1). According to this view, such texts have their origin amongst groups of wandering non-celibate yogins that gathered, especially in cremation-grounds, to practise their rituals. Only later were they incorporated into the sphere of monastic Buddhism. It is further argued that this is the source not only for Buddhist Yoginī tantras, but also for Śaiva tantras that contain similar features, and that it represents an common yogic substratum that both traditions drew upon.⁷⁴ More recently Alexis Sanderson (1994, 2001, 2009) has questioned the validity of this sort of model. Sanderson, though agreeing that certain Śaiva and Buddhist tantric texts share a large number of features, argues that, in specific instances at least, this can be explained as the result of borrowing on the part of Buddhists. He has been able to convincingly demonstrate that extensive passages in Cakrasamvara cycle tantras such as the Cakrasamvara, the Abhidhānottara and the Samvarodaya, were redacted from tantras in the Vidyāpīṭha section of the Śaiva canon. Sanderson also quotes a Śaiva text, the Haracaritacintāmaṇi, which makes it clear that the Śaiva tradition was quite aware that their texts had been used in this way (1994: 93).⁷⁵

It appears, in conclusion, that the strategy of dealing with the threat of competing traditions by incorporating aspects of them continues into the period of the Yoginī tantras. The question of whether the Buddhist redactors of these texts were wandering yogins or monks remains to be settled, though whoever they were, they needed access to a range of Śaiva texts. Whatever the case – and paralleling earlier phases of Buddhism (tantric or otherwise) – the borrowed elements were assimilated into the Buddhist context, making tantric Buddhism, as Sanderson comments ‘entirely Buddhist in terms of its function and self-perception’ (1994: 96).

Key Points to Chapter Seven

Tantric Buddhism is a form of Buddhism that emphasises particular sorts of ritual and meditative practice. Though it developed distinctive concepts and attitudes to practice and its goals, it is neither a philosophical school (vāda) nor a sect (nikāya). Tantric practice came to be seen as especially effective in achieving both this-worldly and ultimate goals. An extensive tantric Buddhist literature includes scriptures – latterly known as tantras – as well as commentaries, ritual manuals and independent treatises.
Initially employing the name Mantranaya, ‘The Way of Mantras’, tantric Buddhism developed as a self-conscious tradition sometime during the seventh century ce. Perhaps within a hundred years, it became known as the Vajrayanā, ‘The Diamond (or Thunderbolt) Way’, in which form it increasingly dominated Buddhist praxis in India.
In both its Mantranaya and Vajrayanā forms tantric Buddhism is generally portrayed by its adherents as being located within Mahāyāna thought. However, tantric practice may nevertheless be seen as necessary for the attainment of Mahāyāna goals, with Vajrayanā traditions presenting themselves as enabling a rapid, ‘in this lifetime’, attainment of Buddhahood that would otherwise take many aeons to achieve.
Buddhist tantric practice generally centres on the ritual evocation and worship of a deity who is understood to be fully awakened. The use of mantras allied with techniques of visualisation is a key element in this process, which presupposes prior initiation into the deity’s maṇḍala. Later forms of practice incorporated yogas employing a subtle-body anatomical model.
Tantric Buddhism resists a simple single-characteristic (monothetic) definition. A more productive (and polythetic), approach lists a set of tantric features, a significant proportion and varying subset of which will be present in any given instance of a tantric practice or tradition. Such a list might include:
- Use of mantras, visualisation and initiation
- Use of maṇḍalas and mudrās
- An emphasis on secrecy (esotericism)

Over time tantric Buddhist writers categorised tantric scriptures in a number of ways. These classifications were often broadly chronological in nature, earlier categories reflecting earlier phases of the tradition. An overview of the dominant features of each tantra class can therefore give a sense of the evolution of tantric Buddhist concerns, perspectives and structures. Thus:

Kriyā tantras – have ritual as their dominant focus, with generally this-worldly goals.
Cārya tantras – include ‘inner’ meditative visualisation along with ‘outer’ ritual; increasingly emphasise on ultimate goals (i.e. on soteriology); place the cosmic Buddha Vairocana at the centre of the maṇḍala.
Yoga tantras – foreground soteriology; develop five Buddha families for five (directional) Buddhas located in a symmetrical maṇḍala; continue to place Vairocana at the heart of the maṇḍala; narrate the Buddha’s awakening in tantric terms.
Mahāyoga tantras – place Akṣobhya’s vajra family at the centre of the maṇḍala; depict the (peaceful) Buddhas of the maṇḍala in sexual union; develop ‘higher’ initiations involving sexualized ritual; advocate the ritual consumption of impure substances; (seemingly) suggest contravening ethical precepts.
Yoginī tantras – have fierce or semi-fierce Buddhas from the vajra family at the centre of the maṇḍala; incorporate deities, practices and symbols from cremation ground cults; give a crucial role to Yoginīs, fierce female figures who populate the maṇḍalas.

Distinctive concepts for describing the nature and experience of the awakened mind are elaborated in tantric Buddhism’s later phases. Awakening may be characterised as great bliss (mahāsukha), as natural, innate, and spontaneous (sahaja), and as possessing a great mark or seal (mahāmudrā), variously understood as bliss, emptiness and bodhicittta.

The number of empowerments (abhiṣeka) required for entry into the practices and obligations of a tantric tradition varied; over time, however, the number increased. Some standardisation had occurred by the Yoga tantras, which mandated either six or seven empowerments. Grouped together, these became the first of a set of four ‘higher’ empowerments. Two of these, the ‘secret’ and the ‘knowledge of wisdom’ empowerments, were controversial for their sexual elements.

The ritual consumption of impure substances was understood as an aspect of non-dual practice, in which tendencies to view the world dualistically, in terms, for example, of ‘pure’ and ‘impure’, are overcome by associating with what is (conventionally seen as) impure. An alternate understanding is that contact with the impure gave access to the powerful and dangerous forces that it was perceived as containing.

Tantric Buddhism existed in India within a wider culture that included non-Buddhist (particularly Śaiva) tantric traditions. In response to their competing attractions and soteriologies, tantric Buddhism adopted strategies of inclusion whereby non-Buddhist deities and rituals were incorporated as forms of Buddhism. Thus, rituals could be claimed as originally Buddhist, or non-Buddhist deities could be subjugated (by Buddhist deities) and their rituals subsequently adopted.