"The Mother Goddess and Tantric Shaktism", Part II

[Guest guest]

Many thanks to peNkaLai and anildivine for taking the time to

comment on the first installment (at Post #7245, above), and also to

any "silent members" who read and enjoyed but did not post. Here is

Part II:

 

THE MOTHER GODDESS AND TANTRIC SHAKTISM (continued)

 

In its developed form, the Shakta religion became almost identical

with Tantricism. It should be pointed out in this connection that

Tantric ideas – generally regarded as the basis of the Shakta

religion – profoundly influenced different religious sects and

radically changed their views and practices.

 

"Tanticism," as S.B. Dasgupta rightly observes, "is neither Buddhist

nor Hindu in origin. It seems to be a religious undercurrent,

originally independent of any abstruse metaphysical speculation,

flowing from an obscure point of time in the religious history of

India."

 

There is reason to believe that primitive Tantricism was a practical

means to stimulate the generative powers in nature, and as such it

was closely related to the Mother Goddess – the puissant and

eternally active "Shakti," representing the force of life in nature.

We find a considerable degree of unity among people in different

parts of the world in respect of such primitive beliefs. There are

traces of Tantric rituals in the material remains of Harappa and

Mohanjodaro. In later Vedic literature also we come across sex rites

associated with agriculture, and this stream of thought and action

did not cease to exist in subsequent ages.

 

The primitive basis of the Tantric Pañca-mākara or

Pañca-tat=

tva –

the use of madya (wine), māmsa (meat), matsya (fish), mudra

(cereals) and maithuna (sexual intercourse) – can be established on

investigation. Sexual rites related to fertility magic are common to

all forms of primitive religion, as Frazer and Briffault have

wonderfully demonstrated. Erotic practices associated with the

goddess cult are older than the Tantric and Taoist texts themselves.

 

This also holds good in the case of the rites of wine and fish.

Thanks to the research of Briffault, we can now easily connect the

use of wine, as a pre-condition of sexual intercourse, with

fertility magic. Fish is also closely associated with matriarchal

beliefs as a fertility symbol. Aphrodite, the fish goddess, was

worshiped as the bestower of all animal and vegetative fruitfulness,

and – under this aspect – especially as a goddess of women. The

relation between fish and the Mother Goddess is a very common

feature of primitive religion.

 

Geometrical patterns, like the Tantric diagrams [yantras]

representing the female genitalia, were well known in the

Mesopotamian and Aegean world, and their appearances on the persons

of certain goddesses like Artemis, Hera, Demeter, and the Chaldean

Nana, suggest that these signs were employed as fecundity symbols.

 

(Excerpted from Bhattacharyya, Narendra Nath, "The Indian Mother

Goddess," 2nd

Edition. South Asia Books, New Delhi, 1977.)

 

(To be continued …)