TANTRA (from the Sanskrit tan, to believe, to have faith in ; hence, literally, an instrument or means of faith) is a name of the sacred works of the worshipers of the female energy of the god Siva. See S'Aiurs.s. A Tantra is said to comprise five sub jects—the creation and destruction of the world, the worship of the gods, the attainment of all objects, magical rites for the acquirement of six superhuman faculties, and four modes of union with spirit by meditation. A variety of other subjects, however, are introduced into many of them, while some are limited to a single topic, as the mode of breathing in certain rites, the language of birds, beasts, etc. They always assume the form of a dialogue betweea S'iva and his wife, in one of her many forms, but mostly as Umd, or Pdrvati (q.v.), in which the goddess questions the god as to the mode of per forming various ceremonies, and the manitras, or prayers and incantations to be used in them. These he explains at length, and under solemn cautions that they involve a. great mystery, on no account whatever to be divulged to the profane. The efficacy of these mantras is deemed to be all-powerful, and, according to some Tantras, that of the faith in these revelations of S'iva so great, as to free a believer from the consequences of even the most atrocious sins. The followers of the Tantras profess to consider them as a fifth Veda (q.v.), and attribute to them equal antiquity and superior authority. Though such an antiquity, or even one approaching the age of the four Vedas, is entirely imaginary, the question of their date is nevertheless involved in obscurity. As Tantras are referred to in some of the Purci-n' as (q.v.), they must have preceded these;
but as, on the one hand, the age of the Purfin'as themselves is merely conjectural, and as there probably existed older Puriln'as than those we possess now; and, on the other band, as there might likewise have been older Tantras, from which the works now so called were compiled, the circumstance that Tantras are quoted by some PurAn'as would not throw much light on the date of those now extant. It seems more signifi cant, however, that the oldest known author of a glossary of classical words, Amara sinha (see lexicography, under SANSKRIT LITERATURE), should have omitted from among the meanings he assigns to the word tantra, that of •` a sacred book;" whereas the later commentators on his work do not fail to supply this omission, which certainly would have been an extraordinary one had Tantras existed at the time of Amarasinha. If, then, this negative evidence has the value which it seems to have, the Tantras would, at all events, be later than the first centuries of the Christian era. The works of this class are very numerous, and it is to be regretted that Sanskrit philology, which has already investigated, more or. less profoundly, nearly all the branches of Sanskrit literature, should hitherto have almost entirely neglected this particular branch of it. The prin cipal Tantras are the rahasya, Radrayamala, Mantramakodaclhi, S'draddtilaka, and Edliktitantra.—Seell. H. Wilson, A Sketch of the Religious Sects of the Hindus, Works, vol. i., edited by Dr. Rost (London, 1862).