TANTRA. HIND. A set of works of the Hindus, in use as religious books in inculcating mystical and impure rites in honour of different forms of the god Siva and goddess Durga. The principal of the Tantra books are the Syama Rahasya, Rudra Yamala, Mantra Mahodadhi, Sareda Tileka, and Kalika Tantra. These are in the form of a dialogue between Siva and his bride Parvati, in one of her many forms, but principally in those of Uma and Parvati, in which the godd-ess questions the god as to the mode of performing various ceremonies, and the prayers and incantations to be used in them. The observances they prescribe have, in Bengal, almost superseded the original itual-of the Vedas. The followers of the Tantras profess to consider them as a fifth Veda, and attribute to them equal antiquity and superior authority. It nifty be inferred that the system originated at some period in the early centuries of Christianity, being founded on the previous woiship of the female principle, and the practices of the Yoga \vial the Mantra or mystical formulre of the Vedas. Tradition is silent as to the authors of the Tantra ; they aro mythologically ascribed to Siva, but they are »ot included in any of the ordinary enumerations of Hindu literature, and were no doubt composed after that literature was complete in all its parts. They are specified in some of the Pumnas, to which they must bo anterior. They have been but little examined by European scholars, but sufficient has been ascer tained to watrant the accusation that they are authorities for all that is most abominable in the present state of the IIindu religion.
The great feature of the religion taught by the Tantms is the worship of Sakti,—divine power personified rts a woman, and individualized, not only in the goddesses of mythology, but in every woman ; to whom, therefore, in her own person, religious worship may be and occasionally is addressed. The chief objects of adoration, how ever, are the manifold forms of the bride of Siva, Parvati, Uma, Durga, Kali, Syama, Vindliyava sini, Jaganmata, and others. Besides the usual
practices of offerings, oblations, hymns, invoca tions, the vitual comprises many mystical cere monies and accompaniments, gesticulations, and diagrams, and the use in the conunenceinent and close of the prayers of various monosyllabic ejaculations of imagined mysterious import. Even in its least exceptionable division, it comprehends the performance of magical ceremonies and rites, intended to obtain superhuman powers, and a command over the spirits of heaven, earth, and hell. The popular division is, however, called by the Ilindus themselves the left-hand Sakta faith. It is to this that the bloody sacrifices offered to Kali must be iinputed, and that all the bar barities and indecencies perpetrated at the Durga Puja, the annual worship of Durga, and the Charakh Puja, the swinging festival, are to be ascribed. There are other atrocities which do not meet the public eye. This is not an unfounded accusation, not a controversial calumny. Some of the books are in print, veiled necessarily in the obscurity of the original language, but incontro vertible witnesses of the vemcity of the charges. Of course no respectable Hindu will admit that he is vamachari, a follower of the left-hand ritual, or that lie is a member of a society in which meat is eaten, wine is drunk, and abominations not named are practised. The imputation will be in dignantly denied. If the Tantra be believed, ' many a man who calls himself a Saiva or a Vaishnava is secretly a Sakta, and a brother of thel left-hand fraternity.' No llindu of reason and right feeling can say anything vindicative of a system which has suffered such enormities to be grafted upon it. No explanation could afford any plea, any suggestion, any opening for abusers of which he admits, when he dares to avow them in his own case, the shame and the sin.-1171son's Religious Practices and Opinions of the Hindus, 33.