TANTRA SHASTRA

BY Dr Kamalakara Mishra

A misconception, prevalent even among scholars, is that the Vedic tradition alone forms the
basic trend of Indian culture, the Tantric tradition being a side current or even a perversion. This
is a colossal misunderstanding. The Agamas and tantras have had an importance equal to the
vedas in shaping Indian culture. The Tantric tradition has something very significant to say and
this must be taken into account if we wish to form a complete view of Indian philosophy and
religion.
Both the veda (nigama) and tantra (Agama) are taken to be revelatory in character, pertaining to
the extra-empirical or esoteric knowledge of reality. If this is so, then what need is there of the
Tantra if we already have the veda? Is the Tantra redundant or does it have some special
significance? Side by side with the veda, the Tantra does have special significance; in fact it is
complementary to the veda. According to both veda and Tantra, Ultimate Reality is
Consciousness (chit or samvit), which is called brahman. The nature of this consciousness is both
knowledge (jnAna) and activity or dynamism (kriyA), and it is the dynamic aspect of Reality that
is responsible for the manifestation of the world. This concept of dynamism though not explicitly
explained, is implicitly present in the vedas and upaniShads, and the implicit is made explicit in
the Tantras. The upaniShadic utterances regarding creation clearly suggest the existence of a
dynamic principle in brahman. It is said in the upaniShads that the world comes out of or
emanates from brahman, and that He willed, let me become many. These statements tend to
suggest kriyA or spanda. The statement that all these things arise out of Bliss itself refer in
unequivocal terms to spanda. These statements cannot be explained away by calling them
AkhyAyikAs as some advaitins do.
Thus the upaniShads do accept the dynamic aspect of Reality, but they do not fully explain that
dynamism. This task is fulfilled by the Tantras. In the Tantras, the dynamism of Reality is
completely spelled out; the immanent aspect of brahman is brought to the fore. As a result, in the
Tantra there is an extremely positive attitude towards creation.
There is another important sense in which Tantra is complementary to the veda. The veda is
called nigama or nigamana, which means deduction, while the Tantra is called Agama or
Agamana, which means induction. The veda is believed to have been revealed from a higher
source, the seers did not author the statements of the veda; they simply received or perceived
them. Therefore, the vedic statements have to be taken as accepted premises from which
conclusions are then deduced. Hence vedic knowledge is deduction (nigamana) from revealed
premises. Agama or Tantra, on the other hand, is based on the evidence of the experience of the
seers and yogins. It is really a yogic tradition. Abhinavagupta calls it the anubhava-sampradAya
(tradition of experience).

It is not that the veda does not believe in the verification of revealed knowledge or that the
Tantra does not believe in revelation. Both believe in both, but the vedic knowledge comes
mainly through the process of revelation, whereas the Tantric knowledge comes mainly through
experience. In the Indian tradition, revelation and experience are considered complementary to
each other - what is revealed can also be confirmed in actual experience. The vedic knowledge is
confirmed in experience and this experiential confirmation is the function of the tantra. In this
sense the Tantra is complimentary to the veda.
The external form of Tantra suggests that it is revealed by Lord Shiva, as it is presented in the
form of a dialogue between shiva and pArvatI. It is quite possible to conceive the Tantra as
revelation, but the special nature of the Tantra is that it is based on experience. The yogins and
seers have experienced the truth; the Tantra may be understood as a record of their experience,
the dialogue of shiva and pArvatI being a literary device meant to make that record attractive.
Abhinavagupta interprets the dialogue between Shiva and pArvatI as a dialogue within our own
consciousness. He says: the Self, which is present in every form and is self-luminous, does both
the questioning and answering itself as if by dividing itself into the questioner and the answerer,
both being itself at the same time. It is also said that Shiva/Devi himself/herself, taking the form
of the teacher and the pupil, revealed the Tantra by way of question and answer. This means that
the dialogue is between the seeking self and the answering self, the answer being provided from
within the Self. The questioning self is the lower self (aNu) and the answering self is the higher
Self (shiva). The same interpretation may be given in the case of the dialogue between Arjuna
and Lord Krishna in the bhagavadgItA.
Even if the dialogue is understood literally and the Tantra is taken to be revelation, there is no
discrepancy. The twin notions that the Tantra is revealed on the one hand, and is experienced by
the yogins and seers, on the other, are quite compatible, for what is revealed can also be
confirmed in our own experience. The Tantric tradition accepts both points of view.
Thus we see that the Agamic or Tantric tradition, apart from being highly significant in its own
right, is also complementary to the vedic or upaniShadic tradition. The Tantric ideas that are
implicitly present and sometimes explicitly expressed in the vedas and upaniShads are explicitly
and fully spelled out by the Tantras. Thus, veda and tantra form one and the same line of
thought. Those who compiled the Tantras in the post-vedic period were conscious of this
continuity and oneness in the Vedic-Tantric tradition; they have explicitly mentioned this
continuity. In the Kularnava Tantra it is affirmed by Shiva, The six systems of the Vedic
philosophy are the limbs of my body like feet, stomach, hands, and head; those who differentiate
them actually dismember my body. And these are also the six limbs of the kula.
The Tantra does not merely enjoy the status of being complementary to the veda. Its
complementarity to the veda is incidental. In fact, the Tantra has an autonomous and independent
status. It would be quite reasonable to see the start of the Tantric tradition in the time when the
seers, without any allegiance to the veda, independently raised questions pertaining to life, made
practical investigations in the direction of finding answers, and finally got the solutions. That the
findings of the Tantric seers complement the vedic store of knowledge, or complement any other
tradition for that matter, is just incidental. The significance of the Tantric tradition lies not in its

being complimentary to the veda or to any other tradition but in its potential to give
autonomously a complete and perfect philosophy of life.
In a way the Tantra is even fuller and more important than the veda. The reason for this claim is
simple. The Tantra is veda plus Tantra, whereas the veda is veda plus implicit tantra. That is, the
Tantra, besides its own wisdom, fully incorporates the wisdom of the veda, but the veda contains
the wisdom of Tantra only implicitly and requires the Tantra to make it explicit.
Moreover, the Agama or Tantra is epistemologically more sound than the nigama or veda. What
is obtained through experience is scientific knowledge and is confirmed by itself; it does not
require revelation to confirm it. On the contrary, revelation requires experience for its
confirmation; revelation without experience remains an object of faith and does not become
knowledge. Confirmation comes from experience, not from revelation.
Tantra can be called a science. In calling Tantra a science, I am neither changing the essential
meaning of the term science nor am I misusing the term. Reason is the general principle
underlying the scientific method; science is the rational study of anything. Reason makes it clear
that a study based on speculation or faith cannot be dependable; we can depend only on what we
observe or cognize. Therefore, science is not based on speculation or faith, but on actual
experience or cognition. Reason makes it further clear that normally we have only one mode of
experience, which is the empirical or sensory mode. Experience in the context of science means
empirical experience. Therefore, science can also be defined as an empirical study.
But by using the same faculty of reason it also becomes clear that science is based on empirical
experience not by definition but simply because present day science knows of no mode of
experience other than the empirical one. If some other mode of experience were discovered,
there would be no hesitation on anyones part in calling it scientific. The only burden would be
to prove that it is a genuine experience and not something such as a reverie, hallucination, or
illusion. It would become scientific by virtue of being experience.
Tantra is based on the actual experience of the seers and yogins. They sought to investigate the
inner nature and potentialities of humanity and made wide experiments at the individual and
societal level. Their laboratory was the human being and, to some extent, society. They did not
have modern methods and facilities for recording, processing and preserving the data; they did,
of course, have their own methods of doing so. Moreover, in order that the record of their
discovery be palatable and entertaining, they did not adopt prosaic scientific language, but
expressed their findings in poetic terms using metaphors, symbols, and allegories.
We should not labor under the illusion that everything written in the extensive corpus of the
Tantra is based on experience. Just as what appears in the veda is not all revelation, what appears
in the Tantra is not all experience. The Tantric texts also contain a lot of hyperbolic and
speculative material, as well as some material that can be set aside as irrelevant. If we are to take
a realistic view of the Tantra without any undue sentimental attachment to the Tantric texts, we
must carefully weed out the unnecessary elements in order to understand the true Tantric
position.

There can be no doubt that reason is the only available tool for accomplishing this task and the
only criterion for making any judgement. Even the suprarational does not oppose reason. To be
beyond reason means to be unknowable by reason, not to be irrational or anti-rational. Therefore,
reason is the best tool and the best criterion for determining the real purport of the Tantra, just as
it is the best tool for judging anything else. Even when we accept revelation (shruti), we do so
because reason tells us that we cannot know or experience Reality through reason or sense
perception, and therefore we have to resort to revelation. It is only by using reason that we
become aware of the limitations of reason itself and recognize the need to accept revelation. That
Reality is beyond reason is made clear by reason alone! Reason is required not only to make a
revelation intelligible but to make us aware of the desirability of revelation in the first place.
The position of Tantra is sound not only logically and epistemologically, but also ontologically
and axiologically. Tantra gives a complete world view, satisfactorily explaining all aspects of
reality. Its metaphysical concept of dynamic consciousness (chit shakti) with freedom
(svAtantrya) as its nature, consistently explains all the existential problems of reality, including
life and the world. The Tantric discovery points out that the phenomenon of consciousness,
which we call the Self or the I, that appears at the surface level is just the tip of a bigger
reality lying deeper in us. Consciousness is like an iceberg, only a tiny portion of which is visible
above the surface, or like an artesian spring that is invisibly connected to a deeper and vaster
underground water reserve. If we accept this premise, it follows that we can reach the deeper
levels of our reality step by step. Self-realization can be achieved in degrees. Even in our normal
state we have some degree of Self-realization, as the power of consciousness (chiti-shakti or
kuNDalinI) is already working in us in the form of our mental faculty. Obviously it is possible
that in different people this consciousness will manifest in varying degrees, either naturally or by
the deliberate process of uncovering or unfolding the qualities of Consciousness. We can
logically stretch this process to the extent of achieving the fullest manifestation of Consciousness
- Self-realization, or spiritual attainment in the highest degree.
The most significant contribution of Tantra is in the axiological field - the field of values. The
Tantric seers were aware from the beginning that there are two basic sets of values in life. One is
the ethical value of goodness or morality and the other is the material value of pleasure or
happiness. The former is technically called shreya, meaning the good, and the latter is preya,
or the pleasant. In the Indian system there are four values: dharma (morality), artha (money),
kAma (satisfaction of desires) and mokSha (self-realization). Morality comes under the good;
artha and kAma fit under the pleasant. The seers were also aware that in actual life there is
dichotomy between the good and the pleasant; people have to undermine or sometimes
totally suppress the pleasant in favor of the good. The seers were therefore quite clear that a
value system that is merely good with no element of the pleasant is not practical.
Therefore, they sought to discover a system that synthesized within itself both the good and
the pleasant, or truth and beauty, or the good of oneself and the good of others. They found the
answer in what is called Self-realization, or mokSha. mokSha is not an otherworldly value, but
the ground of overall success in life. All talent and all power to work efficiently and gracefully in
every walk of life come from the Self, just as all the electric power that moves fans and lights
bulbs comes from the powerhouse. All creativity, artistic or otherwise, springs forth from the
Self. It is from the Self that the illumined understanding of anything comes to the mind as a

spontaneous flash in a phenomenon technically called pratibhA. Therefore, the more a person is
in line with the Self, the more the power flows. Thus, a person of Self-realization will be a better
teacher, a better philosopher, a better scientist, a better leader and so on.
Self-realization incorporates within itself both morality and the satisfaction of desires. Morality
is naturally present in mokSha for two reasons. First, the Self that is attained in mokSha is
naturally good. That is why it is called shiva (literally the benign). It would be illogical to
think that bad actions could spring forth from a naturally benign self. Just as only honey can drop
from a honeycomb, only good actions can spring forth from the shiva-state.
Second, in the state of mokSha, one feels ones unity with all. It is quite natural for such a person
to do good to all. What obstructs the Self is called ignorance (ajnAna). Ignorance is defined as
the sense of duality (dvaita-prathA or bheda buddhi). When this sense of duality is dispelled, and
ones unity with all is realized - then one of the most essential characteristics of Self-realization
is achieved.
The uniqueness of the Tantric conception of mokSha is twofold. First, according to Tantra,
mokSha is not an otherworldly value, it is the ground of overall success in every walk of life.
This corrects the misconception that mokSha is somehow separate from the present life. Second,
mokSha, according to Tantra, does not merely consist of the good, but is a synthesis of both
what is good and what is pleasant. The notion of mokSha modifies the popular Indian
classification of the four values of life. According to the popular classification, money (artha)
and the satisfaction of desires (kAma) come under the pleasant and morality (dharma) and
realization (mokSha) both come under the good. But according to the Tantric classification,
morality alone comes under the good, as mokSha is really a synthesis of both the good and
the pleasant, and is thus a value higher than even the good.