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Opinions vary about how and when tantric Buddhism first
appeared. Some believe it was first taught by Buddha Sakyamuni
and then maintained by a few adepts as a secret teaching for
almost a thousand years, until a broader public was ready and
it became popular. Others see it as an aberration of the
original teaching. There are convincing arguments for both
cases but no definitive evidence for either. Here, we shall
simply consider tantra as it is viewed by the proponents of
its own living traditions, i.e. as the highest of the three
levels of Buddhist teaching.
The general foundation for all Buddhism is a balance of
ethical living, mastering the mind through meditation and
acquiring the wisdom of egolessness. This wholesome
combination is, in itself, enough to bring personal liberation
from suffering. However, as it helps only the individual
concerned, this foundation is known as the lesser (hinayana)
aspect of the teachings. One can go much further. By enlarging
wisdom into a direct awareness of the illusoriness of all
things (not just ego) and by awakening mind's unlimited
potential for compassion, one can become a Buddha and help
multitudes. This is the greater (mahayana) aspect.
The mahayana journey, however, is sometimes very long.
Certain people can complete it with far greater speed through
powerful techniques which rapidly awaken the mind to the
primordial purity and perfection which is everywhere, but
masked by illusion. These practices are known as tantra, which
means a thread or fabric, since they unite one, in the moment,
with the primordial thread which runs through all things: they
integrate one with the wholeness which is the fabric of the
universe. This is the indestructible (vajrayana) aspect.
Sometimes the hinayana foundation is compared to a saucer, the
mahayana to a cup and the vajrayana to the tea held in the
cup.
In the life of an individual, these lesser, greater and
indestructible stages of the teaching must fall into place,
one after another in correct order. Some people apply the same
notion to the progressive acceptance of the three stages in
the collective consciousness of the Indian nation. One could,
very broadly, consider the hinayana teachings of the Buddha as
dominating the first five centuries of Indian Buddhism, the
mahayana as coming into its own during the next seven hundred
years and vajrayana taking its rightful place in the remaining
five centuries, during which Buddhism, as a living, growing
faith, came to maturity.
According to the Kalachakra Tantra and the Good Age
Sutra, one thousand and two Buddhas appear, during the
lifespan of this world, to teach the universal truths. But
Sakyamuni is the only one of them who teaches tantra. The
others manifest during golden ages when the inhabitants of the
world are virtuous, peaceful people of great merit - easy to
teach. At such times, the outer environment is harmonious,
with bountiful crops which are delicious, satisfying and
nourishing. Sakyamuni, however, the fourth and most intrepid
of these Buddhas, comes at a worse time than any other. The
people of his degenerating world are in emotional turmoil and
only the powerful psychological transformations of tantra can
help some of them.
There are four main levels of tantra: Kriya, Carya,
Yoga and Anuttarayoga. Kriya (action) tantra puts great
emphasis on physical activities, such as rituals of
purification. Carya (method) tantra strikes a balance between
external activities and inner meditative stability. Yoga
(union) tantra is almost entirely concerned with inner
spiritual union. These first three are sometimes called,
collectively, mantrayana- the way of mantra. Annutara Yoga
(highest union) tantra stands somewhat apart. The most sublime
tantra of all, and the most powerful spiritual alchemy, it can
bring total enlightenment in one lifetime and, unlike the
others, train one not only for this life's experience but also
for death and the intermediate state between lives. It is
sometimes called vajrayana.
Sakyamuni is considered to have attained enlightenment
in a celestial realm before appearing in this world as Prince
Gautama, who graced the Earth for eighty years from around 624
- 544 BCE. This brief emanation or nirmanakaya was but one
small facet of the jewel of his attainment. It served
principally to establish the main body of his teachings,
destined to endure for ten periods of five hundred years, i.e.
well into the fifth millennium. Throughout these five
millennia, bodhisattvas with exceedingly pure minds can be
constantly in the presence of his sambhogakaya, which
manifests as pure lands and many symbolic Buddha forms within
their meditations.
Some of the tantra were given by the nirmanakaya facet
of the Buddha during his time on Earth, to a mixed audience of
human followers and celestial bodhisattvas, in various
locations from as far north as Oddiyana and as far south as
Dhanyakataka, where he taught the Wheel of Time (Kalachakra)
tantra. After his passing, these lineages were perpetuated
secretly in this world and more openly in non-Earthly realms.
Other tantras started later, being given through the
sambhogakaya, either directly to human beings or indirectly,
via celestial bodhisattvas such as Ratnabhadra.
As the
early mahayana masters appeared, from the second century BCE
to the fourth century CE, the mantrayana aspect of tantra
became better known, but was nevertheless still primarily a
secret, hermetic practice pursued in jungles and wildernesses
by lone meditators. It was a way of devotion and direct
spiritual action, as opposed to the great erudition and
intellectuality that had developed in monasteries. It was not
unknown, during this period, for great scholars, having
mastered the Buddhist tenets and ensured their own disciples'
education, to leave their established respectability in order
to finish their days in the pursuit of highest truth through
tantric meditation. Nevertheless, there was a great deal of
suspicion of tantra among many Buddhists, since some of its
tenets and practices seemed to fly directly in the face of the
Buddha's teachings. Much of the confusion came from the fact
that tantra used a secret 'twilight language' (sandhyabhasa)
full of double meanings and paradoxes, designed to scare off
the dilettante. This was not a new invention. Even the
universally-accepted dhammapada says, in verse 294,
that one should,
"... having killed mother and father and two
Ksattriya kings, destroy a kingdom and all its inhabitants."
This does not sound very Buddhist, until one
understands the symbolism. The mother is egotism, the father
is selfish desire, the two kings are the prime misconceptions
of a lasting identity and its opposite, total nihilism. The
kingdom and its inhabitants are the ways one perceives
subjective consciousness and objective reality, due to these
false notions.
The various levels of tantra provide ways of
mobilising thoughts, imagination, emotions, perception and
consciousness so as to blow away the clouds of illusion and
bring one into spiritual integrity. Through awakened,
intelligent use of body, speech and mind in one's day-to-day
dealings with life, anything and everything becomes a gateway
to truth.
Rather than giving the people of ancient India a whole
new religion to learn, their familiar acts and gestures could
be taken and modified by tantra to make Buddhist sense. This
meant that primitive rites, such as animal sacrifices, could
be replaced by similar but imaginary rites, in which selfish
delusions are pinned to the sacrificial altar (rather than
some misfortunate goat) and in which the deity receiving the
offering is replaced by a representation of the primordial and
selfless space of wisdom and compassion.
From the time of Asanga (fourth century), the higher
yoga tantras started finding their way into some centres of
learning. The following two centuries were marked by the rule
of the Gupta kings and a general trend towards devotion rather
than erudition throughout India. Tantra, on all its levels,
began to establish itself in some monasteries, as a normal
aspect of the Buddha's teaching.
It seems fairly clear now that Buddhist tantra preceded
Hindu tantra and probably gave rise to it. There are several
factors to be considered in reviewing the historical
development of tantra. Prior to the Buddha, religion, based on
the Vedas and the Upanishads, was the privileged domain of the
three upper castes (the traivarnika or arya). The Brahmana
priests jealously guarded their wisdom, much of which
concerned prolonged, non-theistic reflection upon the nature
of the soul (atman). In contrast to this, the Buddha had made
it clear that his teachings were available to all, regardless
of sex, caste or any other such factors. He severely
criticised Vedic animal sacrifice and, dismissing useless
speculation on personal identity, laid great emphasis on
personal ethics as the way to each individual's liberation.
After his passing, the Mahayanists encouraged the use of
prayer as a way of training the mind and giving spiritual
succour to the meditator. This coincided with the appearance
of the Bhagavad-Gita which was to radically alter Hinduism, by
opening religion to non-aryan castes, giving it a more
theistic slant and encouraging prayer and devotion (bhakti) as
the way in which ordinary people could find salvation.
As we follow the trends in ancient and mediaeval India,
the question of whether it was Buddhism or Hinduism which
initiated these widespread tendencies to prayer, devotion,
quasi-theistic rituals etc., becomes secondary. Much more
interesting is the strikingly different way in which each
faith uses them.
By the seventh century, tantra had become
truly widespread, and was openly taught in great monastic
universities such as Nalanda and Oddiyana. The great flowering
of tantra came under the Pala dynasty (eighth - twelfth
century), which actively fostered the development of Buddhism:
especially mantrayana. The famous 'greatly-realised-ones'
(mahasiddhas) appear at this time. Vikramasila monastic
university gradually stole the limelight from Nalanda and both
mahayana and vajrayana Buddhism spread widely in Asia. They
took special root in Tibet, where they have persisted
healthily until the Chinese annexation in the middle of this
century. Successive waves of Turko-moslem invasions during the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries destroyed first the great
Buddhist centres of Kashmir, then burned down Nalanda and the
monasteries of Bengal. By 1335, Islamic Turko-Afghans ruled
all India. That unique land had fulfilled its destiny, seen by
Buddha Sakyamuni when he first left the Tusita realm to come
here. He had seen it to be a cultured land in which his
teaching could be properly established, step by step, and from
which it could spread out, when the time was ripe, to reach
all ends of the world.
It was, without doubt, traumatic for the early
Buddhists to first establish their faith and then see it
giving way to a larger, more profound vision: a process that
was to happen again and again as the fullness of the Buddha's
message came to light. Such winds of change can be refreshing
or threatening. In its face, one either entrenches one's views
or accepts the new. Thus, various 'schools' of Buddhism
emerged with the passage of history. Each new chapter was a
miniature revolution and the coming of tantra was perhaps the
greatest of all these revolutions. |
