How Is Tantra Different From Tantra In Sexual Activity

Tantra literally means loom, weave, warp, and denotes the esoteric traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism that developed in India from the middle of the 1st millennium CE onwards. The term tantra, in the Indian traditions, also means any systematic broadly applicable “text, theory, system, method, instrument, technique or practice”. Tantric Hindu and Buddhist traditions have also influenced other Eastern religious traditions such as Jainism, the Tibetan Bön tradition, Daoism, and the Japanese tradition. Certain modes of non-Vedic worship such as Puja are considered tantric in their conception and rituals. Siddha Spirituality of Swami Hardas Life System brings out in-depth about tantra and tantra in sexual activities.

What exactly is Tantra?

“At its core tantra is about connecting with your own energy to establish a deeper understanding of yourself,” Rose says. While some of that energy is sexual, not all of it is. While tantra has evolved over the last thousand years, “tantra is still first and foremost a personal practice of liberation,” according to Carrellas.

It’s a technique that allows you to use energy and go deeper into yourself and experience enlightenment.

Tantra Definition

Ancient and medieval era

The 5th-century BC scholar in his Sutra 1.4.54–55 of Sanskrit grammar, cryptically explains tantra through the example of “Sva-tantra”, which he states means “independent” or a person who is his own “warp, cloth, weaver, promoter, Karta (actor)”. Patanjali quotes and accepts Panini’s definition then discusses or mentions it at a greater length, in 18 instances, stating that its metaphorical definition of “warp (weaving), extended cloth” is relevant to many contexts. The word tantra, states Patanjali, means “principal, main”.

The ancient Mimamsa school of Hinduism uses the term tantra extensively, and its scholars offer various definitions. For example:

When an action or a thing, once complete, becomes beneficial in several matters to one person, or to many people, that is known as Tantra. For example, a lamp placed amidst many priests.

Medieval texts present their own definitions of Tantra. Some, for example, give the following explanation of the term tantra:

Because it elaborates (tan – first three alphabets of tantra) copious and profound matters, especially relating to the principles of reality (tattva) and sacred mantras, and because it provides liberation (tra – last three albhabets of tantra), it is called a tantra.

Modern era Tantra

The occultist and businessman Pierre Bernard (1875–1955) is widely credited with introducing the philosophy and practices of tantra to the American people, at the same time creating a misleading impression of its connection to sex.

According to David N. Lorenzen, two different kinds of definitions of Tantra exist, narrow and broad. According to the narrow definition, Tantrism, or “Tantric religion”, is the elite traditions directly based on the Sanskrit texts called the Tantras, Samhitas, and Agamas. Lorenzen’s “broad definition” extends this by including a broad range of “magical beliefs and practices” such as Yoga and Shaktism.

Richard Payne states that Tantra has been commonly but incorrectly associated with sex, given popular culture’s prurient obsession with intimacy. This is far from the diverse and complex understanding of what Tantra means to those Buddhists, Hindu, and Jains who practice it.

The Tantric Age

From the 8th to the 14th century, Tantric traditions rose to prominence and flourished throughout India and beyond. By the 10th century, the main elements of tantric practice had reached maturity and were being practiced in Saiva and Buddhist contexts. Tantra also spread into Tibet, Indonesia, and China. Gavin Flood describes this “Tantric age” as follows:

Tantrism has been so pervasive that all of Hinduism after the eleventh century, perhaps with the exception of the vedic Srauta tradition, is influenced by it. All forms of Saiva, Vaisnava and Smarta religion, even those forms which wanted to distance themselves from Tantrism, absorbed elements derived from the Tantras. 

Though the whole northern and Himalayan part of India was involved in the development of tantra, Kashmir was a particularly important center, both Saiva and Buddhist, and numerous key tantric texts were written there according to Padoux.

Tantric Traditions

Hindu Tantra

Within Hinduism, the word tantra often refers to a text, which may or may not be “tantric”. There are also tantric Upanishads, which are late Upanishads as well as tantric Puranas. Besides these types of texts, there are also various types of tantric “sastras” (treatises) which may be “commentaries, digests, compilations, monographs, collections of hymns or of names of deities, and mantras and works on mantras.”

Buddhist Tantra

The Indo-Tibetan Buddhist tradition has been dominant in Tibet and the Himalayan regions.

Buddhist Tantric practices and texts which developed from the 5th to the 8th centuries were translated into Chinese and are preserved in the Chinese Buddhist canon as well as in the Dunhuang manuscripts. Chinese Esoteric Buddhism was only influential for a short period of time during the Tang Dynasty. It mostly disappeared from China due to the great Buddhist persecution of the Wuzong emperor, but it spread to Korea and to Japan, where it survives today as an independent tradition called Shingon.

Tantra in other religions

The Hindu and Buddhist Tantric traditions significantly influenced many other religions such as Jainism, Sikhism, the Tibetan Bön tradition, Daoism, Shint, Sufi Islam, and the Western “New Age” movement.

In Sikh literature, the ideas related to Shakti and goddess reverence attributed to Guru Gobind Singh, particularly in the Dasam Granth, are related to tantra ideas found in Buddhism and Hinduism.

Tantra Practices