Religion (1989) 19, 197-210

The Body in Buddhist and HinduTantra: Some Notes*

Geoffrey Samuel

The Buddhist and Hindu Tantras employ a non-dualist conceptualiza-tion of body and mind based upon the anatomy of the `subtle body'with its `centres' (cakra), `channels' (nddi) and flows of `energy' (prdna)and differing greatly from conventional Western modes of thinking aboutbody and mind . The Buddhist Tantras add the central concept ofbodhicitta, which is conceived of as both a motivational state and apattern of energy-distribution within the `subtle body'. The Tantricterminology forms part of a set of techniques for learning new modesof operating with the human nervous system and thus the body-mindtotality. The social and cultural implications of such techniques, andmore specifically of the Tantric sexual practices, are examined for bothIndia and Tibet . It is suggested that transformation in `consciousness'and transformations in `society' such as those connected with theTantras should be see as aspects of a single process, neither reducibleto the other . The Tantric lineages preserve centuries of experience inthe use of alternate states of consciousness and body-mind techniqueswithin complex literate cultures . As Western interest in such processesgrows, the Tantras provide an obvious resource, but if we are to learnfrom them we need also to consider them in relation to their originalsocial and cultural milieu .

INTROD t,% CTION

The Tantras are a well-known, if not always well-understood, part of Hinduand Buddhist religious practice . It is also well known that modes of con-ceptualizing the body (more accurately, the body and mind as a totality)are of central importance in the Tantras . In a recent survey of the role ofthe body in Indian religion, Friedhelm Hardy refers to these `esoteric'traditions as `drawing heavily on ideas and practices typical of folk religion,but developing [their] own metaphysics and physiological models .' The`metaphysics' and the `physiological models', along with their social conse-quences, are my subject here .

As Hardy pointed out, we can find in the Tantras a continuum of atti-tudes stretching from an emphasis on the manipulation and control of

*This paper was first presented at `The Body : A Colloquium on ComparativeSpirituality', Lancaster University, 8-11 July 1987 .

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dangerous spiritual entities, the 'magical' side of Tantra if you like, to anemphasis on the classical Buddhist and Hindu goals of Enlightenment orLiberation (bodhi, moksa) . The methods of Tantra can be and are used foreither purpose . My own familiarity is primarily with the Buddhist traditionof Tantric practice, the Vajrayana or rDo rje theg pa as the Tibetans callit, but this paper has a comparative dimension, and I shall be talking aboutboth Buddhist and Hindu Tantra .

I shall be considering in particular the role in the Vajrayana of bodhicitta,an important concept in Mahayana Buddhism generally and in the Tibetantraditions more specifically . The primary meaning of this term is usuallygiven as 'altruisitic motivation', or something of the kind . However bodhi-citta is more than what we normally understand by a `motivation' .

In fact it is important to be aware in all this discussion that the peoplewe are talking about are using terms from an `indigenous psychology'2which does not map at all exactly onto Western philosophical or psycho-logical categories . This is true for Hindu and Buddhist concepts before theTantric period, and is even more so for the new modes of thinking asso-ciated with the Tantras themselves .

Bodhicitta is a kind of citta, in other words it is a state of `mind' in avery wide sense . One might say that it is a state of the total patterning ofcognitive, emotional and motivational aspects of consciousness . It is definedas the state in which one desires to achieve Enlightenment (bodhi), notmerely to relieve one's own sufferings in samsdra (which would be theclassical Hinayana motivation, in the Tibetan perspective), but in order tofree all sentient beings in the universe from their sufferings .

For the Tibetans bodhicitta is the defining mark of the Mahayana or`Greater Vehicle' . It is the specific characteristic of the bodhisattva, and thenecessary precondition for the attainment of the full and complete Enlighten-ment of the Buddha . Bodhicitta already has this central importance in thenon-Tantric Indian Mahayana literature . Shantideva's extended praise ofbodhicitta and of its transformative properties in the Bodhicar_yavatara is awell-known example :

As a blind man may obtain a jewel in a heap of dust, so somehow, thisThought of Enlightenment [bodhicitta] has arisen even within me .

This elixir has originated for the destruction of death in the world . It isthe imperishable treasure which alleviates the world's poverty .

It is the uttermost medicine, the abatement of the world's disease . It is a treeof rest for the wearied world journeying on the road of being .

When crossing over hard places, it is the universal bridge for all travellers . Itis the risen moon of mind (citta), the soothing of the world's hot passion (klesa) .3

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However a further and radical transformation in the concept of bodhicittabecomes evident with the growth of the Vajrayana . Bodhicitta in the Vajrayanais not simply a motivational state, however encompassing, but a quasi-material substance which can be manipulated through the internal processesof Tantric yoga . The `arousing' or `awakening' of bodhicitta, which wasalready an important component of pre-Tantric Mahayana practice, thusbecame homologized with the raising and concentrating of this bodhicitta-substance within the practitioner's central `channel' (situated along thespinal column) .As is well known, the sexual union of male and female is used in the

Tantras both as a symbolic representation of the enlightened state and insome cases as a form of yogic practice . This provides a third layer to themeaning of bodhicitta, in which its awakening and the subsequent process ofattaining Enlightenment can be treated as equivalent (metaphorically or inactuality) to the stages of sexual arousal . 4

All this is likely to leave Westerners more than a little confused . We arenot very used to conceiving of a motivation as an non-material substancethat can be moved around within the body . The confusion is worsenedwhen this substance becomes conflated with the very material physiologicalprocesses of sexual arousal and orgasm . It is perhaps understandable thatmany commentators have either focused on the allegedly antinomian andorgiastic aspects of these practices or assumed that the Tantric practicesare no more than a pretext for the ancient and popular human activity thatthey sometimes incorporate . Michael Edwardes, for example, suggests thatthe famous Indian monastery of Ajanta, dating from around the 2nd to 7thcenturies A.D ., was `a sort of leisure-centre for the rich, a country cluboffering that most attractive of mixes-spirituality and sex' .' The notedTibetanist David Snellgrove also insists on the orgiastic nature of IndianTantric Buddhism in his recent survey Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, although heconcedes that what the Tibetans later made of these practices `may in somerespects be something different' . 6

I shall have more to say on this subject later on . For the present I shallmerely note that the similarity between the psychobiology of sexual andmystical experience is quite well established, so that the idea of usingsexuality to represent or stimulate mystical insight is entirely plausible .' Itis anybody's guess who came to Ajanta, or why they came, but the wholecomplex of ideas around bodhicitta deserves the effort to understand it onits own terms. Here, as elsewhere, there is much to be said for the anthro-pological principle that behaviour in another culture that appears bizarreat first sight may well make sense within its own context of thought .

As I have said, there are two stages to the complex of ideas, the equationbetween the movitation of bodhicitta and the internal process of Tantric

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yoga, and the use of sexuality as a metaphor and as a method to evokethose processes. I start with the first stage . What is actually going on here,and what are the implications of this way of looking at things?

SUBTLE BODY PRACTICES IN THE TANTRIC TR4DITIOA'SIt is interesting that it is only the Buddhists who describe the internalprocesses of Tantric yoga in terms of bodhicitta . As far as I know there isno real Hindu analogue here . However the processes themselves occur inrecognizably similar forms within both Buddhist and Hindu 'hantric practice .We do not know, at any rate at present, whether these practices originatedin Hindu or Buddhist circles, to the extent that such a distinction makesany sense at all in the relevant period (around 4th-6th centuries :v .n .) .During these centuries the Buddhists would have been one of a numberof 'renouncer movements', to use Hardy's terminology, and the Tantrasdeveloped among all of these movements in a way which we are unlikelyever to be able to trace in detail . It is in the nature of esoteric traditions,after all, that their origins tend to be well hidden .

There are, however, intriguing possibilities of influences from the similarinternal practices of Taoists in China . Some of the early teachers in theSiddha medical tradition in South India were apparently Chinese, andthere are persistent hints of Chinese connections in both Indian and Tibetanliterature ." The role of prdna in the Indian traditions is very similar to thatwhich chi had assumed at a slightly earlier date in the Chinese tradition .'Prdna itself, as Peter Connolly has demonstrated, had been a central con-cept in the Vedas, but in that context it was not thought of in terms ofenergy flows within the body to be manipulated in meditation .'

These practices developed along with the Tantras . They seem first tohave appeared as a supplement to the so-called 'deity-yoga' practices . Deity-yoga involves the visualization and evocation of one or another Tantricdeity, generally leading to the mediator's self-identification with that deity .Such forms of meditation were a natural enough development from practicesfound in some of the later Buddhist sutras, and they were the basis ofBuddhist Tantra as it was transmitted to China, ,Japan and South-EastAsia .

However, a sub-group of Indian Buddhist Tantras, the so-called Anuttara-Yoga or Supreme Yoga Tantras, have two stages, of which the deity-yogais only the first . The second consist of the internal practices I have alreadymentioned, in which the currents of pra;ia comprising the `subtle body' aremanipulated and redirected . The main aim is the concentration of thesecurrents in the central channel or nd_df which runs up the spinal columnthrough a series of locations, the well-known cakra, literally `wheels', fromeach of which subsidiary ndda or channels radiate .

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The Anuttara-Yoga Tantras now form a major part, in fact the mostimportant part, of Tibetan Tantric practice, but they never, as far as weknow, came to the Far East, and their practice is confined to Tibetans,Mongolians and Newars, along with their modern converts . These are alsothe Tantras in which the duality of male and female aspects comes to takea central role, and in which sexual intercourse is used in some cases as atechnique of meditation .

Both the subtle-body practices, and the sexual techniques, became im-portant in the Hindu Tantric tradition as well . From the 7th-I Ith centuriesthe Tantras were handed on by a series of teachers called the Siddhas .Some of the same Siddhas occur in both Buddhist and Hindu Tantriclineages, and there was evidently considerable overlap between the varioustraditions .' 2 The Tibetans acquired the Tantric lineages from India mainlyin the 1 l th and 12th centuries, and have continued to develop them untilthe present day .

THE CAKRAS AND THE SUBTLE BODYNow meditations on the cakra have become part of the general modernoccultist, esoteric, New Age vocabulary . The primary source here is Theo-sophy, and within most of these contemporary groups the cakra (nddi andprana tend to play a rather minor role if they are mentioned at all) areseen as definite physical structures within the body, and are indeed oftencorrelated with specific anatomical structures .

I do not think that we need assume that the use of concepts such ascakra, nadf and prana by the Siddhas or by their subsequent followers inthe East implies a similar belief in the physical existence of correspondingstructures within the body. The Tibetans at any rate are aware that thereare significant discrepancies between the descriptions in different traditions .While the varying descriptions might be, and today occasionally are, ex-plained as appropriate for different meditators, the co-existence of appar-ently irreconcilable descriptions in and of itself is not seen as a problem .Each description is valid in its own context .' ; Such a view might be expectedin a society where the substantiality of the observed world is itself constantlybeing questioned, but it demonstrates that the physicality of the cakra andnddi is simply not an issue .

I would suggest that if we are to make any real sense of these procedureswe are better off moving away from any misplaced concreteness with regardto the cakra and nddi. It is more illuminating to consider these structures,as Alex Comfort suggested some years ago, as a kind of map and guide tothe human central nervous system as seen from the inside .' 4 The interestingthing about such a map is that it is dealing with both `body' and 'mind,and that it is not just a holistic description of the 'body-mind', but a guideto operating simultaneously with both `body' and `mind' .

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The connection between body and mind is quite explicit within theTibetan Buddhist tradition, and at least implicit within the Hindu tradition .The mind rides on the currents of prana ; where the mind goes, prana goes .Here the word I translate as `mind' is once again Sanskrit citta (Tibetansems), a term that encompasses emotions and motivations as well as cognitivefactors. Mind and prana are inseparable, one of the pairs of dualities to betranscended that are so important within Anuttara Yoga Tantra, and whichprovide its answer to the apparent conflict between wisdom and skill-in-means, voidness and compassion . " ' There are systematic descriptions ofwhat happens to prdlIa and mind, and how they interrelate in ordinarycircumstances, in sleep, in dreaming, at the time of death, and at the timeof attainment of Enlightenment . 1 '

THE STRUCTURING OF BODY-MINDNow, we don't in our ordinary everyday usage see `mind' as intertwined with`body' in anything like this way . Nor, I think, for all the cultural differences,do modern Indians or modern Tibetans . Nor, I presume, did Indians at thetime when the Tantras originated . To do so is a consciously acquired skill,and it cuts across the common-sense, everyday structuring of experience .

There is an assumption underlying my discussion of these ideas which Ishall now attempt to spell out explicitly . I do not believe that there are infact any natural, pre-given, ultimately real distinctions between mind andbody, subjective and objective, self and other, consciousness and matter .The distinctions we make doubtless depend to some degree on aspects ofhuman biology, such as the available human sensory modalities, but welearn them individually on the basis of the culture within which we growup. Short of committing ourselves to a particular set of religious or scientificdogmas, we can have no guarantees that they are true . I think this generalapproach, which you may find vaguely neo-Kantian or perhaps neo-Madhyamaka, can be developed into a reasonably consistent account ofhuman knowledge as a social phenomenon, though I shall not attempt thishere .' 7 What I do want to stress is that it is possible to treat mind andbody, psyche and soma if you prefer, not as distinct, if mutually interactingelements, but as a genuine unity which we learn to divide in particular andindividual ways . These different ways of dividing up the mind-body unitcannot be separated from the ways in which we deal with our experience.generally, the ways in which we individually learn to make sense of ourphysical and social environment .

If we adopt this kind of perspective it then becomes possible to ask whatthe consequences may be for the individual-or the social group--of learn-ing to operate with and to divide up the body-mind in particular ways .In fact it is essential to be able to ask such questions, because it is only in

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this way that we can treat techniques like those of the Tantras as more thanethnographic curiosities, odd pieces of behaviour with no possibility of beingrelated to our general understanding of the human condition . If we acceptthat we are in fact talking about techniques for restructuring the self and theemotions, of realigning the relationship between one human being andothers, then what the Indian and Tibetan Tantric practitioners are doingbecomes something which may have direct consequences for individual andsociety .

This is actually what the practitioners have been telling us all along . Thisis not necessarily to say that the consequences of performing the practicesare exactly as described in the traditions . That, however, is an issue that canscarcely be addressed until we allow that the techniques may have real effectson those who practise them .

If we now turn to look more closely at the Hindu and Buddhist `subtlebody' practices, I think it is clear that these are concerned with an over-coming and rejection of the regulations and social behaviour of conventionalsociety . The explicit aim is, after all, to become a liberated being ; someonebeyond the bounds of karmic conditioning, beyond the limits acquired in hisor her life so far-in the Hindu or Buddhist conception, in an infinite seriesof previous lives .

In Hindu society, Tantric practitioners of the kind we are discussing aregenerally wandering sddhu who have explicitly rejected home, family, andthe networks of social obligations of ordinary Hindu life . The 'Fantric tech-niques are designed to bring about an inner renunciation or withdrawalparallel to the outer renunciation their practitioners have already made .Tantric practice is, in the Indian context, another variety of tapas, of aus-terity, through which magical power is achieved, ultimately the power of'liberation from all of one's previous karmic conditioning . In redirecting ill(-energy-flows from their habitual patterns, practitioners are above all dis-entangling the flows of desire, which have until that point kept them lockedwithin their social context ."

This is true as far as I can tell of Hindu Tantra today, and we can presumethat it was equally true of the period in which these practices took shape inthe 4th-6th centuries. Certainly, references by Brahmanical writers of thetime to the Kapalikas and other wandering Tantric ascetics emphasize theantinomian aspects of these practitioners . They are (eared and made fun of,and regarded as both repulsive and dangerous ."

Agehananda Bharati, that well-known Austrian practitioner of HinduTantra, and in more recent years cultural anthropologist of Indian religion,has commented that Tantric practice has no moral implications . If you areselfish, egotistic and exploitative before you undergo Tantric training, youwill be the same after you finish, though of course you may now be better

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at being selfish, exploitative and whatever, because you are less bound byordinary social conventions . 20

To the extent that there is a moral dimension to modern Hindu Tantricpractice-and with many Hindu Tantric teachers there certainly is such adimension, despite Bharati's statement-it derives from the Tantric student'ssubmission to his or her guru . The guru, the Tantric teacher, provides themoral orientation to which the student is required to submit . To be a studentis to become part of the guru's mission, which may indeed have a genuinesocial and humanitarian dimension .

BODHICITTA AND THE BUDDHIST TANTRASIf we can plausibly read this kind of situation back into the early Indianperiod, and particularly perhaps into the socially and politically chaotic timeof the later Siddhas, with the Hindu and Buddhist states of North Indiagradually collapsing under the effects of the Muslim invasions and of theeconomic disorders consequent on the loss of long-distance trade routes, theBuddhist Tantric insistence on inserting bodhicitta into the centre of thesystem makes a great deal of sense . Bodhicitta is, after all, an explicitly ethicaland social quantity : it is the desire to save living beings from their sufferings .

The role of bodhicitta, and of the related term tathagatagarbha, had alsodeveloped in the preceding centuries in ways which make the new Tantricrole of bodhicitta seem a natural development . Tathagatagarbha is usuallytranslated 'Buddha-nature' . It is a central concept in a group of sutras andshastras originating perhaps around the 3rd or 4th centuries, the mostimportant being the Uttaratantra (also known as the Ratnagotravibhaga), atext held to have been revealed by the future Buddha Maitreya to the greatIndian Buddhist scholar Asanga . The general idea is that the potentialityfor Buddhahood is present in all beings and all phenomena, and that theattainment of Enlightenment is equivalent to the uncovering and revealingof this Buddha-essence within us . 21

If the potentiality for Buddhahood is within all of us, then bodhicitta isalso obviously there to be awakened . The fullest development of this line ofthought perhaps appears in a text which is probably of late Indian originbut is known only in Tibetan translation, the Kun byed rgval po'i mdo or`Sutra of the All-Creating King' . The 'All-Creating King' is bodhicitta, seenhere quite explicitly as the underlying principle of the entire universe .

Then Bodhicitta, the All-Creating King, proclaimed : `I am the Creator of allphenomena in the past [ . . .] . If I were not pre-existent, phenomena would nothave a point from where their existence could start . If I were not pre-existent,there would be no King who creates all phenomena . If I were not pre-existent,no Buddha would ever be . If I were not pre-existent, no Doctrine would everbe. If I were not pre-existent, no entourage would ever be .' 22

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The Kun byed rgyal poi mdo was to become one of the principal texts ofthe Tibetan school of rDzogs then . In all Tibetan schools, however, bodhicittahas become a vital part of practice . This is especially true in Tantric practice .Tibetan Tantric ritual sequences always commence with both the verses ofRefuge and the verses for the arousing of bodhicitta . Bodhicitta vows are anessential preliminary to Tantric practice, and meditations to develop bodhi-citta are of importance in all Tibetan traditions .

At the same time the presence of bodhicitta right at the centre of the mostsubtle Tantric yogic processes meant that these processes could scarcely bedivorced from their Buddhist ethical and moral context and used simply asa source of magical powers, as seems to have happened in India .

In fact things went in quite the opposite direction . I have describedelsewhere how lineages of what were in effect hereditary shamanic practi-tioners adopted the Tantric practices and gradually became converted intothe central Buddhist functionaries of a quite new and different system, thatof the Tibetan lamas, who were to be at once spiritual leaders and magicalpractitioners for the Tibetan lay population . 23 One could spell all this outin much greater detail through an analysis of ritual texts and of the biographiesand writings of the early lamas, but here I shall simply note that thisdevelopment took place .

It occurred in a specific social, economic and political context, and it isimportant to see that the linkages here go both ways . A particular set ofritual procedures may enable a particular social development, but thatdevelopment has social preconditions as well . The Buddhist Tantras were,after all, present in 12th-century India too, but they were to disappearaltogether from the Indian sub-continent, with the exception of a smallcommunity in the Nepal valley . What I suggest we need to understand suchhistorical processes is a mode of analysis in which transformations in 'con-sciousness' and transformations in `society' are seen as intimately related toeach other-in fact, as aspects of a single process, neither aspect beingreducible to the other .

THE SEXUAL PRACTICES OF TANTRA: INDIA AND TIBETI shall illustrate this point briefly by looking at another aspect of the Hinduand Buddhist Tantric practices : the use of sexual techniques . Here we returnto the second stage of the complex of ideas around bodhicitta mentioned inthe Introduction. The sexual practices, which are found in both Buddhistand Hindu Tantras, employ the supposed homology between the transfor-mations undergone by the subtle body in sexual intercourse and in theachievement of enlightenment . 24 In more western terms, one might say thatthe alternate states of consciousness created through the controlled use ofsexuality are used as a way of breaking through conventional views of reality .``''

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These practices exploit a well-developed symbolism within which Enlighten-ment or liberation is represented as the overcoming of complementary aspectsof reality . These aspects are visualized as male and female and identified atthe level of the human body-mind with the two major channels on eitherside of the central channel . Thus `male' and `female' here are two modalitiesthat are present in all individuals, whether biologically male or female,although in this particular context they may be seen as polarized betweenthe two partners .

The use of sexuality as a spiritual technique in a tradition that has a strongorientation towards renunciation, celibacy and ascetic practices suggests adeliberately antinomian tinge to these practices . This may well have beentrue in India, both in the early period and in more recent times . It appearsto be much less time in Tibet, and it is this difference on which I want tofocus here .

There are, of course, differences today between the philosophical basis ofVajrayana Buddhists of the Tibetan tradition and Hindu Tantrics in India .As Bharati noted, the male-female symbolism in the Buddhist Tantrasusually (not always) equates male with the `active' pole of compassion andskill-in-means, whereas the female corresponds to the `passive' pole of wisdom(insight, prajna) and voidness . In the Hindu Tantras the female (sakti,`power') is the active polarity . 26

These differences are I think relatively insignificant compared to the vastdifference in social context between the two societies . Thus in modern India,as Bharati once more has pointed out, the female partner, despite hernominally active role, is essentially a passive instrument used by the malein his own pursuit of psychic power. Her spiritual development is not reallywhat the practice is about . She is an accessory needed by the male partnerfor his spiritual practice . 27

In Tibet this is not the case . Male and female partners are each involvedin their personal spiritual practice, and it is not unusual for women tobecome respected spiritual teachers in their own right . 28 It is surely nocoincidence that Tibetan women generally are far more free, much moreopen to pursue their own lives and purposes, far less prone to be regardedas mere accessories to their fathers, husbands or sons, than women incontemporary India . 29

An equally striking contrast can be seen in the general social attitude toTantric practices . In modern India, Tantra has bifurcated into the so-called`right-hand' and `left-hand paths' (daksinamarga, vamamarga) . The right-hand practices are respectable, orthodox, and in fact simply an extension ofthe standard Indian ritual vocabulary . Fully orthodox Brahmin priests inKashmir and South India perform right-hand Tantric rituals on a dailybasis. The left-hand practices are heterodox, antinomian and unconventional .

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The sexual practices fall into this left-hand category, as might be expectedin a society as puritanical and sexually restrictive as contemporary India .In general, left-hand practices can be characterized in Indian terms as highlypolluting . They are totally incompatible with the life of an orthodox Brahminpriest, though not necessarily with that of a sddhu, who is not bound by themoral restrictions of ordinary life .

Orthodox attitudes to left-hand practices are a complex mixture of fear,disgust and fascination . They are seen as evil, horrifying, and also as poten-tially very powerful . More westernized Indians are likely to reject them asprimitive and/or decadent, and certainly as unworthy to be regarded as agenuine spiritual tradition . It is only in very recent years that the interest ofsome western scholars in these traditions has begun to provoke a partial re-evaluation .

In Tibet, the whole complex of attitudes regarding the Tantric sexualpractices is quite different, but then, as Christoph von Furer-Haimendorfpointed out many years ago, Tibetan attitudes to sexuality are in any casevery much more open and relaxed than those of Hindu caste society . 30 Notvery many Tibetans do these practices, but there is none of the mixture ofviolent disapproval accompanied by prurient interest that one finds withIndian attitudes to Hindu left-hand practices . Tibetans do not perform thepractices because they are difficult and `advanced' practices . The controloverprana needed to carry them out properly is believed to take many yearsto acquire . Also, many Tibetan practitioners are monks (Sanskrit bhiksu) ornovices (Iramanera) and have taken vows of celibacy, so performing thepractices would involve a breach of their vows . On the whole these practicesseem to be confined to hereditary lamas or to other non-celibate yogic practi-tioners . There is no suggestion of the explicitly antinomian and even orgiasticaspect of some modern Indian Tantric circles .

SOME CONCLUSIONSWhat I have tried to suggest through these examples is that the kind of bodypractices-better, body-mind practices-involved in the Buddhist and HinduTantras do indeed have consequences for society and individual, throughthe structuring of self, personality, emotion and motivation involved in theircontinued practice . However the consequences of these spiritual practicescannot simply be `read off' without knowing something about the culturalcontext within which their practitioners operate . The practices do not takeplace in a vacuum, but among human beings who are already very muchpart of a specific social milieu, and the influences between practitioner andsociety go in both directions . In fact, the dichotomy between individual andsociety, like the dichotomy between mind and body, is ultimately not viable .The practitioner and the social group are part of a single system .

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This, I think, has implications for those who wish to employ these practicesin a western context . I believe that the Tantric traditions can be a valuablerecource in the transformation which western spirituality is currently under-going. However it is important to realize that these traditions do not simplyprovide a set of techniques that can be applied in a mechanical manner . Thepractices of the Tantras are embedded in a rich and significant culturalcontext. The elaborate preliminary training and the complex ritual environ-ment of Tibetan Tantric practice, in particular, are not simply arbitraryaccretions . These elements are an essential part of how the practices operate,as for that matter is the entire Tibetan social and cultural environment . Ithink that we need to tread quite carefully if we want to draw upon thesepractices as resources to use for our own purposes within our own verydifferent social environment .

At the same time there is much in the Tantric lineages that is bothfascinating and valuable . The use of direct operations with the body tobypass the conscious mind in order to reshape the human self in its emotionaland rational aspects is not confined to the Tantras, but it is here that wehave much the fullest elaboration within the world's major religious traditionsof such an approach . The only really comparable tradition is that of Taoism,which was possibly historically connected with the Tantras . Within the Jewish,Islamic and Christian religions the general suspicion and rejection of `mystical'procedures has been such as to keep analogous practices in a much moremarginal and fragmented situation .

One can certainly find similar techniques in preliterate societies, outsidethe so-called `great religions', within the so-called 'shamanic' traditions . Ihave argued elsewhere that Buddhism in Tibet functions in many respectsas a 'shamanic' system . 31 However, the Tibetan Tantric tradition, theVajrayana, has had over a thousand years of evolution in the context of aliterate, technologically relatively advanced society, as in a different way hasits Hindu equivalent . If we want to know what is involved in operating withbodily techniques, alternate states of consciousness and the like in a complexliterate culture, the Tantric lineages of India and Tibet are obvious placesto look . The practitioners of these traditions have been engaged in balancingrational knowledge and intuitive insight, intellect and feeling, for manycenturies, in the course of their search for a unity beyond the dichotomies .As the West wakes from `single vision' and `Newton's sleep', 32 we may findtheir experiences worth bearing in mind .

NOTES1 Hardy, Friedhelm, `The Role of the Body in the Indian Traditions' . Paper

presented at `The Body : A Colloquium on Comparative Spirituality', LancasterUniversity, July 8-11 1987 .

The Bodv in Buddhist and Hindu Tantra 209

2 Heelas, Paul and Lock, Andrew (eds), Indigenous Psvchologies . The anthro-pology of the self. London, Academic Press 1981 .

3 III, 27-30 . Translation from Matics, Marion L . Entering the Path of Enlighten-ment, New York, Macmillan 1970, p . 155 .

4 Kvaerne, Per, 'On the Concept of Sahaja in Indian Buddhist Tantric Literature' .Temenos 1 1 (1975), pp . 88-135 .

a Edwardes, Michael, In the Blowing Out of a Flame . The World of Buddha andthe World of Man . London, Allen and Unwin 1976, pp. 124-125 .

6 Snellgrove, David, Indo-Tibetan Buddhism . Indian Buddhists and their TibetanSuccessors . 2 vols. Boston, Shambhala 1987, p . 277 .

7 Davidson, Julian M. 'The Psychobiology of Sexual Experience', in Davidson,Julian M . and Davidson, Richard J ., The Psychobiology of Consciousness, NewYork, Plenum Press 1980, pp. 271-332 ; Mandell, Arnold, J . 'Toward a Psycho-biology of Transcendence', op . cit ., pp . 379-463 ; Schuman, Marjorie, 'ThePsychophsiological Model of Meditation and Altered States of Consciousness :A Critical' Review', op . cit ., pp . 333-378 .

8 Dwight Tkatschow, personal communication ; Bharati, Agehananda, The TantrhTradition . London, Rider 1965 : 60 ff on Mahacina ; Guenther, Herbert V . 'EarlyForms of Tibetan Buddhism, Crystal Ifirror 3 (1974), pp . 80-92 .

9 E.g. Saso, Michael, 'The Taoist Body and Internal Alchemy', paper for presen-tation at 'The Body : A Colloquium on Comparative Spirtuality', LancasterUniversity, July 8-11 1987 .

10 Connelly, Peter, 'The Evolution of the Prana Concept in the Veda', paperpresented at 'The Body : A Colloquium on Comparative Spirituality', LancasterUniversity, July 8-11 1987 .

1 I Snellgrove, Indo-Tibetan Buddhism . Cf. also Blacker, Carmen, 'The Place of theBody in Religious Exercise in Japan', paper presented at 'The Body : A Collo-quium on Comparative Spirituality', Lancaster University, July 8-11 1987 .

12 Lorenzen, David, N ., The Kapalikas and Kalamukhas . Two Lost Saivite Sects .New Delhi, Thomson Press 1972 . Australian National University Centre ofOriental Studies . Oriental Monograph Series, 12 ; Robinson, James B . (transl .)Buddha's Lions . The Lives of the Eighty-Four Siddhas . Berkeley, CA, Dharma1979 ; Kvaerne, Per, An .anthology of Buddhist Tantric Songs . A Study of theCarvagiti . Oslo, Universitetsforlaget 1977 .

13 Cf. Cozort, Daniel, Highest Yoga Tantra . An Introduction to the Esoteric Buddhismof Tibet . Ithaca, NY, Snow Lion 1986 : 1 15 fl ; Dowman, Keith, Sky Dancer . TheSecret Life and Songs of the Lady Yeshe Tsogvel . London, Routledge, MeganPaul 1984, p . 247 .

14 Comfort, Alex, I and That . Notes on the Biology of Religion . New York, Crown1979 .

15 On which cf. Rawlinson, Andrew, 'The Body in Indian Mahayana Buddhism',paper presented at 'The Body : A Colloquium on Comparative Spirituality,Lancaster University, July 8-11 1987 .

16 Tucci, Giuseppe, The Religions of Tibet, London, Routledge, Keg an Paul 1980 ;Beyer, Stephan, The Cult of Tara . Magic and Ritual in Tibet . Berkeley, CA,University of California 1973 ; Lati Rinbochay and Hopkins, Jeffrey, Death .Intermediate State and Rebirth in Tibetan Buddhism, Valois, NY, Gabriel & SnowLion 1979 .

17 Cf. Samuel, Geoffrey, Mind Badv and Culture, Cambridge, University Press, inpress .

2 1 0 G. Samuel

18 Cf. the similar analysis of the related Taoist practices in Deleuze, Gilles andGuattari, Felix, A Thousand Plateaus : Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Minneapolis,University of Minnesota Press 1987, p . 157 .

19 Lorenzen, The Kapalikas and Kalamukhas.20 Bharati, Agehananda, The Light at the Center, Santa Barbara, CA, Ross-Erikson

1976 .21 CC Takasaki, J ., A Study of the Ratnagotravibhaga . Rome; Ruegg, David Seyfort,

La theorie du tathagatagarbha et du gotra . Etudes sur la soteriologie et la gnoseo-logie du bouddhisme . Paris, Ecole francaise d'Extreme-Orient 1969 .

22 Dargyay, Eva K, `The Concept of a "Creator God" in Tantric Buddhism,Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies (1985), pp . 44-5 .

23 Samuel, Geoffrey, `Early Buddhism in Tibet : Some Anthropological Perspec-tives', in Aziz, Barbara N . and Kapstein, Matthew (eds), Soundings in TibetanCivilization, New Delhi, Manohar 1985, pp . 383-397 .

24 Cf. Kvaerne, `On the Concept of Sahaja' .25 Cf. Comfort, Alex, I and That . Notes on the Biology of Religion, New York,

Crown 1979 .26 Bharati, A ., The Tantric Tradition, London, Rider 1965 .27 Bharati, A., `Making Sense out of Tantrism and Tantrics', Loka 2 (1976), pp .

52-55 .28 Allione, Tsultrim, Women of Wisdom, London, Routledge, Kegan Paul 1984 ;

Stott, David, `Offering the Body : The Practice of "gCod" in Tibetan Buddhism',paper presented at `The Body: A Colloquium on Comparative Spirituality',Lancaster University, July 8-11 1987 .

29 Cf. Aziz, Barbara N, Tibetan Frontier Families, New Delhi, Vikas 1978 ; Miller,Beatrice D, `Views of Women's Roles in Buddhist Tibet', in A . K . Narain (ed .),Studies in History of Buddhism, New Delhi 1980, pp . 155-166 . The situation inIndian society at an earlier period was apparently less puritanical, and it is notclear when the modern attitudes developed . W . G. Archer suggests that thegrowth of the Tantras was in part a reaction to the move to a more sexuallyrepressive society . (Comfort, Alex, The Koko Shastra, London, Tandem Books1966, pp . 21-23) .

30 Fiirer-Haimendorf, Christoph von, Morals and Merit, London, Weidenfeld andNicolson 1967, referring to the Sherpas and the Hindu Brahmin Chetris ofNepal .

31 Samuel, `Early Buddhism in Tibet' .32 Blake, William, The Complete Poems, ed by Alicia Ostriker, Penguin 1979, p . 487

(Letter to Thomas Butts, 22 November 1802) .

GEOFFREY SAMUEL obtained his Ph .D. in social anthropology fromCambridge University in 1975 for research on religion in Tibetan society . Hehas taught in the U.K., New Zealand and Australia, where lie is currentlySenior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Newcastle, NMV . He is thetranslator of Giuseppe Tucci's Religions of Tibet and \Valter Heissig'sReligions of Mongolia, and the author of Mind, Body and Culture: Anthropologyand the Biological Interface (Cambridge University Press, in press) .

Department of Sociology, University o/' Newcastle, New South 11-'ales 2.308,Australia .