TANTRA- Intro

Tantra

  Tantra (Sanskrit: तन्त्र), also called Tantrism and Tantric religion, is an ancient Indian tradition of beliefs and meditation and ritual practices that seeks to channel the divine energy of the macrocosm or godhead into the human microcosm, to attain siddhis and moksha. It arose no later than the 5th century CE and it had a strong influence on both Hinduism and Buddhism.

Sri Yantra diagram with the Ten Mahavidyas. The triangles represent Shivaand Shakti, the snake represents Spandaand Kundalini.

The term "tantrism" or "tantricism" is an anglicism derived from "tantra", used since the 19th century to refer to a complex and broad body of non-Vedic teachings.

·        Tantric Shaivism was known to its practitioners as the Mantramārga.

·        Shaktism is practically synonymous and parallel with Tantra, known to its native practitioners as "Kula marga" or "Kaula".

·        Tantric Buddhism has the indigenous name of the Vajrayana.

·        Tantric Vaishnavism was known as the Pancharatra.

Tantra Sanskrit: तन्त्र often simply means "treatise" or "exposition". Literally it can be said to mean "loom, warp, weave"; hence "principle, continuum, system, doctrine, theory", from the verbal root tan "stretch, extend, expand", and the suffix tra "instrument".

The Kāmikā-tantra gives the following explanation of the term tantra:Because it elaborates (tan) copious and profound matters, especially relating to the principles of reality (tattva) and sacred mantras, and because it provides liberation (tra), it is called a tantra.[7]The 10th-century Tantric scholar Rāmakaṇṭha, who belonged to the dualist school Śaiva Siddhānta, gives another definition:

A tantra is a divinely revealed body of teachings, explaining what is necessary and what is a hindrance in the practice of the worship of God; and also describing the specialized initiation and purification ceremonies that are the necessary prerequisites of Tantric practice