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Shaman, Lama, Buddha: ‘‘Occult Techniques’’ and the Popularization of Tantric Ritual in Tibet

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by CLAIRE VILLARREAL

Rice University


[T]he overwhelming success of the Secret Path has propelled it into a position where it has become perhaps the least secret of all the Buddhist meditative systems.1

In a remote valley in the Himalayas, residents of the local villages flock to the most prominent monastery in the region to watch its monks’ and lamassymbolic dances and to receive the blessings of the Buddha of Compassion during an initiation by the monastery’s reincarnate lama. The monks’ dances, the initiation, and the rituals that frame these activities can all be understood as having multiple layers of meaning and are all tantric practices offered by skilled religious professionals for the edification (and entertainment) of local residents. Such festivals are often social high points for villagers, and yet they also occupy the intersection between tantra and related practices as elitelevel, liberative religious practices on the one hand and, on the other, tantra as a path to magicoreligious powers to bestow long life and drive away illness, among other outcomes. Tantra is commonly referred to as ‘‘esoteric’’ Buddhism, yet it has become the dominant form of popular practice in Tibetan and other Himalayan cultures. In an effort to account for the popular dimension of this elite domain of practices, this essay will explore tantra’s transformations from a body of esoteric magico-religio-shamanic rituals in firstmillennium India to a Tibetan patchwork cultural landscape in which genuinely secret practices share religious space with ‘‘open secrets’’ accessible to the lay public. In order to trace these remarkable transformations through the

1. Ronald Davidson, Indian Esoteric Buddhism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 339.


centuries and across the Himalayas from India to Tibet, this paper will make two general narrative arcs, the first examining the magicoshamanic roots of tantric practicesin India and theshamanic milieu in Tibet,which contributed to their popular acceptance, and the second backtracking to trace the course of the new tradition’s ‘‘domestication’’2 or ‘‘institutionalization’’3 into more traditional Buddhism and its positioning as the secret peak of that system. TANTRA, SECRECY, AND ESOTERIC BUDDHISM First, a word about words: ‘‘esoteric’’ Buddhism is widely understood to refer to tantra, both in translation and in Tibetan words referring to tantric practices (e.g., man-ngag, lit. ‘‘secret speech’’4). In most cases, the term ‘‘esoteric’’ accurately translates the

intent of the Tibetan, conveying a sense of secrecy and at the same time of transmission under the right circumstances. The problem thus cannot be reduced to one of translation. Western scholars, following emic models, have adopted the term ‘‘esoteric Buddhism’’ as synonymous with tantric traditions.5 Indeed, there is much in these systems that is not openly taught, and there is reason to consider these practices as genuinely esoteric in some contexts. Before a

general discussion of tantra, some description of the system is necessary, and more detail will be provided in the relevant sections below. Tantric Buddhism (i.e., Vajraya ¯na) comprises practices designed, in the tradition’s terms, to work directly with the body’s subtle energies in order to effect a radical transformation in the practitioner’s consciousness in which she6 goes from seeing herself as an ordinary being to realizing (ultimately) her true identity as a buddha. As a prelude to tantric practice, the dedicated student typically must spend at least some time on such standard Buddhist fare


2. See Geoffrey Samuel, Civilized Shamans: Buddhism in Tibetan Societies (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993). 3. Davidson, Esoteric Buddhism. 4. Jim Valby, Ives Waldo, and Rangjung Yeshe definitions, accessed through the Tibetan and Himalayan Library online translation tool (http://www.thlib.org/refer ence/dictionaries/tibetan-dictionary/translate.php). 5. See Matthew Kapstein, The Tibetans (Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2006), e.g., 224; David Snellgrove, Indo-Tibetan Buddhism: Indian Buddhists and Their Tibetan Successors (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 2002, originally published 1987), e.g., 119; and the title of Davidson’s 2002 Indian Esoteric Buddhism, to name a few of many possible examples. 6. In Himalayan Buddhist societies, men are more likely than women to occupy elite religious roles, though some women do gain recognition as practitioners. However, following the lead of some male authors who choose to use masculine pronouns because they are men, I will use the feminine.

as the philosophical deconstruction of ordinary reality into emptiness, the generation of a compassionate intention to liberate all beings from sam . sa ¯ra (the endless round of births and deaths in which unawakened beings are trapped), the sufferings of this cyclic existence, and the like. In these and other ways (explored at more length below), tantric Buddhism is connected with earlier Buddhisms. Where the Vajray ´mna connects with shamanism is more complicated. The possible historical connections will come into play below, but the practical overlaps deserve some attention here. Many authors have

connected Himalayan Buddhist practices with shamanic ones in various ways, one of which is the connection between tantric deity yoga and the magicoshamanic powers held to result from such practices.7 In comparing tantric practices with shamanic ones, Geoffrey Samuel’s description of ‘‘shamanism’’ (formulated for a Tibetan context) is helpful: Shamanism is ‘‘the regulation and transformation of human life and human society through the use (or purported use) of alternate states of consciousness by means of which specialist practitioners are held to communicate with a mode of reality alternative to, and more fundamental than, the world of everyday experience.’’8 This definition sidesteps the historical and comparative issues surrounding the use of the term

‘‘shamanic.’’ It also defines the common ground on which Tibetan practices of various kinds attempt to navigate, invoke, and/or control the nonhuman entities of their world. The rhetoric of the Vajraya ¯na portrays its rituals and other methods of selftransformation as engaging this ‘‘alternative’’ and ‘‘more fundamental’’ level of reality in order to allow the practitioner to realize full buddhahood and benefit all living beings. The typical ritual liturgy of a tantric practice includes various subunits such as taking refuge in the buddha with which the ritual practitioner will identify herself,

vowing to attain full buddhahood in order to benefit all beings, making offerings to the buddha invoked, inviting that beingtobepresent,recitingitsmantra whilevisualizingherselfasthatbuddha or receiving the blessings of it, dissolving into light along with the entire world, re-arising in the form of that buddha, and dedicating the merit of the practice to the benefit of all living beings. Normative Vajraya ¯na Buddhism holds that through such practice, one begins to identify as in fact being a buddha and lets go of ordinary identity.


7. For instance, see Anne Klein and Khetsun Sangpo’s ‘‘Hail Protection’’ in Religions of Tibet in Practice, ed. Donald Lopez (Princeton: University Presses of California, Columbia, & Princeton Limited, 1997): 400–409. 8. Samuel, Civilized Shamans, 8.

This same process of identifying with a buddha (also referred to as a ‘‘deity’’ [Tib. lha] by the tradition) provides the basis for Himalayan shamanic practices. Samuel explains succinctly:

The ultimate aim of [the deity yoga practice described above] as of all Tantric yoga is the attainment of Buddhahood, the ‘‘supreme siddhi’’ (siddhimagical power, magical attainment). Once practitioners have taken on the identity of deities, however, en route as it were to Buddhahood, the powers of the deities are accessible to them. This is the basis of the ordinary or relative siddhis, which include such pragmatic and thisworldly matters as healing, long life, prosperity, divination of future events, or the destruction of obstacles and hostile forces. It is also the foundation of the ritual practice of the lamas.9

Samuel, in his Civilized Shamans, labels three ‘‘orientations’’ he finds in Tibetan Buddhism: the Bodhi Orientation, the goal of which is complete buddhahood; the Karma Orientation, which aims at a favorable rebirth through virtuous actions; and the Pragmatic Orientation, which ‘‘is concerned with this-worldly goals such as health and prosperity.’’10 One example of the mingling of the Bodhi and Pragmatic concerns is in Ju Mipam Rinpoche ´’s ‘‘Calf’s Nipple’’ (Be’u bum), a collection of magical practices compiled by one of the most highly esteemed lamas of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Ju Mipam was a master of the elite traditions of Tibetan Buddhism, and his compilation of potentially dangerous magical spells ‘‘was never intended for wide distribution.’’11 In it, some 225 ‘‘occult techniques’’ are catalogued, offering ways to fulfill one’s worldly desires, from protection from dangerous animals and pests, to defenses against malicious spirits and meteorological conditions, to success in divination, to controllingothers.12 Thesetechniquesrely onpowersacquired throughidentifying oneself with a buddha, but they are clearly not aligned with the Bodhi Orientation. However, despite the deep connections between Bodhi-oriented tantric practices and practices like those described in Ju Mipam’s text, the Tibetan tradition itself holds ‘‘magic’’ distinct from ‘‘tantra.’’ The practices in the


9. Samuel, Tantric Revisionings: New Understandings of Tibetan Buddhism and Indian Religion (Delhi: Ashgate, 2005), 75. 10. Samuel, Civilized Shamans, 5–7. 11. Bryan Cuevas, ‘‘The ‘Calf’s Nipple’ (Be’u bum) of Ju Mipam,’’ in Tibetan Ritual, ed. Jose ´ Ignacio Cabezo ´n (New York: Oxford University Press,

‘‘Calf’s Nipple’’ clearly fall into the former category, while a deity yoga practice not performed to achieve Pragmatic goals falls into the latter. Tibetan cultures took (and take) spiritual or shamanic powers as a tangibly real category, and the power to enact magical rituals is not fundamentally separate from tantra. Of course, one person’s use of a wrathful deity’s power to stop an invading army is another person’s sorcery and magical politics,

but a practitioner defends such actions by citing an ultimately compassionate intention (e.g., to stop the killing of innocents or to kill a ‘‘wrongdoer’’ in order to protect one’s lineage against another’s attacks). Thus, in Tibet tantra clearly can be used to address Samuel’s ‘‘pragmatic’’ concerns. In Indian Esoteric Buddhism, Ronald Davidson makes a similar claim concerningtheoriginsoftantricBuddhisminthemedievalIndiancommunities of lay siddhas who introduced many of the concepts and tropes familiar to the later tradition. These communities, he argues, flourished outside traditional monastic settings,

frequently living in such marginal spaces as among tribal peoples and in charnel grounds.13 Siddhas’ strong affiliation with charnel grounds suggested familiarity with the spirits believed to frequent these areas and to cause disease, and because they were believed to exercise control over spirits, siddhas were also seen as potent intermediaries able to drive out the harmful spirits that cause illness or to harness those spirits to wreak havoc on

enemies.14 Indeed, Alexis Sanderson goes so far as to argue that all of the Buddhist Yoginı ¯tantras were pieced together from non-Buddhist tantric texts (citing chapters from Buddhist tantras that very closely resemble nonBuddhist tantric chapters), but that these texts then serve a distinctly Buddhist function.15 Significantly, though the Buddhist siddhas and their antinomian practices were influenced by S ´aiva and S ´a ¯kti siddhas and their (often deplored) practices, they were also, according to Davidson, influenced by tribal beliefs and practices.16 For a variety of reasons, normative medieval

Indian society began to experience greater contact with tribal peoples, leading to an evident shift in portrayals of these peoples in nontribal literature and a valorization—even a romanticizing—of their ‘‘natural’’ lifestyle by nontribal traditions, Buddhism among them. As part of this trend, tribal concerns and practices found


13. See Davidson, Esoteric Buddhism, particularly 173–235; and Alexis Sanderson, ‘‘Vajrayana:Origin andFunction,’’ inBuddhism intotheYear 2000:International Conference Proceedings (Khlong Sam, Thailand: Dhammaka ¯ya Foundation, 1994), 87–102. 14. Davidson, Esoteric Buddhism, 187–88 and 234. 15. Sanderson, ‘‘Vajrayana,’’ 92–93. 16. Davidson, Esoteric Buddhism, 224ff.; Samuel, Civilized Shamans, 408ff.

their way into the heart of the siddha tradition, with practices designed to subjugate spirits or manipulate the energies of the world for various purposes (healing among them, but also magical rites for subduing or even killing enemies, bringing wealth, and other such ‘‘worldly’’ concerns).17 As we will see later, integrating these new elements into traditional Buddhist ethics proved a formidable challenge, one impossible to resolve completely. For the moment, however, it is sufficient to underscore the borrowing taking place from tribal praxis into institutional Buddhism via the tantric siddhas. One final note on

Davidson’s presentation of tantra as an amalgam of Indian Buddhist praxis: If Davidson’s thesis is correct, and tantric/siddha materials arose in lay communities and found support in royal courts even as they were being massaged into the existing structures of Indian Buddhism, then it should come as no surprise that they would appeal to lay Tibetans in ways that monastic and scholastic exoteric Indian Buddhism would not. The trend in monastic Indian Buddhism at the time of the first wave of dissemination into Tibet was toward the teachings of the so-called Second Turning of the Wheel of Dharma,

emphasizing such refined topics as the lack of inherent existence (but not of mere functional existence) of all phenomena whatsoever.18 Not only did such topics require years of study—and, thus, literacy— but they had very little bearing on the average lay practitioner’s daily life. Indeed, given the sheer difficulty of access to these philosophical Himalayas, they might, taken on their own merit alone, be aptly called esoteric (though of course they were framed as a part of the exoteric underpinnings of the Buddhist tradition, including the tantras). However, Davidson’s theory of the origins of Indian Buddhist tantra has beencontested recentlybyChristian Wedemeyer,amongothers. Usingsemiotics to analyze Indian Buddhist tantric texts, he argues against the tribal and shamanic origins theory and holds instead that these writings emerged from within a monastic context and that the wandering, (anti-)ascetic lifestyle described (and at times prescribed) by such works was temporary rather than a distinct vocation for which monks would have to abandon their monasteries. I will briefly explore his perspective below for the insights and correctives it offers, but ultimately it obscures the shamanic concerns prevalent in the Indian texts and in historical and contemporary Tibetan tantric practices. Wedemeyer, citing the lack of historical evidence regarding the origins of Buddhist tantra, turns to semiotics for assistance in unraveling the antinomian


17. Samuel, Civilized Shamans, 422; Davidson, Esoteric Buddhism. 18. Davidson, Esoteric Buddhism, 99–102; Snellgrove, Indo-Tibetan Buddhism pp. 81–94.

elements mentioned above and integrated into more ‘‘normative’’ Buddhisms with some difficulty. This discipline, he claims in a paraphrase of Roland Barthes, offers a way to understand, for instance, injunctions to consume the five meats (‘‘beef, dog, elephant, horse, and human flesh’’) and five ambrosias (‘‘feces, urine, blood, semen, and marrow’’19): Such injunctions establishnewnetworks ofmeaningbydeliberately

overturningpreviousethicalinjunctions.‘‘[B]ehind thediversityofindividual utterances(paroles),there are discernible patterns of rhetoric that are susceptible to analysis and that allow us to get some purchase on the larger system of signification (langue) in which those utterances make sense.’’20 Thus, transgressive Buddhist tantra only functions in conversation with normative Buddhist ethics. Using this line of reasoning, Wedemeyer argues that the antinomian elements in Buddhist tantra were introduced as deliberate inversions of the traditional ethics, designed as part of an intentional system to collapse the practitioner’s categories of good and bad and promote a full realization of nonduality.


What does it mean, then, for a practitioner of the Maha ¯yoga Tantras . . . to eatfrom a skull a foul soup of polluting meats and bodily fluids? In this semiosis . . . , the complete sign from the natural language of mainstream Indian culture—the signifier beef, and so on in semiological union with its signified ‘‘ritual pollution’’—acts as a signifier in the process of ritual consumption considered as a discourse. The signified in thissemiosis istheattainment of the enlightenedstateof nondualgnosis(advayajn ˜a ¯), called in some sources communion (yuganaddha)—the ultimate goal of the practitioner

in which the deluded perception of things as having an intrinsic nature (pure or polluting, good or evil) is transcended.21 Thus, the seemingly barbaric injunction to consume the flesh of humans and dogs, among other animals, is explained by the gnostic function such ritual consumption would have for a member of a Buddhist (or, potentially, any ancient Indian) community. Therefore, Wedemeyer argues, there is no need to ascribe the revolting aspects of Buddhist tantra to ‘‘primitives’’ such as shamanically oriented tribal peoples: ‘‘[T]he operative concept in this [tribal] interpretation is similarly the notion that it must be simple, primitive societies, in which ‘magic’ held 19. Christian Wedemeyer, Making Sense of Tantric Buddhism: History, Semiology, and Transgression in the Indian Traditions (NY: Columbia University Press,

sway, from which the Tantras derive.’’22 Wedemeyer consistently seems to assume that to label a tradition ‘‘shamanic’’ is to deride it as unsophisticated and ‘‘primitive,’’ an assumption perhaps shared by earlier Western historians of tantra but (as seen above) not necessarily by Davisdon and Samuel. Wedemeyer also points out in his fifth chapter that Buddhist tantrikas and their S ´aivite counterparts were likely borrowing from each other in an environment of mutual influences. Instead of simple Buddhist borrowing from S ´aiva sources, he argues on the basis of the term carya ¯vrata, used similarly

in both systems, that in this case what one sees is a fairly clear example of a Tantric feature that has developed, not in aS ´aiva vacuum, nor even necessarily from a S ´aiva prototype, but that gestated in a shared asceticalzeitgeist inwhich anumber of similarregimens(vrata) were incirculation, and in which forms and features of the Buddhist and S ´aiva idioms, as well as from the overarching orthodox Sma ¯rta traditions, were mutually emulated.23


This approach makes sense, given the large amount of contact and mutual influence evident between Buddhist and non-Buddhist religious elites in ancient India. It also avoids unanswerable questions of the origins of specific terms and practices. Wedemeyer also notes that although both systems use the term carya ¯vrata, the Buddhist meaning seemed relatively stable, while the S ´aiva use of it ‘‘shifted significantly over time, progressively approximating that found in the Buddhist sources.’’24 This presentation of mutual influence—rather than trying to figure out who was borrowing from whom— does not assume that a

given practice is either ‘‘Buddhist’’ or ‘‘S ´aiva’’ but does recognize points of contact between the traditions, a clear improvement on earlier models of contact. Finally, Wedemeyer provides textual arguments that the nondual tantras were written by members of monastic communities rather than by marginal siddha figures. After offering evidence that the tribal identities of some prominent tantric Buddhist figures were entirely contrived (obscuring high-caste status) and that the authors of the nondual Buddhist tantras were intimately familiar with ‘‘standard-issue . . . nontransgressive’’ esoteric texts,25 he stakes his own claim about early Indian Buddhist tantra: ‘‘Given these observations, the most likely explanation is that the antinomian traditions of the later

Buddhist Tantras grew out of and were initially practiced within Buddhist monastic or quasi-monastic enclaves.’’26 By his reading, the ‘‘massaging’’ of the Buddhist tantras by high-status monastics (by means of commentaries and the like) would have been done by groups of people similar to those who originally composed the texts. Much of what Wedemeyer brings to the discourse is very valuable, but he does misread earlier historians, particularly Samuel, on the topic of the shamanic aspects of Indian Buddhist tantra. First, Samuel never suggests that the shamanic elements of Tibetan Buddhism are ‘‘primitive’’ or in any way less sophisticated than its philosophy or other ‘‘high’’ elements of the tradition; quite the contrary, his Mind, Body, and Culture discusses shamanic states and the ways they contribute to societies.27 In addition, there do seem to be elements of the ancient Indian Buddhist tantras that clearly

reflect shamanic concerns, and contemporary Indian (and Tibetan) tantric practices also engage in a shamanic world of manipulating spirits and other powerful nonhuman entities. Wedemeyer cites a nonBuddhist tantric practice’s claim that if ‘‘the murderous rite it teaches’’ are properly deployed, ‘‘‘[even] one who is renowned [as accomplished in] the vidya ¯vrata [and] adorned with fame and so on, is affected by this procedure and dies without further ado.’’’28 He then refers to a comparable Buddhist tantra that claims its rite can ‘‘kill even a buddha,’’29 interpreting such claims as functioning in the service of ‘‘transcendence of conceptuality.’’30 However, Tibetan history suggests that rites to kill one’s enemies have at times been used with just that purpose in mind, and Ju Mipam Rinpoche ´’s Calf’s Nipple offers more recent textual evidence of the same. Shortly after the above citation, Wedemeyer cites a passage from the Maha ¯vairocana tantra:


Gods such as S ´akra, Brahma ¯ and the like, pis ´a ¯ca-s, and mahora ¯ga-s, Paying homage from afar, will also protect all [associated with the mantrin]. They will also pay heed and do what they are commanded. . . . Obstructors (vighna), evil gremlins (vina ¯yaka), demons (ra ¯ks .asa) and demonesses (ma ¯tr .ka ¯)— When they see the one who upholds the mantras, they pay homage from afar.31 26. Ibid., 177. 27. Samuel, Mind, Body. 28. Wedemeyer, Making Sense, 160. 29. Ibid. 30. Ibid. 31. Wedemeyer, Making Sense, 162.

Samuel’s definition of the shamanic (‘‘the regulation and transformation of human life and human society through the use (or purported use) of alternate states of consciousness by means of which specialist practitioners are held to communicate with a mode of reality alternative to, and more fundamental than, the world of everyday experience’’32) applies precisely to this type of expectation about a given practice. For first-millennium CE Indians, the idea of a practitioner becoming identified with a tantric deity and thereby gaining control over nonhuman entities was not simply a signifier for having collapsed

cognitive duality; it was factual in a way that we as postmodern scholars often find challenging. In addition, June McDaniel’s Offering Flowers, Feeding Skulls provides a wealth of information about contemporary Bengali tantric communities. It is impossible, of course, to extrapolate from modern data what shape tantric practices in medieval India might have taken, and yet her fieldwork suggests that shamanic concerns often mingle seamlessly with tantric practice. Indeed, near the end of the second chapter, ‘‘Tantric and Yogic Shaktism,’’ she defends her classification of the varieties of ‘‘Shakta tantra in

West Bengal’’ as folk and classical by identifying two different influences on the development of tantra in that area: ‘‘the tribal traditions of Bengal’s rural ojhas and gunins’’ and ‘‘the Sanskrit philosophical traditions of Advaita Vendanta and Samkhya.’’33 She suggests that these two varieties of tantra ‘‘are linked by the value on esoteric yogic knowledge and practice, which can adapt to each. Tribal shamanism plus esoteric yoga equals folk tantra; classical philosophy plus esoteric yoga equals classical tantra.’’34 It seems plausible that ancient Indian Buddhist tantra may have developed in a similarly diverse cultural milieu, with different practitioners emphasizing different aspects or potentialities of a common set of practices. Certainly that seems to have been the case for Tibetan tantrikas.

TIBETAN SPIRITS As we shift to the Tibetan context, we must begin by noting some similarities between Indian tribal concerns and Tibetan pre-Buddhist concerns.35 Davidson characterizes Indian tribal religion as concerned with the subjugation and 32. Samuel, Civilized Shamans, 8. 33. June McDaniel, Offering Flowers, Feeding Skulls: Popular Goddess Worship in West Bengal (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 142–43. 34. McDaniel, Offering Flowers, 144. 35. Traditionally pre-Buddhist religious thought was once unquestioningly termed ‘‘Bo ¨n’’ (bon), but that designationis nowwidely acknowledged as problematic and will not be used in that context in this paper. In addition, I would note that most of these concerns are shared, to one degree or another, with many traditional cultures

manipulation of spirits, which were believed to congregate especially at charnel grounds and other such socially marginal places.36 In Tibet virtually every element of the landscape was (and continues to be) considered alive, and mountains and lakes in particular were associated with powerful local deities. The people of pre-Buddhist Tibet, in addition to propitiating these deities for help, protection, and healing, showed great concern for the transition of the living into the land of the dead, with elaborate funerary rites in particular for the rulers. Tibetans also placed great value on spirit mediums who served as intermediaries between these local beings and the human communities who shared their space.37 Given this brief sketch of the Tibetan

pre-Buddhist stage, we can now follow the story of the introduction of Indian Buddhism to Tibet and the eventual Tibetan embrace of all things tantric.38 When Tibetans received teachers, texts, and lineage transmissions from India, they could fit Buddhist tantric rites into their existing constellation of concerns with relative ease. Of course, there was initial resistance to this new and foreign religion from the human and, according to legend, nonhuman inhabitants of Tibet. A brief summary of the later mythic reconstruction of Buddhism’s introduction to the Land of Snows will serve as a Tibetan cultural self-portrait. When, in the eighth century CE, the nation of Tibet had only recently been unified under the Yarlung kings and the great ruler Tri Songdetsen (Khri Srong-lde-brtsan) wanted to establish the first Buddhist monastery in Tibet, he invited the Indian monk S ´a ¯ntaraks .ita to do the job. But when construction on the site at Samye began, the fearsome spirits of the land would come by night and tear down the work that had been completed during the

day. S ´a ¯ntaraks .ita declared that only Padmasambhava, a great tantrika, could tame this wild land, and the king duly sentfor him. Padmasambhava (a.k.a. Guru Rinpoche ´, ‘‘the Precious Guru’’), summoned from the culturally Indian borderlands of Tibet, made his way to Central Tibet, engaging along the way in combat with the local deities—and winning, of course, thus converting these fierce beings into sworn protectors of the Buddhadharma. With the trio of Tri and are in no way uniquely Tibetan. However, it is helpful to examine briefly how they manifest in the Tibetan context. 36. Davidson, Esoteric Buddhism, 187–88. 37. Kapstein, Tibetans, 46–49. 38. It should be noted, at least in passing, that India was far from the only source for Tibetan Buddhism. Central Asia and China also played important—though subsequently forgotten or downplayed—roles in transmitting Buddhist teachings. However, information on these early transmission lineages is extremely limited, and this paper focuses on the continuity of Indian Buddhist tantra with its Tibetan form.

Songdetsen, S ´a ¯ntaraks .ita, and Padmasambhava (the ruler, the monk, and the tantrika) in place, the conversion of Tibet into a Buddhist nation could begin in earnest.39 This narrative illustrates the Tibetans’ regard for their land (and, by extension, for their native spirits) as wild and difficult to tame, as well as their deeply felt esteem for the magical powers of the accomplished tantrika. Indeed, of the famous trio of king, monk, and tantrika, it is Guru Rinpoche ´ who is cast in legend as having visited every corner of the Land of Snows and worked in countless ways to plant the seeds of a future (shamanically and esoterically inclined) Buddhism. S ´a ¯ntaraks .ita’s deeds seem to pale by comparison in the Tibetan narrative imagination (though his scholarly texts are greatly revered). David Snellgrove, whohas made a decades-long studyof the Indo-Tibetan tradition and of the pre-Indian-Buddhist

tradition of Tibet, offers the following insightful reflection on the popular embrace of Buddhism during the early period of diffusion: At a . . . popular level there was certainly a ready willingness to test the magical powers of those representatives of the new religion who claimed the necessary competence. . . . Thegeneral Tibetanbelief in the malign activities of a hostof nonhuman beings provided Buddhist teachers with the opportunity of demonstrating their superior powers, and they could perhaps win their new clients with a more impressive ritual and a greater display of confident knowledge than their rivals possessed. . . . The nonhuman beings of Tibet . . . were already there when the first Buddhist teachers arrived, and they had no choice but to come to terms with them. Thus the general demand for the kinds of rites readily available in tantric literature was bound to assist its promulgation.40

Significantly, rites of this kind were the domain of esoteric tantra, not exoteric su ¯tra. Thus, although—according to the tenuous synthesis still being forged in India at that time—one had to understand emptiness and fully cultivate bodhichitta before engaging in tantric practice, the reality on the ground in Tibet at the time of the first diffusion of Indian Buddhism was that popular interest seems to have been most engaged by the pragmatic applications of the esoteric teachings. Monastic and institutional Buddhism had been established in India for over a thousand years before tantra began to work its way

into the tradition, but in Tibet there was no such precedent, and in a populace who could neither read nor write and had never received teachings on nontantric Buddhist philosophy, tantra naturally appealed more strongly than exoteric su ¯tra at a popular level. To return to a more standard Western account of Tibetan history, the period of the first introduction of Indian Buddhism to Tibet (eighth to tenth centuries CE) saw the introduction of the forms being developed in Northwest India, with an emphasis on the tantras but with many important su ¯tras and nontantric commentaries also introduced at

this time.41 For a variety of reasons, it is difficult to know exactly which texts were translated into Tibetan during this very early period. However, it is clear that Buddhist teachers were welcomed and patronized by the imperial Tibetan court. Beyond the predispositions of the Tibetan people, a broader paradox of the esoteric must be acknowledged here. Esoteric discourse often revolves around the efficacy (perhaps even supremacy) of its own praxis. It seems only natural, then, that everyone—‘‘qualified’’ or not—should gravitate toward a system that claims to be the most effective. As Dan Brown’s runaway success with The Davinci Code illustrates, interest in ‘‘esoteric’’ topics has never been restricted to the intellectual or spiritual elite. The Tibetan (and now the Western) history of engagement with tantric Buddhism shows the same trend: as soon as esoteric teachings make their way into the marketplace

of ideas and praxis, people will find ways of either employing the services of adepts or of putting populist versions of the practices into use, regardless of their own level of skill with the materials. And now, we bend this paper’s exploration back to examine how these essentially shamanic themes and concerns were carefully retooled in the Indian tradition during the long process of domesticating tantra for use in monastic settings. THE BUDDHIST DOMESTICATION OF TANTRA In this second section of my argument I will show that tantric practice, wild and sometimes dangerous as it could be, worked its way into the fold of the greater Buddhist community by being mythically reframed and creatively reinterpreted. As a backdrop to the developments of tantra, some knowledge

41. Snellgrove, Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, 451ff.; Samuel, Civilized Shamans, 444ff. As a note of counterbalancetothe popularembrace of tantra,Kapstein and Snellgrove both significantly point to the emperors’ preference for su ¯tric teachings (and the institutions of higher learning which they entail) rather than the antinomian tantric practices (Kapstein, Tibetans, 71ff.; Snellgrove, Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, 451). Indeed, the future weakness of the Tibetan central political authorities may have much to do with the generally permissive attitude toward tantra in following centuries.

of medieval Indian society and Buddhism’s place in it is necessary. Davidson’s 2002 Indian Esoteric Buddhism provides that backdrop, painting a picture of an Indian state fragmenting into smaller feudal regions after the fall of the Gupta dynasty, with large and prosperous cities falling prey to attack by neighboring city-states, while commercial guilds losing sway as long-distance trade drops off. By the late first millennium CE, north Indian Buddhism had become largely Maha ¯ya ¯na and was concentrated in large monastic institutions, which thus lost two of their most reliable sources of support: strong

rulers and trade guilds. Inthis newatmosphere of socialuncertainty andopportunistic warfare between neighboring city-states, Buddhists suddenly found themselves competing for patronage with other religious groups (most prominently S ´aiva and S ´a ¯kta orders) who were willing and able to legitimize rulers’ ruthless tactics through their narrative and religious traditions. The S ´aiva in particular, as followers of S ´iva, had ascetic members who were helping to define emerging forms of tantric practice: propitiation of spirits to gain magical powers, transgressive rituals thatincluded (sometimes literal) ritual cannibalismand antinomian sexual and dietary practices (examples will be given below of Buddhist appropriations of these rituals), lifestyles

designed to provoke social censure and rejection, and a general swing toward extreme moral relativism or outright rejection of moral obligations altogether.42 As Davidson notes, these sorts of behaviors were antithetical to traditional Buddhist values, and Wedemeyer’s reading also acknowledges (or at least does not explain away) a great tension between normative monastic Buddhism and antinomian practices. Buddhistsidentity (and prestige) in earlier Indian society had been rooted in their high ethical standards and intellectual prowess. For a sample of traditional Buddhist ethics, we can turn to Sa ¯ntideva, who lived and wrote at Na ¯landa ¯ monastery (which had a temple dedicated to tantric practice, though the monks may not all have practiced tantra43) in Northern India roughly during the seventh to eighth centuries CE,44 when the process of institutionalizing tantra was certainly underway. A short passage from S ´a ¯ntideva’s most famous work, the Bodhicarya ¯vata ¯ra, will illustrate the tone of traditional monastic Buddhist morality during this period.

One should never cast the eyes to and fro for no purpose. The gaze should be bent low as if continually absorbed in meditation. 42. Davidson, Esoteric Buddhism, 62–90 and 177–86. 43. Ibid. 44. Kate Crosby and Andrew Skilton. The Bodhicarya ¯vata ¯ra (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), viii.

However, one might occasionally look to the horizon in order to rest the eyes, and if one notices someone within one’s field of vision, one should look up to greet them. . . . It is not desirable to spit out tooth-cleaning sticks and phlegm in public, and it is also forbidden to urinate and so forth on land or into water that is usable. One should not eat with a mouth overfull, noisily, nor with mouth wide open. One should not sit with a leg hanging down, likewise one should not rub both arms at the same time.45

The above injunctions suggest the level of detail monastic Buddhists were expected to pay to their daily conduct. The Vinaya, the teachings of the Buddha regarding the behavior of monks and nuns, lays out such explicit instructions for most areas of daily life. This passage gives a sense of the level of discipline and conformity that would be expected of monks in North India during the time when the siddhas were active and monastic hermeneuts were incorporating their literary productions into the received Buddhist canon. The tantric passages cited below will seem all the more shocking in light of S a ¯ntideva’s instructions to his fellow monks. Distinctive Buddhist identity in India weakened further with the formation of communities of Buddhist siddhas (‘‘perfected ones,’’ persons considered masters of tantric practices). These communities would have closely resembled non-Buddhist communities following similar practices in addition to living in ways antithetical to established Buddhist ethical guidelines. The real danger came when siddhas’ practices found their way into monasteries of traditional, celibate monks whose virtue made them objects of veneration and offerings by the laypeople. We have now reached the proper subject matter of this second section, with novel practices making their way into the very heart of the Buddhist tradition.

With the rise of Buddhist siddhas and the accommodation of their practices into the Buddhist textual canon, institutional Buddhism suddenly found itself validating passages like the following, which not only contradicts the basic Buddhist ethics of sexual continence and refraining from killing but which invokes Hindu deities (Brahma ¯,S ´iva, and Visnu) to boot: Then Vajrapa ¯ni, Lord of all the Buddhas, brought forth the Pledge (samaya) of Brahma ¯ from his own Vajra Body, Speech and Mind: Whatever actions one performs, fearful and terrible, in the way of Delusion, being conducive to the enlightenment of a Buddha, it is essentially Vajra-Body.


Then he brought forth likewise the pledge of Rudra: One should make love to all women in their various modes of existence, regarded as the triple Vajra, throughout the threefold world. This is the most wonderful pledge (relative to Passion). Then he brought forth likewise from his own Vajra Body, Speech and Mind this Pledge of the Triple Vajra: TheVajra of Body isBrahma ¯. TheVajraof Speechis Mahes ´vara(S ´iva). TheHolder of the Vajra of Mind, the King, is Visnu of great magical power.46

This passage comes not from some obscure tantra or a marginalized siddha’s composition but from the Guhyasama ¯ja Tantra, one of the major tantras in the initial wave of the introduction of Indian Buddhism to Tibet. In fact, compared to the injunctions in some tantras to consume human flesh during the course of a given ritual, the quote above seems relatively easy to harmonize with the traditional Buddhist values of compassion and self-restraint. But compared with S ´a ¯ntideva’s precise directions against casting the eyes wantonly about, even this relatively tame section from the Guhyasama ¯ja Tantra is completely shocking in its content and its tenor alike. The discontinuities between earlier institutional Buddhism (as opposed to the noninstitutional wandering communities of siddhas) are apparent enough, and later in this section we will explore several techniques employed by Indian monks to adapt the new tantras for use in monasteries. However, before we turn to Indian efforts to harmonize the disjunctions, the philosophical continuities bear investigation.

CONTINUITY THROUGH SUNYATA ¯


Sunyata ¯ (emptiness), which formed the centerpiece of exoteric Buddhist philosophy, would make possible the incorporation of this material into a uniquely Buddhist system of self-cultivation. The doctrine of s ´u ¯nyata ¯ was proposed by Na ¯ga ¯rjuna (ca. second–third centuries CE) and elaborated by Chandrakı ¯rti (seventh century CE) into the form that would later be called Pra ¯sangika-Madhyamaka. It states that everything that exists does so provisionally, by means of arising in dependence on causes and conditionsincluding the cause of being imputed by the mind that perceives it. Candrakı ¯rti’s formulation of the doctrine does away with the inherent, established existence even of any ultimate level of reality whatsoever.47 Instead, all 46. Snellgrove, Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, 129. 47. By comparison, philosophical formulations of the ‘‘no-self’’ doctrine from Early Buddhist schools usually called into question a ‘‘self’’ imputed on the basis of

things are perpetually in a state of flux, a constant arising and passing away without even a fundamentally existent substrate. This well-accepted notion of the insubstantiality of one’s ordinary form of existence (indeed, of everything an ordinary being can perceive) provided for some the grounds to rationalize such acts as killing living beings (after all, there is no inherently existent being there to kill or to do the killing) or engaging in dubious forms of sexual activity, as well as the grounds to speak of the radical transformation of one’s ordinary experience of self (if there is no inherently existent ‘‘I’’ behind my experiences, why should a human form be any more accurate in expressing ‘‘my’’ reality than some other form?). The following passage demonstrates this sense of transformative potential and the explicit connection between that potential and s ´u ¯nyata ¯: Having fixed the cloudlike mandala of the [[[Sanskrit]]] alphabet, [The Lord and Lady]48 recited these verses of magical manifestation: Mind itself which has no basis is yet the basis of all dharmas [[[existent]] things]. Mind itself has the self-nature of this alphabet. The alphabet as active mind (manas) is this gemlike cloud. Having perfected the netlike mandala, all forty-two letters of this magical mandala, One accomplishes all perfect mandalas in the ten directions and four periods of time. Acting as an elixir it disposes of all evil spirits and the four hundred and four diseases. Appearing as the Glorified

Body (sambhoga) it eliminates all evil rebirths. It accomplishes whatever one wants anywhere. . . . the various aggregates of mind and body, but they stopped short of negating the established existence of those aggregates themselves. S ´u ¯nyata ¯ became a cornerstone of Maha ¯ya ¯na thought and one basis of the Maha ¯ya ¯nist claim of superiority over earlier Buddhist systems. Some Buddhist thinkers, feeling that s ´u ¯nyata ¯ had come perilously close to nihilism (a claim many systems made regarding especially the Pra ¯sangika formulation of the doctrine) propounded doctrines that would come to be known as Yoga ¯ca ¯ra, emphasizing an all-pervasive and truly established Buddha nature. This system in many ways laid the groundwork for the incorporation of tantra into Buddhism. Unfortunately, laying out the details of this centuries-long progression

could easily fill another paper of this length. For a more substantial history of this development, please see Snellgrove, Indo-Tibetan Buddhism. 48. ‘‘Here the Lord and Lady are subject and object, mind (yid�manas) and ideas (chos�dharmas, ‘‘elements of existence’’), thus representing the concepts of grahaka (‘dzin-pa, apprehender) and grahya (gzung-ba, apprehended) of the Mind-Only school [which was related to the Yoga ¯ca ¯ra school mentioned above].’’ Snellgrove, IndoTibetan Buddhism, 459.


The world in all its parts is dispersed. All is decomposed and void [s ´u ¯nya]. By means of this meditation one conjures forth, one sends away, One binds, one releases, one enlivens, one kills, one brings defeat or victory. The terms such as ‘‘form’’ (ru ¯pa) and so on are self-manifestations of absolute knowledge, And their transformation into the self-nature of mind Is like the changing of darkness to light or the production of gold by alchemy.49 This passage highlights the role that the doctrine of s ´u ¯nyata ¯ played in the transition from more traditional Maha ¯ya ¯na approaches to transformation toward tantric understandings of transformation. Whereas earlier texts emphasized the gradual cultivation of an intellectual understanding

of s ´u ¯nyata ¯ coupled with the patient collection of merit and development of compassion (bodhicitta), which required several eons of effort, tantric yogis claimed that their new methods could bring liberation in a single lifetime by means of the adept’s simply and directly realizing the empty nature of all perceptions. The practitioner’s experiences, even of her own body and mind, were to be transfigured on the spot through identification with a deity or, as in the passage above, through practice with a mandala. MAKING THE SHOE FIT The two tantric passages above illustrate several of the challenges to Buddhist ethics posed by these new compositions. Indian Buddhist institutions (particularly the large monastic universities, which were the locus of much of this integrative work) employed various strategies in order to

bring this material into their fold.50 The first hurdle to overcome was mythological. The wide 49. Snellgrove, Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, 459, from a Tun-huang manuscript included in the canon of the most ancient school of Buddhism in Tibet, the Nyingma (rNying-ma). 50. There were, it bears mentioning, many groups who simply found the new materials shocking and un-Buddhist and so maintained earlier standards for canonicity. Snellgrove makes this point explicitly: ‘‘[I]t must be fairly recognized that very few scholars outside the Indo-Tibetan tradition of interpretation have felt able to accept this last Buddhist phase in its entirety. Certainly Chinese and Japanese Buddhists have found much canonical tantric material objectionable, and have either employed evasive translations or have treated whole texts as later corruptions. More recently,

Western and modern Indian scholars have freely attributed to tantric developments the gradual decline of Buddhism in India from the eighth to the thirteenth centuries A.D., as though it had allowed itself to be submerged indistinguishably into forms of popular Hinduism. There is considerable evidence against such a view.’’ (Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, 117) Snellgrove thus takes issue with implications like David


variety of materials in the Maha ¯ya ¯na Buddhist canon had been reconciled in earlier generations by means of the doctrine of the three Turnings of the Wheel of Dharma: the first Turning comprised the universally accepted su ¯tras of Early Buddhism, taught at Sarnath (as in the Early Buddhist narrative) to the Buddha’s ordinary disciples after his enlightenment. The second Turning occurred at Vulture’s Peak, when the Buddha taught the doctrine of emptiness to his bodhisattva disciples. To account for the fact that no one in the human realm heard these su ¯tras for several hundred years after the parinirva ¯n .a

(passing away into nirva ¯na) of the Buddha—until Na ¯ga ¯rjuna’s exposition of the doctrine, in fact—Maha ¯ya ¯nists proposed the explanation that these teachings had been hidden in the realm of the na ¯ga ¯s (superhuman snake-like creatures that live in the water), and Na ¯ga ¯rjuna had ventured to the bottom of the ocean to retrieve them. (This is why Na ¯ga ¯rjuna is typically portrayed in iconography with a cobra’s hooded head raised above his own.) The third Turning of the Wheel produced the Yoga ¯ca ¯ra or Cittama ¯tra teachings regarding Buddha nature, which acted as a counterbalance to the nihilistic tendenciesoftheemphasis onemptinessinthesecondTurning (thoughthisTurning seemed not to necessitate a narrative addition to the myth of the

Buddha’s life and teachings).51 One problem tantric monks faced as they worked to incorporate such radically new materials was that Buddhist communities were already familiar with the standard ways of telling the life of the Buddha, and tantric practice, let alone sexual tantra, played no part in those narratives. In order to meet even the flexible Maha ¯ya ¯na standards to be considered ‘‘buddhavacana’’ (the word of the Buddha), the tantras must have been taught by the Buddha during his lifetime. Accordingly, the domesticators of the tantras constructed a bold back-story to legitimize their new doctrine: [T]he process [of Buddha’s enlightenment under the Bodhi tree] is interrupted . . . by the Buddhas of the Ten Directions, who arouse him from his composure

by snapping their fingers and announcing: ‘‘You cannot become a perfected Buddha just by son’s that the introduction of tantra to Buddhism contributed to the erosion of a distinct Buddhist self-identity and argues later in this passage that Buddhists continued to hold their self-identity as unique in the Indian religious landscape. Davidson’s documentation, from archaeology as well as Buddhist and non-Buddhist texts, is more persuasive, however, than Snellgrove’s argument on the basis only of Buddhist self-identification. I suspect that addressing this topic thoroughly would require a great deal of space, and the point is largely moot here since the Tibetan situation regarding tantra is this paper’s ultimate focus. Nonetheless, this contrary view must be aired, even if only in a footnote. 51. For fuller versions of the Three Turnings doctrine, see Snellgrove, Indo

this innercomposure.’’ Thenleaving his physicalbody onthe banks of the Nairanjana River, they conducted his mind-made body to the Highest heaven, where they bestowed upon him the preliminary consecrations, followed by the five stages of Perfect Enlightenment (abhisambodhi) as marked by five formulas of self-consecration. Thus he became the perfected Buddha, the Great Vairocana, and having taught the Yoga Tantras on the summit of Mount Meru, he descended to the everyday world, took possession of his physical body, defeated Ma ¯ra, the Evil One, and so the earlier traditional account of his ministry follows.52


The Supreme Yoga Tantras (anuttarayoga-tantra; this is the category of tantra that includes sexual union) may even begin, as usual, with the place and circumstance of their teaching by the Buddha: ‘‘Thus have I heard: at one time the Lord reposed in the vaginas of the Vajra-maidens—the heart of the Body, Speech and Mind of all Buddhas.’’53 Snellgrove notes in a telling footnote to this passage, from his translation of the Hevajra Tantra: ‘‘I have tended to gloss over such imagery, as indeed so often do the Tibetans.’’ This extracanonical note points to the need for sources outside the textual record regarding the institutionalization of tantric practices, since simply reading this opening verse of the tantra gives no indication of hesitation as the author

portrays the Buddha in multiple forms engaging simultaneously in sexual union with multiple ‘‘Vajra-maidens.’’ The next two topics in this section address some results of the unease with which authorities often incorporated these materials, leading them to declare much of the nonmonastic materials metaphorical or to be practiced only by lay yogis, not by monastics.


TAMING TANTRA


Metaphor was to prove one of the most useful tools at hermeneuts’ disposal as they massaged tantric materials into more established monastic practice environments. The metaphorical accommodation runs like this: The tantric injunctions to kill and/or engage in sexual activity as an element of practice must be metaphorical, since (obviously) such actions run counter to established methods of Buddhist practice. Therefore, one ‘‘kills’’ wrong views in the mind, and one ‘‘unites with’’ ultimate reality. Snellgrove offers a classical example of the beginning of this movement as a sexual ritual’s contents are framed in specifically Buddhist terms, in this case

Tibetan Buddhism, 94–95; for the concern to build mythic narratives to hold new doctrinal developments, see Davidson, Esoteric Buddhism, 241. 52. Snellgrove, Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, 120–21. 53. Ibid., 121.

justifying the fourth consecration in a ritual of Supreme Yoga Tantra. In such a ritual, the (male) initiate would bring a female sexual partner with him to the consecration, in the process of which the vajra master would perform a ritual to transform himself into the deity and then practice ritual sexual union with the female partner. The initiate would then ingest some of the couple’s mingled sexual fluids (the ejaculate of the master having been transfigured into the seed of the deity). The initiate himself would then couple with his female partner, thus assuming the identity of the deity. Here is

the reading Snellgrove offers of this ritual, based on an interpretation found in the Advayavajras ´amgraha: Through the union of Wisdom [the female partner] and Means [the vajra master] there comes the Thought of Enlightenment (bodhicitta), ‘‘produced simultaneously on both sides’’ . . . and this is identified ritually with the drop of semen (bindu) at the tip of the vajra (the male organ) as it rests in the lotus (the female organ). It is with this ‘‘drop’’ taken ‘‘from the secret places of Wisdom and Means’’ that the master consecrates his pupil in the Secret Consecration by placing it on the tip of his tongue. Thus consecrated, the pupil may proceed to the next consecration, the Knowledge of Wisdom, when

he knows Wisdom herself by being united with her. He experiences in her embrace external experience (the external world as defined by the four elements etc....),whichthroughtheecstaticunionbecomesreabsorbedintothenaturalnondual state of absolute nonduality, as defined in Maha ¯ya ¯na philosophical concepts.54

The passage cited above, though not metaphorical in its interpretation of the consecration, moves in that direction by coupling a challenging new praxis with traditional Buddhist philosophical underpinnings. Samuel remarks on the difficulty of knowing what is intended as metaphor and what is not (and clarifies the use of the bivalent term ‘‘bodhicitta’’ as cited above): ‘‘[I]t can be hard to tell what is literal and what is metaphorical. At times both meanings may be intended simultaneously: bodhicitta can be both the bodhisattva’s motivation of compassion towards all living beings and the seminal fluidwhose controlforms acentral partof theinternal processesof Tantric yoga. . . . Elsewhere, the use of language may be purely symbolic.’’55 Davidson, after commenting on the use of metaphor to domesticate rituals like the fourth consecration above, goes further in the direction of problematizing simple readings of difficult passages as purely metaphorical:

Recent apologists for the Buddhist tantras have concentrated on linguistic deconstruction through the artifice of ‘‘coded language’’ (samdha ¯/samdhya ¯/samdha ¯ya-bha ¯sa), which had been used by selected commentators to take some of the spice from the brew. According to this idea, all the language of the tantras is figurative, not literal. Thus the eros and thanatos of the esoteric scriptures are to be understood as indicative of a secret coded form of language, referring to internal experiences. The key to such language was revealed in the esoteric transmission from master to disciple, and only uninformed outsiders considered that the statements might be simple declarative pronouncements. Unfortunately, as shown below, the invocation of the various strategies of textual hermeneutics—of which ‘‘coded language’’ is only one—is highly idiosyncratic and lacks any uniform method of application. . . .

A single section of a tantra may be taken as literal or variously figurative by different commentators in India (or China, Tibet, or Japan), even with the same commentator sometimes adopting different explanations mid-stride. . . . Thus the argument against literalness appears to lose a degree of force in the absence of hermeneutic unanimity.56 This passage is part of Davidson’s larger argument that these practices began as literal enactments and were institutionalized via metaphorical interpretations. His attack on ‘‘the argument against literalness’’ should be read in that context. Treating challenging passages from the tantras as metaphorical language opened the institutional door to a great deal of new material, and monastic authorities had a simple way to deal with material not sufficiently tamed by this process: Declare some practices off-limits to monastics. Most texts could be interpreted and practiced in ways that would enable celibate monastics to keep their vows (and indeed many Indian monks did—and virtually all Tibetan monastics do—tantric practice of some sort), with individual teachers and lineages working out their own solutions to controversial issues such as whether physical intercourse is necessary for full realization in a single lifetime. This integration of the siddhas’ materials into institutional Indian Buddhismwas toform thebasis andalsothe patternfor tantricpracticeto become such a vital force in Tibetan culture, both inside and outside the monastery. On theone hand, Indianhermeneuts’ attempts towrestle thesiddhas’ materials into a form that harmonized with established forms of Buddhism created a version of established Buddhism, which spoke in a vocabulary resonant with lay concerns (particularly those concerns that could be addressed through shamanic practice). On the other hand, this process legitimized

monasteries as vehicles that could transmit esoteric teachings and located shamanic forms of practice within the very social structures that would come in Tibet to be centers of political power in their own right. As Samuel persuasively argues, the coupling of a weak central government unable to police monasteriesactivities and the increasing sociopolitical clout of the monasteries and their lamas combined over the course of the centuries57 to allow tantric practice to flourish not only in closely held secret transmission lineages but also in visible, popular forms.58 This paper cannot examine the political dimensions of the Tibetan integration of Indian Buddhist tantra, but it is important to note at least in passing that there were strong and unusual political forces behind the extraordinary level of accommodation that tantric practice found in Tibetan society.


FINAL THOUGHTS


The first section of this paper explored how Buddhist tantra has addressed lay concerns by shamanic means from its inception in India and how that orientation helped the new religion spread into Tibetan society in thelate first millennium. The second section traced in greater detail the process by which Indian monks integrated the new materials into existing institutions. Together, these two portions of the narrative help to explain why and how esoteric Indian traditions came to function as the public face of Buddhism in Tibet, a ‘‘secret’’ shared amongan entire society. Thetransmission of Tibetan


Buddhismto nonTibetan communities offers many living opportunities to explore the popular appeal of traditions that include occult techniques of a pragmatic and useful nature, whose widespread appeal is hardly negated by the fact that their own rhetoric declares them the territory of the elite. In addition, the Tibetan embrace of tantra offers a centuries-long history affording many opportunities for exploration of the tensions between the popular

appeal of ‘‘esoteric’’ traditions and the elite nature of their practice at the highest levels. Most other cultures’ esoteric traditions faced stronger external constraints (often from governments affiliated with the hierarchy of exoteric lineages), so the Tibetan situation provides an apt dialogue partner to the contemporary reception of esoteric practices (Buddhist or other) in secular societies.


57. Particularly from the mid-ninth century, with the construction of Samye Monastery and the introduction of the monastic institution to Tibet, to the fifteenth century, with the spread of the tulku (sprul sku) system which allowed political and spiritual authority to remain in the reincarnation lineage of a monk held to be an enlightened master. (Samuel, Civilized Shamans, 494–95) 58. This is the thesis of Samuel’s 2002 Civilized Shamans, and his Part Three, 359ff., addresses this topic in detail.




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