Tantra

Tantra (Sanskrit, "web" or "warp"), a body of esoteric Hindu and Buddhist religious texts and rituals. The Hindu Tantras were written after the Puranas, in the medieval period, and are usually set in the form of a dialogue between the god Shiva and his consort Parvati, in which he explains to her the philosophy and myths underlying the Tantric ritual. This ritual involves reversals of normal Hindu social practices (for instance, incestuous sexual acts) and reversals of normal physiological processes (for instance, the drawing up of the semen out of the woman and into the body of the man). It also reverses the orthodox Hindu "five products of the cow," or panchagavya (milk, butter, curds, urine, and feces) used for purification; in Tantra, these become the "five m's": maithuna ("intercourse"), matsya ("fish"), mansa ("flesh"), mudra ("parched grain"), and mada ("wine"). Tantric adepts learn, from a guru, how to raise their psychosexual energy—the curled serpent power (Kundalini) that lies at the base of the spine—through successive focal points (chakras), until it reaches the highest chakra, at the top of the skull, and the adept experiences, within, the union of the god and the goddess. This process (sadhana) begins with a systematic visualization of the deity, limb by limb, who materializes through the use of visual diagrams (yantras) and through the use of magic incantations (mantras).

Buddhist Tantra is an aspect of the third stage of Buddhism, the Thunderbolt Vehicle or Diamond Vehicle (Vajrayana) that developed out of Mahayana Buddhism; it was perfected in Tibet and both influenced and was influenced by Hindu Tantra, particularly in Assam and Bengal. Tantric sects once existed throughout China and Nepal but at the present time survive principally in northern India.