Tantra has been called ‘the cult of ecstasy’, and is strongly associated with sexual mysticism. However, even in those Tantric systems which place the greatest emphasis on harnessing sexual energy, this is just one aspect of a complex working of meditation, mantra, yantra and yoga. Tantra is a life-affirming quest which seeks to answer many fundamental questions such as ‘Who am I? ‘What is experience?’, ‘What is this world?’, but which, unlike many mystical traditions, does not deny the body a share in the highest spiritual experience. It sees the body as holy, a microcosm of the universe. The sacramental use of sexual union in Tantra has always caused controversy. Using new translations from ancient and medieval texts, Tantra, The Search for Ecstasy exarnines the many beliefs and cultural influences which make up the Tantric tradition and seeks to show that the Tantric sacraments are survivals of a quest for gnosis that is as old as humanity itself.
' Over the centuries, Tantra has produced a wealth of erotic art and literature. Still popular today are the famous Kama Sutra and Ananga Ranga, the outward and exoteric expressions of a tradition of secret sexual teaching of which Tantra is the hidden core. Much Tantric art was used for ritual purposes and was seen only by initiates. Many of these paintings and sculptures remain in India, or are in private collections, and have been photographed specially for this book.
The son of an Indian father who had been by turns naval officer, engineer, barrister and meditation teacher; and an English mother, a writer; Indra Sinha was born and brought up in India. He first encountered the traditions of Indian mysticism as a spell-bound child at Mayo College, Ajmer, a marbled school in the middle of the Rajasthan desert, where his studies included Sanskrit and Hindi. This interest deepened when, as a student reading English Literature at Pembroke College, Cambridge, he was fortunate enough to meet some profound Buddhist meditators who are stll friends twenty years later. In 1980 he published a completely fresh translation of Vatsyayana's Kama Sutra, the first to appear in the West since Sir Richard Burton's original 1888 translation. The present book draws on his knowledge of classical and medieval kama shastra traditions. He is currently working on a Yugma Sutra, which pieces together the lost sexual teachings that bridge the gap between the Kama and Tantra traditions. Front cover Tanutc ritual painting, 18h cenvury Back cover Indian miniature, Rajasthan, 18th century The compilers are grateful to numerous museums and private collections for their help and assistance. Special chanks are due to The Klinger Collection, Nuremberg (eighreench-century Dutch and French paintings and rwenciechcentury Indian portrait); The Bricish Museum (Artic cup); Narurhistorisches Museum, Vienna (Venus of Willendorf); The Victoria and Albert Museum; and most important of all — Lance Dane for his unique collection of Tantric images. Designed by Grahame Dudley Associates Typeserring by Inline Graphics Special photography: Lawrence Bulaitis of Lawrence Photography Bullfighe photograph on page 33 by Cayetano Vega Millán of Córdoba In a Bombay back street, scarcely a hundred yards from the Taj Hotel, is an antique shop above whose doorway is blazoned the legend: ‘Live in Oriental Glory of Grandeur’. Inside. shabby tigers preside glassily over carved rosewood desks and rattan punkahs; bundles of dusty Bhil spears, bound up by some homegoing sahib for a passage to England that never was: beams from old havelis, rescued from being burned as firewood on Gujerat beaches: finials from South Indian temples; dancing bronze Sivas and marble Ganesas; vulgar green chandeliers from Lucknow; a sixteenth-century stone goddess, of hideous mien, still daubed with vermilion; Wedgewood dinner services, brought out from home; canteens of Sheffield silverplate, worn yellow by generations of servants; crystal glasses; heaps of books: gazettes, histories, some fine bindings, monsoon-mildewed or furrowed by the white ant. In this emporium, at some point during the late fifties, my mother unearthed a fine leacher-bound copy of “Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies” by the Abbé Dubois. This was a 1905 edition of the Abbe’s 1807 manuscript, with a preface by the great Indologist Max Muller. The frontispiece depicts a European, bearded and turbanned in the eighteenth-century Deccani fashion. The Abbé, a French missionary and contemporary of Tipu Sultan, worked in India for thirty years following his ordination to the priesthood in 1792. After Tipu’s defeat ar Seringapatam in 1799, the Abbé was invited by Arthur Wellesley, the furure Duke of Wellington, to visit Tipu’s capital and re-convert the Christian community there which had, in the words of the Abbé’s biographer, been ‘forcibly perverted to Mahomedanism by Tippu Sultan’. This sort of fighting talk does not wholly reflect the attitudes of th
