The
Kubjika Tantra, a late work probably related to the Gorakhnath tradition, says.
'Go to India to establish yourself in the whole country and make manifold
creations in the sacred places of primary and secondary importance.' The
goddess Kubjika is the tutelary deity of the low-caste potters, who are
therefore said to belong to the kubjikamnaya or the Kubjika tradition; the
goddess is also worshipped by the Bhutiyas of Almora and has many small shrines
in the Nepalese and Indian, terai. It being Siva who gives the order to the
goddess in the stanza quoted above, the idea seems to be that she should
proceed from their home, Mount Kailasa in Tibet, and establish her own worship
in India.
The
terms 'Cinacara’ and `Mahacina’ are used as synonyms in the Taratantra which
has been adopted by Hindu and Buddhist tantrics. The age of this text is
unknown, and no one seems to have tried to date it even approximately."
The Tantra says that the cult of Cina-Tara came from the country of Mahacina.
The great Brahmin seer Vasistha went to Mahacina to meet the Buddha and obtain
instruction from him. This episode is only mentioned in the Taratantra; the
text, however, which presents it in detail, is the Rudrayamala, a text whose
age cannot be determined yet; its popularity in Bengal and Assam might indicate
that it is of Bengali origin; it is certainly later than the Mahanirvana, as it
quotes several passages from the latter which is usually ascribed to the
eleventh century A.D. By that time, organized Buddhism, had virtually
disappeared from India, and the Vajrayana tradition had been effectively
disparaged by the Hindu pandits. It is all the more astonishing that this
account of Vasistha, a patron sage of the orthodox Brahmins, is related here in
such detail, though the rest of the work teaches orthodox Brahmanical views.
The account is found in the eighteenth chapter of the Rudrayamala Vasistha the
self-controlled, the son of Brahma, practised austerities for many ages in a
lonely place. He did spiritual exercises (sadhana) for six thousand years, but
still the daughter of the Mountain (i.e. the goddess Parvati, Sakti) did not
appear to him. Getting angry, he went to his father and told him the method of
his sadhana. He then requested Brahma: 'Give me another mantra, O Lord, since
this one does not grant me siddhi (i.e. the desired success, vision of the
goddess), else I shall utter a terrible curse in your presence.' Brahma
dissuaded him and said: 'O son, who art learned in the path of yoga, do not act
like this. Worship her again with full devotion, then she will appear and grant
you boons. She is the supreme Sakti . . . [here follows an enumeration of the
various qualities and epithets of the goddess). . . . She is attached to the
pure Cinacara (Suddha-Cinacara-rata; i.e. the ritualistic method of Gina). She
is the initiator of the Sakti-cakra (Sakti-Cakra-pravartika; i.e. the circle of
worshippers of the goddess). . . . She is Buddhesvari, i.e. the Preceptress
of-Buddha....’ Having heard (these admonitions of Brahma) . . . he (Vasistha)
betook himself to the shores of the sea. For a thousand years he did japa
(repetition) of her mantra; still he received no instructions from her. Thereupon
the sage grew extremely angry, and being perturbed in his mind he began to
curse the Mahavidya (i.e. the goddess). Having sipped water (i.e. having done acamana
the ritualistic sipping of water which precedes any religious and many profane
actions of the Brahmins) he uttered a great, terrible curse. Thereupon the Lady
of the tantrics (Kulesvari) appeared before the sage. She who dispels the
yogis' apprehensions said: 'How now, Brahmin, why lust thou uttered a terrible
curse without any reason? Thou dost not understand my tantric precepts
(kulagama), nor knowest thou how to worship me. How can a god or a man ever
obtain the sight of my lotus-feet by mere yoga practice (yogabhyasamatra)?
Meditation on me is without austerity and without pain. To him who desires my
tantric precepts (kulagama), who is successful (siddha) in my mantra, and who
has known my Vedic precepts (already), my sadhana (exercise for final vision)
is meritorious and inaccessible even to the Vedas (vedanamapyago-cara). Roam in
Mahacina, the country of the Buddhists, and always follow the Atharvaveda
(bauddhadese 'tharvavede mahacine' sada Vraja). Having gone there and seen my
lotus-feet which are mahabhava (i.e. the total bliss experience which is my
essence) thou shalt, O great seer, become versed in inv kula (i.e. the tantric "family")
and a great siddha (adept): Having thus spoken, she became formless and
vanished into the ether and then passed through the ethereal region. The great
seer having heard this from the Mahavidya Sarasvati went to the land of Gina
where Buddha is established (buddhapratisthita). Having (there) repeatedly
bowed to the ground, Vasistha said: 'Protect me, O Mahadeva who art
imperishable in the form of Buddha (buddharupe Mahadeva). I am the very humble
Vasistha, son of Brahma. My mind is ever perturbed. I have come here to Gina
for the Sadhana of the great goddess. I do not know the path leading to siddhi
(occult success). Thou knowest the path of the devas. Yet, seeing the type of
discipline (viz, the left-handed rituals involved), doubts assails my mind.
Destroy them and my wicked mind bent on the Vedic ritual (only). O Lord, in thy
abode there are rites which have been ostracized from the Veda (vedabahiskrtah).
How is it that wine, meat, woman are drunk, eaten, and enjoyed by heaven-clad
(i.e. nude, digambara) siddhas (adepts) who are excellent (varah) and trained
in the drinking of blood? They drink constantly and enjoy beautiful women
(muhurmuhuh prapibanti ramayanti varan-ganam). With red eyes they are always
exhilarated and replete with flesh and wine (sada mamsasavaih purnah). They
have power to give favours and to punish. They are beyond the Vedas
(vedasyago-carah). They enjoy wine and women (madyastrisevane ratah).' Thus
spoke the great yogi, having seen the rites which are banned from the Veda.
Then bowing low with folded palms he humbly said, 'How can inclinations such as
these be purifying to the mind? How can there be siddhi (occult success)
without the Vedic rites?'
The
Buddha then proceeds to explain the Cinacara (the discipline of Gina) at length
to the Brahmin sage, and the explanation boils down to a hierarchy of spiritual
disciplines, the lowest of them being that for `pasus' (lowly type of
aspirants), tantamount to the Vedic ritual, the highest and most efficient
being Cinacara involving the use of wine, meat, women, etc. The text then
concludes thus: 'Having said this, he whose form is Buddha made him (i.e.
Vasistha) practise sadhana (spiritual exercises). He said, "0 Brahmin, do
thou serve Mahasakti. Do thou now practise sadhana with wine and thus shalt
thou get the sight of the lotus-feet of Mahavidya (i.e. the goddess—all the
terms used here are synonyms for the goddess, i.e. Mahasakti, Mahavidya,
"the great power", "the great knowledge" Sarasvati, etc.).'
Vasistha then did as he was told and obtained siddhi through Cinacara.
The
Buddhist goddess Tara and the goddess Nilasarasvati (i.e. the blue goddess
Sarasvati) are probably identical. She is called 'aksobhya-devimurdhanya'
(having Aksobhya on her head')—and she is said to dwell 'on the west side of
Mount Meru', implying Mahacina, Bhota, etc. The text is the fifth chapter of
the Sammoha Tantra which is a rather late Hindu or Buddhist work current in
Nepal it was composed approximately in the thirteenth century according to
Sastri's introduction. The text is a good specimen of Professor Edgerton's
Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit. Bagchi renders it thus: Mahasvara said to Brahma:
'Hear from me with attention about Mahanilasarasvati. It is through her favour
that you will narrate the four Vedas. There is the lake called Cola on the
western side of Mount Meru. The Mother Goddess Nilogratara herself was born
there. . . . The light issuing from my upper eye fell into the lake Cola and
took on a blue color. There was a sage called Aksobhya, who was Siva himself in
the form of a muni (seer), on the northern side of Mount Meru. It was he who
meditated first on the goddess, who was Parvati herself reincarnated in Cinadesa
(the country Cina) at the time of the great deluge...
Bagchi
adds, 'It is idle to try to find out a precise geographical information here,
but it may be suggested that Cola is probably to be connected with the common
word for lake kul, kol, which is found with names of so many lakes to the west
and north of T'ien shan, i.e. in the pure Mongolian zone.'
The
third chapter of our Sammoha Tantra enumerates a number of pithas (centres of
worship of a female deity), and divides them into regions according to their
use of the kadi and the hadi methods, respectively. `Bhota', `Mahacina', and
`Cina' are enumerated only with kadi pithas. The commonly accepted, though by
no means undisputed, orthodox idea is that kadi mantras and their use as part
of a ritualistic method are aimed at securing worldly or magical success hadi
mantras on the other hand are said to help towards the supreme achievement of
nirvana or its Hindu equivalents. I think that something like this accounts for
the fact that Bhota, Cina, Mahacina are listed in kadi areas, and not in the
hadi area enumeration. The regions beyond the mountain stand for magic and
siddhi whose pursuits are always viewed to an extent as heretical. Some of the
hadi regions listed in the text 'cannot be identified' so Bagchi avers; some of
them, however, seem to be adjacent to Tibetan soil but are still cis-Himalayan
thus `Balhika' which must be Balkh, `Dyorjala' which might well be a
predecessor of 'Darjeeling', which name is derived either from Tibetan
rDorje-glin 'thunderbolt (vajra-) region', or from Sanskrit durjayalinga, 'the
invincible Siva.
The
Kalivilasa Tantra is a late Hindu text, whose age has not been determined; from
its style I would think we might safely place it between the thirteenth and the
seventeenth centuries. It is very popular among non-tantric Brahmins in Bengal,
and it sounds a note hostile to left-handed rites which were equally popular
with the non-Brahmin tantric groups of Bengal. The text condemns the
ritualistic use of women, wine, etc., and says that the tantras enjoining
left-handed ritual are 'prohibited in our era' (Kalau varjitani). The
Kalivilasa, quoting the Mahasiddhasarasvati Tantra, says that the tantras of
the Asvakranta region, i.e. the region from the Vindhya mountains northward
including Nepal, Tibet, etc., were promulgated to confuse the hypocrites
(pasanda) and the heretics. Quoting the Kularnava Tantra, the text says
Mahadeva (Siva) spoke of the kaula-rites (the left-handed rites of the Asvakranta
region) 'lest all men should get liberated (i.e. prematurely)' which is a
rather insidious statement against left-handed forms of tantric practice, in a
tantric text of the right-handed tradition.
The
next quotation is from the famous Karpuradistotram, a Hindu tantric work which
has given much pain to non-tantric Hindus. The work is fairly old; though
Avalon" did not try to establish any date, I would place it between the
ninth and eleventh centuries; its style bears marked similarity to that of the
Saundary-alahari traditionally ascribed to, but certainly not much more recent
than Samkaracarya (eighth century); the latter inspired a lot of poetical piety
among tantrics and non-tantrics in the following two or three centuries, and I
think this work can be safely classed as belonging to this category. It has
been extremely popular in Bengal and Assam up to this day. Of all the major
Hindu Sakta tantras, this one is the most radically left-handed'. Verse I6
says: 'Whosoever on Tuesday midnight . . . makes offering but once with
devotion of a hair of his Sakti in the cremation ground, becomes a great poet,
a Lord of the earth, and goes forth mounted on an elephant.' Now the
commentator explains this passage as `(he who) offers a pubic hair of his Sakti
with its root ritualem post copulationem semine suo unctam." In a sub
commentary called Rahasyarthasadhika (i.e., aid to the hidden meaning [of the
Karpuradistotra]), Vimalananda Svami says that this refers to ‘Mahacina sadhana'
and to the sadhana (mode of worship) of the Goddess Mahanila who is worshipped
in that region. This note which is not called for by the text would corroborate
my previous suggestion a text which
expatiates left-handed rites will usually be given a metaphorical ('afferent'
in my terminology) interpretation by an orthodox Hindu commentator; but if the
text is so overtly left-handed that no such interpretation is possible, the
doctrine is made to lie outside India and Mahacina is a sort of scapegoat. Once
this is done, there are no scruples about putting it thickly, i.e. yoni-sisna-galitabija-yuktam
samulam cikuram, ibid., `radice extirpatem capillam Cum semine membro virile
pudendoque muliebre ablata, sc. qui offert.'
The
Kaulavalinirnaya must be a late text (about sixteenth century), as it quotes
from almost all the well-known Hindu tantras including the Karpuradistotram.
The text identifies Tara with the somewhat uncanny Hindu-Buddhist goddess
Chinnamasta, 'Split-Head', the goddess who holds her own chopped-off heads (two
of them) in her hands, blood gushing forth from her decapitated trunk, which
she catches with her mouths thus sup-ported by her hands. Verse 54 says 'he who
is desirous of wealth should meditate through japa-repetition of the mantra on
the Vidya (i.e. Tara, Chinnamasta) through the ritualistic union with the
supreme woman (parayosit either the consecrated 8akti, or, literally, a woman
married to another man; the latter interpretation being the one given by the
opponents of the tantric tradition), emitting his semen in the 'creeper-mood' (latabhava-compounds
with lata-‘creeper', as first constituent always indicate left-handed rites,
the derived meaning being the (consecrated) woman who embraces the adept like a
creeper, 'he, the best of the adepts; let him ceaselessly do japa of his mantra
for the sake of obtaining dharma, artha, and Wm, thus Tara grants quick success
in the Cina-method.'
This
is a typical instance of what I have come to regard as a pervasive convention:
the methods of 'Gina', Mahacina' and `Bhota' the terms seem to be used
interchangeably in these texts are conducive to all kinds of success except
that of total liberation; in this verse there is the most perfect statement of the
convention: Kama creature comforts artha secular success dharma religious merit
leading to better rebirth, but not 'moksa', the supreme human goal are granted
by the votary of the 'Cina', etc., methods.
Verse
59 repeats the proposition expressly for Chinnamasta: 'in the method of
Mahacina, the goddess Chinnamasta bestows success'.
The
most outstanding purely Buddhist text relevant to our topic is the Sadhanamala,
a Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit classic. The oldest manuscript is of the year A.D.
1167 as the colophon shows." The Sadhanamala has two sadhanas (ritualistic
procedures) dedicated to the goddess Mahacinatara, and two dhyanas
(meditations), one in prose and one in verse, describing the goddess in identical
form. Sadhanamala No. 127 describes her thus: 'she stands in the pratyalidha
posture (i.e. with one leg straight, the other one slightly bent), is
awe-inspiring, has a garland of heads hanging from her neck, is short and has a
protruding belly; of terrible looks, her complexion is like that of the blue
lotus; she is three-eyed, one-faced, celestial, and laughs terribly; in a
pleasantly excited mood (suprahrsta—in the mood of erotic excitement), she
stands on a corpse, is decked with an eightfold snake-ornament, has red, round
eyes, wears garments of tigerskin around her loins, is in youthful bloom, is
endowed with the five auspicious mudras (here postures, i.e. counting her four
hand gestures, and her bodily posture as the fifth), and has a lolling tongue;
she is most terrible, appearing fierce with her bare fangs, carries the sword
and the kartri (in the classical idiom kartari a knife) in her two right hands,
and the lotus and skull in her two left hands; whose crown consisting Of one
chignon is brown and fiery and is adorned with the image of Aksobhya. This is
the Sadhana of Mahacina-Tara; According to the colophon," the Sadhana of
Mahacinatara was restored from a tantra called the Mahacina tantra, and is
attributed to Sasvatavajra.
The
Hindus took over this goddess into their later pantheon; the Tararahasya of
Brahmananda who taught in the sixteenth century, and the Tantrasara of Krsnananda
Agamavagisa, of still more recent origin, contain iconographical descriptions
of Tara that are almost literally identical with that of Mahacinatara just
quoted. By that time, the distinction between the Hindu goddess Tara, wife of
Siva, and her Buddhist namesake had become completely blurred if indeed it was
ever rigidly adhered to. The two Hindu texts do not mention Mahacina, etc., the
originally alleged provenance of the goddess having either been forgotten or
ignored.
Sadhanamala
No. 14.1 describes the worship of the goddess Ekajata (lit: 'having one
chignon'), so do a few more sadhanas in this collection. The colophon of sadhana
141, however, contains the cryptic words `Aryanagarjunapadaih Bhotesuddhrtam
iti', which B. Bhattacharya renders 'restored from Tibet by Arya Nagar juna',
not the author of the Madhyamika-Karika, but the famous Siddha from among the
eighty-four Vajrayana Buddhist sorcerer-saints, to whom many sadhanas are
attributed. The last text I want to adduce here seems to be the most
complete
Hindu statement of tantric topics pertaining to Tibet, etc. ; from among the
extant Hindu tantric works (i.e. disregarding the aforesaid Mahacina tantra,
which is not known to be extant) the Saktisangama-Tantra contains a whole
chapter captioned Mahacina-krama 'the Method of Mahacina'.
Saktas
all over India regard the Saktisangama as an extremely important text, and its
popularity ranks second perhaps only to the Mahanirvana. The text is fairly old
I would place it in the eighth to ninth century on some inner evidence: first,
there is in it much preoccupation with Vajrayana Buddhist terminology, quite a
few mantras occur in the Guhyasamaja and other Vajrayana works. We have `vajrapuspena
juhuyat ('he should sacrifice by means of the vajra-flower') in the 18th
Patala, No. 17, which presupposes the entire notion of libations based on the
adept's identification. with vajra-hood; or `vairocanastakam pujya tatah
padmantakan yajet' in the i5th Patala, No. 38 (having worshipped the eight
forms of Vairocana he should offer sacrifice to the ones with `-padma' at the
end of their names i.e. the goddesses Manipadma, Vajrapadma, etc.); or again Sularaja
mahakrura sarvabhutapriyamkara, siddhim samkalpitam dehi vajrasula namo'stu
te', 68th Patala, No. 18, i.e. 'O king with the trident (i.e. Siva), great
terrible one, bestowing favours on all the Aims (demons, etc.), give the
desired success, Vajra-trident holder, be praised.' This one is particularly interesting,
as it shows a combination of Hindu and Buddhist elements of equal power. Hence
it seems the Vajrayana literature was either contemporary with or still greatly
in vogue at the time this tantra was composed, which would not be the case
later than A.D. 1000; on the other hand, its doctrines are deeply influenced by
the monistic interpretation of Saktism initiated by Samkaracarya and his
disciples (eighth century), hence I think it is quite justifiable to place it
in between A.D. 900 and i000. The 8aktisaingama is a large work and
three-fourths of its total bulk has been published so far.
‘..
. the threefold horizontal lines of fine sandel paste mixed with kesara
(Rottleria Tinctoria) seeds (kucandanam tripundram ca tatah sakesaram Sive, vs.
44) spread on his forehead, O Siva, wearing a garland of skulls around his neck
and the skull-bowl in his hand, he who is given to this tiara (discipline)
becomes a Mahacinite (Mahacinakrami, one following the Mahacina method); always
in a joyful mood, always serving the devotees, he wears . . . (here follows a
lengthy enumeration of other articles, rosaries, etc.); The goddess then
expresses her doubts as to whether such rites are beneficent, and how Brahmins
can practise them, these rites being obviously non-Vedic (vedavihinasca ye dharma
verse 49). In reply to this query of his spouse, Siva winds up saying that Brahmins
or, as I understand it, people who insist on Brahmin ritual are not entitled to
these (Mahacina) rites in this age (kalau tatra nisiddham syadbrahmananam Mahesvari,
verse 5o.) Those who follow the Gina (identical with Mahacina) rites are dear
to him, if they perform their ablutions in the manner indicated earlier, and if
they eat and enjoy the ingredients designed by him for the rite (sarvameva
hrdambhoje mayi sarvam pratisthitam, verse 57). 'Cherishing these attitudes in
his heart, his mind ever directed towards their fulfilment, abandoning any
dualistic attitude, he becomes Lord of all siddhis (spiritual powers); Brahma
and Vasistha, as well as the other great seers, they all worship in the
undivided method (i.e. the Mahacina-krama) at all times. The worshippers of
Tara", O great goddess, they are the true Brahmins; in this age the great
Brahma-knowledge is indeed hard to attain.’ This, incidentally, seems to
suggest that the rites called 'undivided' (niskala) should be called
Brahmanical who could be more Brahmin-like than Brahma the demiurge and
Vasistha and this in spite of the fact that their origin be located in Tibet.
Summarizing
this chapter, we would have to say that mutual references in Indian and Tibetan
texts arc quite disparate. Whereas the Tibetans have looked to India as the
Phags Yul (Aryadesa) 'the Noble Land', not only as the birthplace of the
Buddha, but as the locus of the original teaching, as the actual or stipulated
centre of Tibetan culture, there is no reciprocity of any sort. Historiography
being a virtually non-existent genre in the Indian tradition, tracts of an
historical or quasi-historical character could hardly have gained the prestige
of religious writings. The Tibetan 'Histories' of Buston and Taranatha are
religious histories; just as the Chinese pilgrims in India were solely
concerned with places of pilgrimage and with Buddhist topography, Tibetan monks
and laymen who visited India through the ages did so only as pilgrims to the
shrines of their faith. With the exception of Mount Kailasa in Tibet, there is
no locality on the northern side of the Himalayas which would be of any
interest to the Indian pilgrim. Thus, whereas it may be difficult to, find any
Tibetan text which does not mention India
one
way or the other, we have to thumb through tomes of Indian religious literature
to find references to Tibet. Even these references, as was shown in this
chapter, are of a non-geographical, quasi-mythical character. Any place or
region located to the north of the Himalayas seems to stand for the highly
esoteric, slightly uncanny, potentially unorthodox, heretical whether it is
Bhota, Mahacina, or Cinadesa, the actual location of those regions is of no
concern to the Indian hagiographer, not even to the tantric.
There
is, however, a strong fusion of Tibetan and Indian elements in tantric
literature, apparently both Buddhist and Hindu. Names and epithets of deities
both male and female have Indian or Tibetan provenience, and in many cases it
is hard to say where a god or a goddess originated. It is almost impossible to
study this situation diachronically because in the final analysis even purely
Tibetan gods and goddesses may have some sort of Indian background. The village
deities of the pre-Aryans in India never died out. There is a strong tendency
to banish gods, teachings, and other religious configurations, which oppose the
general feeling of orthodoxy in India, and to place them beyond the mountains,
possibly where they can cause no mischief. The erotocentric sadhana called Cinacara
probably got its name due to this tendency; types of religious exercise which
could not be accommodated in the framework of Indian sadhana were thus
extrapolated into an inaccessible region.
We
shall see in the next chapter how sanctuary topography assimilates extraneous
elements, and how it cuts across the boundary lines in a tentative or potential
fashion.
Writer Name: Agehananda Bharati
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