Śaiva Tantra: Toward a History
Résumé
Abstract This chapter focuses on “tantrism” in the first millennium of the common era, the formative period, in which the school of doctrine and liturgy known as the Śaivasiddhānta emerged. One of the earliest surviving scriptures that can be regarded as a Śaiva tantra is the Niśvāsatattvasaṃhitā. The Niśvāsa uses the term Mantramārga, “the path of mantras,” which various authors hold to be a possible candidate for an emic equivalent of the term tantrism. Two types of tantric mantras: bījamantra and mālāmantra are distinguished. The central religious fact that characterizes all Mantramārga traditions is dīkṣā, an initiation rite that deploys such mantras to bring about the goals of religious aspirants. The chapter identifies four categories of initiate, the lowest being the preliminary initiated neophyte (samayin) bound to the rules (samaya) of the religion; the highest being the guru (ācārya), whose principal disciples were the fully initiated putrakas. The remaining category was that of the sādhaka, the power-seeker, simultaneously a central figure and yet necessarily an “outsider,” who became increasingly marginalized as the religion widened socially. The chapter also touches upon other clues for the reconstruction of socioreligious history, such as the topic of special observances (caryā); the emergence of the genre of ritual manuals; and the shifting soteriological role of devotion (bhakti).