CHAPTER XXXII

SÂKTISM[680]

Among the principal subdivisions of Hinduism must be reckoned the remarkable religion known as Sâktism, that is the worship of Sakti or Siva's spouse under various names, of which Devî, Durgâ and Kâlî are the best known. It differs from most sects in not being due to the creative or reforming energy of any one human founder. It claims to be a revelation from Siva himself, but considered historically it appears to be a compound of Hinduism with un-Aryan beliefs. It acquired great influence both in the courts and among the people of north-eastern India but without producing personalities of much eminence as teachers or writers.

It would be convenient to distinguish Sâktism and Tantrism, as I have already suggested. The former means the worship of a goddess or goddesses, especially those who are regarded as forms of Siva's consort. Vishnuites sometimes worship female deities, but though the worship of Lakshmî, Râdhâ and others may be coloured by imitation of Sâktist practices, it is less conspicuous and seems to have a different origin. Tantrism is a system of magical or sacramental ritual, which professes to attain the highest aims of religion by such methods as spells, diagrams, gestures and other physical exercises. One of its bases is the assumption that man and the universe correspond as microcosm and macrocosm and that both are subject to the mysterious power of words and letters.

These ideas are not modern nor peculiar to any Indian sect. They are present in the Vedic ceremonial, in the practices of the Yoga and even in the teaching of the quasi-mussulman sect of Kabir, which attaches great importance to the letters of the divine name. They harmonize with the common Indian view that some form of discipline or physical training is essential to the religious life. They are found in a highly developed form among the Nambuthiris and other Brahmans of southern India who try to observe the Vedic rules and in the Far East among Buddhists of the Shingon or Chên-yen sect.[681] As a rule they receive the name of Tantrism only when they are elaborated into a system which claims to be a special dispensation for this age and to supersede more arduous methods which are politely set aside as practicable only for the hero-saints of happier times. Tantrism, like salvation by faith, is a simplification of religion but on mechanical rather than emotional lines, though its deficiency in emotion often finds strange compensations.

But Tantrism is analogous not so much to justification by faith as to sacramental ritual. The parallel may seem shocking, but most tantric ceremonies are similar in idea to Christian sacraments and may be called sacramental as correctly as magical. Even in the Anglican Church baptism includes sprinkling with water (abhisheka), the sign of the cross (nyâsa) and a formula (mantra), and if any one supposes that a child so treated is sure of heaven whereas the future of the unbaptized is dubious, he holds like the Tantrists that spiritual ends can be attained by physical means. And in the Roman Church where the rite includes exorcism and the use of salt, oil and lights, the parallel is still closer. Christian mysticism has had much to do with symbolism and even with alchemy,[682] and Zoroastrianism, which is generally regarded as a reasonable religion, attaches extraordinary importance to holy spells.[683] So Indian religions are not singular in this respect, though the uncompromising thoroughness with which they work out this like other ideas leads to startling results.

The worship of female deities becomes prominent somewhat late in Indian literature and it does not represent--not to the same extent as the Chinese cult of Kwan-yin for example--the better ideals of the period when it appears. The goddesses of the Rig Veda are insignificant: they are little more than names, and grammatically often the feminine forms of their consorts. But this Veda is evidently a special manual of prayer from which many departments of popular religion were excluded. In the Atharva Veda many spirits with feminine names are invoked and there is an inclination to personify bad qualities and disasters as goddesses. But we do not find any goddess who has attained a position comparable with that held by Durgâ, Cybele or Astarte, though there are some remarkable hymns[684] addressed to the Earth. But there is no doubt that the worship of goddesses (especially goddesses of fertility) as great powers is both ancient and widespread. We find it among the Egyptians and Semites, in Asia Minor, in Greece, Italy, and among the Kelts. The goddess Anahit, who was worshipped with immoral rites in Bactria, is figured on the coins of the Kushans and must at one time have been known on the north-western borders of India. At the present day Sîtalâ and in south India Mariamman are goddesses of smallpox who require propitiation, and one of the earliest deities known to have been worshipped by the Tamils is the goddess Kottavai.[685] Somewhat obscure but widely worshipped are the powers known as the Mothers, a title which also occurs in Keltic mythology. They are groups of goddesses varying in number and often malevolent. As many as a hundred and forty are said to be worshipped in Gujarat. The census of Bengal (1901) records the worship of the earth, sun and rivers as females, of the snake goddesses Manasâ and Jagat Gaurî and of numerous female demons who send disease, such as the seven sisters, Ola Bibi, Jogini and the Churels, or spirits of women who have died in childbirth.

The rites celebrated in honour of these deities are often of a questionable character and include dances by naked women and offerings of spirituous liquors and blood. Similar features are found in other countries. Prostitution formed part of the worship of Astarte and Anahit: the Tauric Artemis was adored with human sacrifices and Cybele with self-inflicted mutilations. Similarly offerings of blood drawn from the sacrificer's own body are enjoined in the Kâlikâ Purâna. Two stages can be distinguished in the relations between these cults and Hinduism. In the later stage which can be witnessed even at the present day an aboriginal goddess or demon is identified with one of the aspects (generally a "black" or fierce aspect) of Siva's spouse.[686] But such identification is facilitated by the fact that goddesses like Kâlî, Bhairavî, Chinnamastakâ are not products of purely Hindu imagination but represent earlier stages of amalgamation in which Hindu and aboriginal ideas are already compounded. When the smallpox goddess is identified with Kâlî, the procedure is correct, for some popular forms of Kâlî are little more than an aboriginal deity of pestilence draped with Hindu imagery and philosophy.

Some Hindu scholars demur to this derivation of Sâktism from lower cults. They point to its refined and philosophic aspects; they see in it the worship of a goddess, who can be as merciful as the Madonna, but yet, since she is the goddess of nature, combines in one shape life and death. May not the grosser forms of Sâktism be perversions and corruptions of an ancient and higher faith? In support of this it may be urged that the Buddhist goddess Târâ is as a rule a beautiful and benevolent figure, though she can be terrible as the enemy of evil and has clear affinities to Durgâ. Yet the history of Indian thought does not support this view, but rather the view that Hinduism incorporated certain ancient ideas, true and striking as ancient ideas often are, but without purging them sufficiently to make them acceptable to the majority of educated Indians.

The Yajur Veda[687] associates Rudra with a female deity called Ambikâ or mother, who is however his sister, not his spouse. The earliest forms of the latter seem to connect her with mountains. She is Umâ Haimavatî, the daughter of the Himalayas, and Pârvatî, she of the mountains, and was perhaps originally a sacred peak. In an interesting but brief passage of the Kena Upanishad (III. 12 and IV. 1) Umâ Haimavatî explains to the gods that a being whom they do not know is Brahman. In later times we hear of a similar goddess in the Vindhyas, Mahârânî Vindhyesvarî, who was connected with human sacrifices and Thugs.[688] Siva's consort, like her Lord, has many forms classified as white or benignant and black or terrible. Umâ belongs to the former class but the latter (such as Kâlî, Durgâ, Câmundâ, Candâ and Karalâ) are more important.[689] Female deities bearing names like these are worshipped in most parts of India, literally from the Himalaya to Cape Comorin, for the latter name is derived from Kumârî, the Virgin goddess.[690] But the names Sâkta and Sâktism are usually restricted to those sects in Bengal and Assam who worship the Consort of Siva with the rites prescribed in the Tantras.

Sâktism regards the goddess as the active manifestation of the godhead. As such she is styled Sakti, or energy (whence the name Sâkta), and is also identified with Mâyâ, the power which is associated with Brahman and brings the phenomenal world into being. Similar ideas appear in a philosophic form in the Sânkhya teaching. Here the soul is masculine and passive: its task is to extricate and isolate itself. But Prakriti or Nature is feminine and active: to her is due the evolution of the universe: she involves the soul in actions which cause pain but she also helps the work of liberation.[691] In its fully developed form the doctrine of the Tantras teaches that Sakti is not an emanation or aspect of the deity. There is no distinction between Brahman and Sakti. She is Parabrahman and _parâtparâ_, Supreme of the Supreme.

The birthplace of Sâktism as a definite sect seems to have been north-eastern India[692] and though it is said to be extending in the United Provinces, its present sphere of influence is still chiefly Bengal and Assam.[693] The population of these countries is not Aryan (though the Bengali language bears witness to the strong Aryan influence which has prevailed there) and is largely composed of immigrants from the north belonging to the Tibeto-Burman, Mon-Khmer and Shan families. These tribes remain distinct in Assam but the Bengali represents the fusion of such invaders with a Munda or Dravidian race, leavened by a little Aryan blood in the higher castes. In all this region we hear of no ancient Brahmanic settlements, no ancient centres of Vedic or even Puranic learning[694] and when Buddhism decayed no body of Brahmanic tradition such as existed in other parts of India imposed its authority on the writers of the Tantras. Even at the present day the worship of female spirits, only half acknowledged by the Brahmans, prevails among these people, and in the past the national deities of many tribes were goddesses who were propitiated with human sacrifices. Thus the Chutiyas of Sadiya used to adore a goddess, called Kesai Khati--the eater of raw flesh. The rites of these deities were originally performed by tribal priests, but as Hindu influence spread, the Brahmans gradually took charge of them without modifying their character in essentials. Popular Bengali poetry represents these goddesses as desiring worship and feeling that they are slighted: they persecute those who ignore them, but shower blessings on their worshippers, even on the obdurate who are at last compelled to do them homage. The language of mythology could not describe more clearly the endeavours of a plebeian cult to obtain recognition.[695]

The Mahâbhârata contains hymns to Durgâ in which she is said to love offerings of flesh and wine,[696] but it is not likely that Sâktism or Tantrism--that is a system with special scriptures and doctrines--was prevalent before the seventh century A.D. for the Tantras are not mentioned by the Chinese pilgrims and the lexicon _Amara Kosha_ (perhaps _c_. 500 A.D.) does not recognize the word as a designation of religious books. Bâna (_c_. 630) gives more than once in his romances lists of sectaries but though he mentions Bhâgavatas and Pâsupatas, he does not speak of Saktas.[697] On the other hand Tantrism infected Buddhism soon after this period. The earlier Tibetan translations of the Tantras are attributed to the ninth century. MSS. of the Kubjikâmata and other Tantras are said to date from the ninth and even from the seventh century and tradition represents Sankarâcârya as having contests with Sâktas.[698] But many Tantras were written in the fifteenth century and even later, for the Yogini Tantra alludes to the Koch king Bishwa Singh (1515-1540) and the Meru Tantra mentions London and the English.

From the twelfth to the sixteenth century, when Buddhism, itself deeply infected with Tantrism, was disappearing, Sâktism was probably the most powerful religion in Bengal, but Vishnuism was gaining strength and after the time of Caitanya proved a formidable rival to it. At the beginning of the fifteenth century we hear that the king of the Ahoms summoned Brahmans to his Court and adopted many Hindu rites and beliefs, and from this time onward Sâktism was patronized by most of the Assamese Rajas although after 1550 Vishnuism became the religion of the mass of the people. Sâktism never inspired any popular or missionary movement, but it was powerful among the aristocracy and instigated persecutions against the Vishnuites.

The more respectable Tantras[699] show considerable resemblance to the later Upanishads such as the Nrisinhatâpanîya and Râmatâ-panîya, which mention Sakti in the sense of creative energy.[700] Both classes of works treat of magical formulæ (mantras) and the construction of mystic diagrams or yantras. This resemblance does not give us much assistance in chronology, for the dates of the later Upanishads are very uncertain, but it shows how the Tantras are connected with other branches of Hindu thought.

The distinction between Tantras and Purânas is not always well-marked. The Bhâgavata Purâna countenances tantric rites[701] and the Agni Purâna (from