The R?dh? Tantra

A critical edition and annotated translation

Mans Broo

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781317485162
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Ethnic Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

The R?dh? Tantra is an anonymous 17th century tantric text from Bengal. The text offers a lively picture of the meeting of different religious traditions in 17th century Bengal, since it presents a ??kta version of the famous Vai??ava story of R?dh? and K???a.

This book presents a critically edited text of the R?dh? Tantra, based on manuscripts in India, Nepal and Bangladesh, as well as an annotated translation It is prefaced by an introduction that situates the text in its social and historical context and discusses its significance. The introduction also looks at the composition and metrics, vocabulary and grammar, and contents and doctrine of the text. It also includes a discussion of the extensive intertextualities of the R?dh? Tantra, as well as the sources used for this edition. The Sanskrit text in Roman transliteration, following the standard IAST system, is then presented, followed by an English translation of the text.

This book will be of interest to scholars of South Asian Religion, Tantric Studies and Religious History.

1
Introduction

1 Background

The R ādhā Tantra (RT), also known as Vāsudevarahasya (Vāsudeva’s secret), is a fairly extensive anonymous Tantric work in Sanskrit of 1,745 verses in thirty-seven chapters or Paṭalas (“coverings”) dealing with the story of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa. Contrary to what the name might indicate, the RT is not a Vaiṣṇava text; rather, it is a Śākta text giving a Śākta reinterpretation of a Vaiṣṇava story.

The RT is by all standards a late Tantra, seldom quoted by Tantric authorities and little studied today. While most manuscripts of the text are found in Bengal, some can be found in Orissa, North India, and Nepal, and their number is fairly large. The New Catalogus Catalogorum (Raghavan 2011: 11) lists 42, though some of these manuscripts appear to be lost. Something in the text was thus deemed valuable to disseminate.

While the text has not been much studied before, some scholars have touched upon it. Dinesh Candra Sen (1922: 372) thought that the RT predated Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism. S.C. Banerji (2007: 189) felt it to be of Bengali provenance. Teun Goudriaan (Goudriaan & Gupta 1981: 108, 82) calls it “inferior in terms of style and presentation”, and though listing the RT among the Vaiṣṇava Tantras, he associates it with what he calls “Kālī-Viṣṇu Tantras”, late Tantric texts in which Śāktism tries to incorporate Vaiṣṇavism by showing it to be an off-shoot of itself, and in which one striking mythological aspect is the tendency to see Kṛṣṇa as Kālī’s son. June McDaniel (2000) has dealt with the Rādhā doctrine of this text, seeing it as a Śākta text in a Vaiṣṇava guise. I have myself written about the text before (Broo 2016), though a closer study of the text has forced me to revise some of my earlier conclusions (such as the date of the text).

In the following, I wish to further the work of these scholars by taking a closer look at the RT. As I will conclude below (p. 39), the RT was most likely written in the 17th century in Bengal by an author not terribly proficient in Sanskrit, but who chose to use that language for the inherent authority it carried. I will begin with a brief introduction to the background of the text.

Politically, the 17th century was a time of comparative peace in Bengal. After the generals of the Mughal emperor Akbar (1542–1605) had defeated Daud Khan Karrani (ruled 1573–1576) at the battle of Tukaroi, Bengal became a part of the Mughal Empire. During all of the 17th century, Mughal governors usually residing in Dhaka ruled Bengal. Several important landowners (zamidars) reigned over more or less autonomous kingdoms under Mughal supremacy, but by the mid-17th century, the governors had defeated whatever enemies still remained and established Mughal rule all over Bengal. With the consolidation of imperial rule came also economic prosperity, both through the rapid expansion of agriculture and through increasing trade with Europeans, particularly the British East India Company that had established a trading factory in Hoogly in 1651 (Eaton 1993).

In terms of the history of Hinduism, two different traditions met at this time. Since the 15th century, a Tantric revival had been going on in Bengal, leading to a profusion of both original texts and systematising digests (BEH III, 583). The word Tantrism itself is a purely Western creation, since India knows only texts called Tantras (Padoux 1981: 350). Following traditional scholars, Alexis Sanderson (1988: 660) calls Tantra simply “a system of ritual or essential instruction”, that is, differing from the orthodox Vedic tradition. As to the underlying ideas of these texts, André Padoux (1986: 273), building on an earlier formulation by Madeleine Biardeau, famously writes,

[Tantra] is an attempt to place kāma, desire, in every sense of the word, in the service of liberation […] not to sacrifice this world for liberation’s sake, but to reinstate it, in various ways, within the perspective of salvation. This use of kāma and all aspects of the world to gain both worldly and supernatural enjoyments (bhukti) and powers (siddhis), and to obtain liberation in this life (jīvanmukti), implies a particular attitude on the part of the Tantric adept towards the cosmos, whereby he feels integrated within an all-encompassing system of micro-macrocosmic correlations.

To this could be added the idea of a bi-polar, bi-sexual divinity (often identified with Śiva and Śakti) manifest both within and without the human body (Taylor 2001: 118). Within such a framework fall many different systems of Tantra, categorised by practitioners and scholars in various ways (for an overview, see Sanderson 2008). The elaborate system of the Kashmiri polymath Abhinavagupta (11th century) is one example (see e.g., Bansat-Boudon & Tripathi 2011); another is the South Indian Śrīvidyā tradition (Brooks 1992), but there are important Tantric traditions within Buddhism and Jainism as well. What is important for our case is that among the polar divinities of Śiva and Śakti, it is Śakti that eventually became more prominent, so that Tantrism became almost synonymous with Śāktism or Goddess-centred Hinduism (Taylor 2001: 119).

In Bengal, according to Rachel Fell McDermott (168–169),Tantric texts deal primarily with the selection of the proper teacher; initiation; recitation of mantras; fire worship; drawing mystic diagrams (yantra); image worship; honouring young girls as the embodiment of the goddess; cremation-ground rituals performed to gain mastery over death; the notorious ritual of the five M’s, or five F’s in Wendy Doniger’s characteristically irreverent translation (2009: 424): flesh, fish, fermented grapes, farina and fornication; meditative techniques, particularly focused on the channels (nāḍī) and lotuses (padma) or disks (cakra) of the esoteric anatomy of the human body; and the quest for superhuman insights, powers and ultimate liberation from birth and death.

While the earliest Tantras have their origins in antinomian, ascetic movements worshipping fierce gods and goddesses, these cults were progressively domesticated. Within the Kālīkula Tantras, texts belonging to the “Clan” or “family” of the goddess Kālī, the fierce, terrifying goddess of earlier Tantric texts eventually became the loving mother that most Bengalis know today. At the same time, in a process that Alexis Sanderson (2008: 661) calls exotericisation, Tantric practices were reincorporated into orthodox religion, but with their rituals “purified” of impure items such as meat or alcohol. Nevertheless, the antinomian rituals remained within smaller circles, protected by secrecy and sometimes coded language.

The second tradition of Bengali Hinduism in the 17th century is the devotional movement spearheaded by Caitanya (1486–1533) and known as Gauḍīya, Bengali or Caitanya Vaiṣṇavism. There are many excellent introductions to this movement available (for classic studies, see, e.g., De 1986 [1961] or Eidlitz 1968); here it suffices to know that Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavas worship the divine couple of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa as the supreme godhead primarily through congregational chanting (saṅkīrtana) of the mantra of Hari’s name (harināma); studying the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, the main scriptural source of the movement; worshipping the images of the divine couple; associating with holy men and women; and by (mentally or physically) living in the land of Vraja or Vṛndāvana, the place of Rādhā’s and Kṛṣṇa’s play (līlā) on earth (De 1986: 174–175).

Caitanya himself wrote very little, leaving the task of systematising his devotional ecstasies to his immediate disciples, the so-called six Gosvāmins, amongst whom we will have occasion to return to particularly Rūpa Gosvāmin, later. Living in Vṛndāvana, the Gosvāmins wrote learned and extensive books in Sanskrit, but it was not until the early years of the 17th century that these texts came to Bengal and began to be systematically copied and disseminated there, eventually becoming the standard for the orthodox followers of Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism (Stewart 2010: 4).

Even though Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism is permeated with Tantric ideas (such as that of the bi-polar, bi-sexual divinity), its proponents from the beginning took exception to both the monistic and the antinomian trends within Bengali Tantrism. When they eventually started defining the borders of their own tradition (saṃpradāya), Tantrics were one of their main doctrinal enemies, portrayed as immoral, dangerous beings, sacrificing humans to their goddess, raping virgins and creating a veritable reign of terror (Chakrabarty 1985: 231).

The RT is in many ways a typical Tantra. It is set up as an āgama, that is, as a discussion between Śiva and his wife Pārvatī, with Pārvatī asking the questions. In terms of language and style, it is very similar to other late East Indian Kaula Tantras. It is also not unique in mixing Vaiṣṇavism and Śāktism. Caitanya is mentioned in several Tantras (Banerji 1978: 31), and many other Tantras happily mix influences from these two currents of Hinduism. In the Toḍala Tantra, for example, the ten Mahāvidyās are equated with the ten descents of Viṣṇu – Kṛṣṇa corresponding to Kālī (10.11), a statement echoed by the Śaktisaṁgama Tantra (Gupta 2001: 466). In the Kālīvilāsa Tantra, Kṛṣṇa is described as Kālī’s son, as is Viṣṇu in the Nirvāṇa Tantra (Goudriaan & Gupta 1981: 83–84). In the Tantrarāja Tantra (34.84), Kṛṣṇa is declared to be a form of Lalitā. The same tendency can be seen in late mediaeval Bengali literature, where Caitanya is honoured in several non-Vaiṣṇava texts (Chakrabarty 1985: 342–344).

Such an eclectic tendency works in the other direction as well. There are several Vaiṣṇava texts written in a Tantric guise, such as the Gautamīya Tantra, the Māheśvara Tantra or the Kṛṣṇayāmala Tantra, of which the first predates Caitanya. Mixing Vaiṣṇava and Śākta elements is not foreign to Bengalis today either, as Sanjukta Gupta (2005) has vividly exemplified in an article on the Vaiṣṇava influences on the worship at the famous Kālīghāṭ temple in Kolkata.

Nevertheless, as I will show below, to see the RT as a happy, undogmatic blend of traditions that only the rigidly orthodox try to keep separate and pure is to miss the point of the RT. This Tantra is unusual in being first and foremost a polemical treatise, where ritual procedures are subsumed under a strong theological message.

2 Summary of contents

Before moving on to discussing the distinguishing features and doctrines of the RT, it may be helpful to get a brief overview of the contents of this fairly large text. The RT opens (Paṭala One) with Pārvatī addressing Īśvara Śiva with a request: previously the Rādhā Tantra has just been hinted at (sūcita) in the form of a story. Now please retell it as a Tantra!

Īśvara obliges and tells her that once Vāsudeva Viṣṇu came to him to ask what kind of mantra he should recite. Īśvara then gives him goddess Tripurā’s Śrīvidyā, after which Vāsudeva goes to Vārāṇasī and engages in reciting this mantra. However, despite great penances and his best efforts, he has no success.

At that point, (2) goddess Tripurā appears in front of Vāsudeva and tells him to engage himself in Clan behaviour (kulācāra) with a female ritual partner (Śakti). She also gives him Hari’s name (hare kṛṣṇa …) to recite to properly prepare himself for the Śrīvidyā, as well as an explanation of its true meaning. Further (3), she tells him that the four garlands that she wears around her neck are her four dūtīs, messengers and ritual attendants, and that the fifty Mātṛkā goddesses, the personifications of the letters and the creatrices of all the universes, stay within these garlands. She gives Vāsudeva her Kalāvatī garland and tells him to not worry, for with the help of the garland he will attain everything he desires.

Vāsudeva then (4) examines the garland, sees the Mātṛkās and the creation and destruction of all the universes within it and is bewildered. Composing himself (5), he sees all the terrifying great Seats (pīṭha) of Śakti in India but also that the Seat that appeared when Satī’s hair fell on earth, Vṛndāvana, is gentle and sweet of appearance. (6) Goddess Kātyāyanī then tells him to go to Vṛndāvana and there to engage himself in congress with Tripurā’s dūtī Padminī, who will be born in Vṛndāvana as the cowherdess Rādhā. Padminī appears from the garland and confirms Kātyāyanī’s words, after which she disappears. Vāsudeva then leaves Vārāṇasī and re...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Conventions in the critical text and the translation
• 3 Rādhā Tantra
• 4 Annotated translation of the Rādhā Tantra
• Bibliography
• Index