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Cynthia Abulafia's avatar

I must say- I usually really love Tarka articles, but this one troubles me.

It reads more like deep projection into history and someone who just simply loves śiva (as do I, by the way) and wants some things to be true, but are fundamentally problematic. There's so much cherry-picked information here taken out of context that the article can only be called personally motivated. I was having a hard time following by the end.

Some basic questions:

1. While it's nice to think that to tantra there is no caste differentiation- is this true? When you read the texts, it does not say this. Once on the inside of initiation, and within the group itself, caste is absolutely taken off the table. But even the texts themselves say that when in society caste should be observed for the outer appearances and interactions. This is not quite the ideology we want to see, but it's simply what's stated.

2. The Indic valley civilization seals- those are clearly not, according to any scholar I have read, śiva, but rather the projection of a white western archeologist that took fire. Not to mention that the civilization was abandoned far before the movement of Vedic pastoral nomadics entered the region. Much more research needs to be done on these points before drawing any conclusions. Perhaps most importantly here, there is simply no language that can be deciphered yet- though the language exists- and so until somehow archeologists can decipher those writings, drawing some speculation about any kind of religion in that long ago civilization is just whimsy.

3. What about the goddess? The seven mothers? That actually does have a history that goes far before the earliest tantras.

4. As to this claim: "the Tantric meditation and posture yoga techniques practiced 2000 years ago are essentially the same today"- what? explain? What Tantric meditation and posture from 2000 years ago? Even in the Niśvasa corpus there are some postures that are likely based on Gupta letters, but the same as today? how? this needs to be explained.

5. Always Patañjali- ok. So the 8 limbs of yoga in his writing is not universal. Not even close. Even other systems of 8 limbs (like in the Netra tantra) are appropriations and totally redefined from the original. The history, in fact, is far more interesting than what we think- or what's wildly being (loosely) described (misdescribed) in this article. Nowadays, in our prolonged obsession with Patañjali we just have to make everything about his work. It's so sad that everything always have to go back to him when so many traditions do not and when other systems are just as important to lineage and history. This is due entirely to a post colonial worldview and to politics. Please look up the limbs of yoga that actually do exist in tantra. It's way more beautiful than described here.

I love tantra. I truly do. I consider Utpaladeva to be one of the most beautiful, important, and profound teachers that ever lived, and some of his direct-line disciples also. I also want tantra to be universal, and it would be so sweet if it held those roles historically.

But isn't it beautiful as it is, without "needing" tantra to be "the oldest, best ever, most hidden, totally ancient, more ancient than we could possibly know!"- can't what it IS be beautiful? Why do humans love something and then need it to be "original" and "most original." Can't it be original in our hearts, and then allow history to be clear, fascinating, beautiful, and presented clearly?

So to read something like this- just a blanket hodgepodge of projections and basically zero reference to actual tantra scholars (ok, Chris Wallis, but taken out of context)- it's a rough one for me.

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