ESA SE Name Rae sAG DE laNe Gye Se Eee abs, SHAKTI AND SHAKTA Essays and Addresses on the Shakta Tantrashastra BY Sir JOHN WOODROFFE Porgotlen Bookswww. forgotienbooks. org ISBN 9781606201459Rorgotten Books This is a Forgotten Books Library high-quality e-book from www.forgottenbooks.org Thank you for supporting Forgotten Books by purchasing this e-book. This e-book may not be distributed. If you wish to share this e-book with friends or other people, please give them the free low-quality version from www.forgottenbooks.org This book is also available in print as high-quality paperback from www.amazon.comVERTICAL LINES The vertical black lines appearing on most pages are deliberate. This is required to stop people from selling printed copies of our e-books. Our own printed books do not have these watermarks. TERMS & CONDITIONS This e-book may not be distributed. This e-book may not be modified in any way. This e-book may be printed for personal use only. No pages may be extracted or removed from this e-book. This e-book may not be included in any commercial package. This e-book may not be sold. Copyright © 2010 Forgotten Books AGShakti and Shakta © 2010 Forgotten Books www.forgottenbooks. orgForgotten Books takes the uppermost care to pres from the original book. However, this book has been| the original, and as such we cannot guarantee that ji ve the wording and images canned and reformatted from is free from errors or contains the full content of the original. © 2010 Forgotten Books www.forgottenbooks. orgoriginal title peee] Shakti and Shakta Essays and Addresses on the Shakta tan- trashdstra by Arthur Avalon London: Luzac & Co., [1918] © 2010 Forgotten Books www.forgottenbooks. orgFirst published 1918 Republished 2008 by Forgotten Books www.forgottenbooks.org © 2010 Forgotten Books www.forgottenbooks. orgDID YOU KNOW...? You can read any and all of our thousands of books online for FREE Just visit: www.forgottenbooks.org © 2010 Forgotten Books www.forgottenbooks. org© 2010 Forgotten Books www. forgottenbooks. org5 vib PUBLISHER’S PREFACE About the Book This is a set of essays by Woodroffe on Tantra. About the Author Sir John Woodroffe (1865 - 1936} "Sir John Woodroffe (18654€"193 Avalon, was a British Orientalist wt a deep and wide interest in Hindu Born on December 15th, 1865 a: droffe, Advocate-General of Bengal ), also known by his pseudonym Arthur lose work helped to unleash in the West hilosophy and Yogic practices. the eldest son of James Tisdall Woo- and his wife Florence, he was educated at Woburn Park School and University College, Oxford, where graduated in jurisprudence and the Bachelor of In 1890, He moved to India and eé} Court. He was soon made a Fellow Law Professor of Calcutta Universit) the Government of India in 1902 a Court Bench.After serving for eighte Justice of the Calcutta High Cou became Reader in Indian Law at th: to France in his retirement, where Alongside his judicial duties he stul was especially interested in the e: translated some twenty original S. Arthur Avalon.He published and le Indian philosophy and a wide rangd His most popular and influentia appreciation of Indian philosophy ivil Law examinations, nrolled as an advocate in Calcutta High bf the Calcutta University and appointed .He was appointed Standing Counsel to id two years later was raised to the High en years in the bench, he became Chief ft in 1915.After retiring to England he University of Oxford, and finally moved ie died in 1936, died Sanskrit and Hindu philosophy and oteric Hindu Tantric Shakti system. He nskrit texts, and under his pseudonym tured prolifically and authoritatively on of Yoga and Tantra topics. | book, a major contribution to the ind spirituality, is The Serpent Power - © 2010 Forgotten Books www. forgottenbooks. orgvii fF The Secrets of Tantric and Shaktic Yoga (Dover Books), which is the source of many modern Western appropriations of Kundalini practice." (Quote from wikipedia.org) © 2010 Forgotten Books www.forgottenbooks. orgCONTENTS PUBLISHER’S PREFACE INDIAN RELIGION AS BHARATA DHARMA SHAKTI: THE WORLD AS POWER... TANTRA SHASTRA AND VEDA TANTRA SHASTRA AND VEDA. THE TANTRAS AND THE RELIGION OF THE SHAKTAS SHAKTI AND SHAKTA.. IS SHAKTI FORCE? CINACARA (VASHISHTHA AND BUDDHA), THE TANTRA SHASTRAS IN CHINA ATIBETAN TANTRA, SHAKTI IN TAOISM ALLEGED CONFLICTS OF SHASTRAS . SARVANANDANATHA.... CIT-SHAKTI (THE CONSCIOLISNESS ASPECT OF THE UNIVERSE). MAYA-SHAKTI (THE PSYCHO-PHYSICAL ASPECT OF THE UNIVERSE}... MATTER AND CONSCIOUSNESS SHAKTI AND MAYA... SHAKTA ADVAITAVADA.... CREATION AS EXPLAINED IN THE NON-DUALIST TANTRAS .. THE INDIAN MAGNA MATER . HINDU RITUAL. VEDANTA AND TANTRA SHASTRA .... THE PSYCHOLOGY OF HINDU RELIGIOUS RITUAL SHAKTI AS MANTRA (MANTRAMAYI SHAKTI)... VARNAMALA (THE GARLAND OF LETTERS) SHAKTA SADHANA (THE ORDINARY RITUAL). THE PANCATATTVA (THE SECRET RITUAL)..... MATAM RUTRA (THE RIGHT AND WRONG INTERPRETATION) KUNDALINI SHAKTA (YOGA). CONCLUSIONS ..... © 2010 Forgotten Books vil 130 164 255 320 www. forgottenbooks. org© 2010 Forgotten Books www.forgottenbooks. orgShakti and Shakta INDIAN RELIGION FRIEND of mine who rea that | should add to it an A™ fundamental _principl understanding of what follows, AS BHARATA DHARMA the first edition of this book suggested pening Chapter, stating the most general les of the subject as a guide to the rogether with an outline of the latter in which the relation of the several parts should be shown. | have not at present the time, nor in the pre friend's wishes in the way | wo neglect them. To the Western, Indian Religion g} beliefs amidst which he is lost. G principles can show them the path. It has been asserted that there i there are many Religions in India| out (Is India Civilized?) there is lent book the space, to give effect to my Id have desired, but will not altogether pnerally seems a "jungle" of contradictory nly those who have understood its main no such thing as Indian Religion, though This is not so, As | have already pointed ‘a common Indian religion which | have called Bharata Dharma, which is an Aryan religion (Aryadharma) held by all Aryas whether Brahmanic, Budd| divisions of the Bharata Dharma. the Semitic religions, Judaism, Ch| purely Semitic. Christianity becan by the Western Aryans, as also such Eastern Aryans as the Pers} Thus Sufism is either a form of Vey The general Indian Religion or BI Order or Cosmos. It is not a Cha together, in which there is no bil hist or Jaina. These are the three main || exclude other religions in India, namely, ristianity and Islam. Not that all these are 2 in part Aryanized when it was adopted happened with Islam when accepted by Jans and the Aryanized peoples of India. danta or indebted to it. jarata Dharma holds that the world is an s of things and beings thrown haphazard ding relation or rule, The world-order is Dharma, which is that by which the universe is upheld (Dharyate). Without Dharma it would fall to pieces ani possible, for though there is Dis only locally, for a time, and in pai will and, from the nature of thing} the meaning of the saying that Ri dissolve into nothingness. But this is not prder (Adharma], it exists, and can exist icular parts of the whole. Order however s, must ultimately assert itself. And this is ghteousness or Dharma prevails. This is in © 2010 Forgotten Books www. forgottenbooks. org2 wh ForgottenBooks.org the nature of things, for Dharma is not a law imposed from without by the Ukase of some Celestial Czar, It is the nature of things; that which consti- tutes them what they are (Svalakshana-dharanat Dharma). It is the expression of their true being and can only cease to be, when they themselves ceage to be. Belief in righteousness is then in something not arbitrarily imposed from without by a Lawgiver, but belief in a Principle of Reason which ll men can recognize for themselves if they will, Again Dharma is not ohly the law of each being but necessarily also of the whole, and expresses the right relations of each part to the whole. This whole is again harmonious, otherwise it would dissolve. The principle which holds it together as one mighty organism is Dharma. The particular Dharma calls for such recognition and action in accordance therewith. Religion, therefore, which etymologjcally means that which obliges or binds together, is in its most fundamental sense the recognition that the world is an Order, of which each man, being, and thing, is a part, and to which each man stands in a definite, established relation; together with action based on, and consistent with,/such recognition, and in harmony with the whole cosmic activity. Whilst therefore the religious man is he who feels that he is bound in varying ways| to all being, the irreligious man is he who egoistically considers everything from the standpoint of his limited self and its interests, without regard for his fellows, or the world at large. The essentially irreligious character of such an attitude is shown by the fact that, if it were adopted by all, it would lead to the negation of Cosmos, that is Chaos. Therefore all Religions are agreed in the essentials of morality and hold that selfishness, in its widest sense, is the root of all sin (Adharma). Morality is thus the true nature of man. The general Dharma (Samanya Dharma) is the universal law governing all, just as the particular Dharma (Vishesha Dharrha) varies with, and is peculiar to, each class of being. It follows from what is above stated that disharmony is suffering. This is an obvious fact. Wrong conduct is productive of ill, as right conduct is productive of gdod. As a man sows, so he will reap. There is an Immanent Justice. But these results, though they may appear at once, do not always do so. The fruit of no action is lost. It must, according to the law of causality, which jis a law of reason, bear effect. If its author does not suffer for it here and now in the present life, he will do so in some future one. Birth and eth the creation and destruction of bodies. The spirits so embodied are infinite in number and eternal. The material universe comes and goes. This in Brahmanism has been said (see Sanatana Vaidika Dharma by Bhagavan Das) to be "the Systole and Diastole of the one Universal Heart, Itself at rest -- the moveless play of Consciousness". The appearance © 2010 Forgotten Books www.forgottenbooks. org