Abstract
Most models on the origins of tantrism have been either inattentive to or dismissive of non-literate, non-sectarian ritual systems. Groups of magicians, sorcerers or witches operated in India since before the advent of tantrism and continued to perform ritual, entertainment and curative functions down to the present. There is no evidence that they were tantric in any significant way, and it is not clear that they were concerned with any of the liberation ideologies that are a hallmark of the sectarian systems, even while they had their own separate identities and specific divinities. This paper provides evidence for the durability of these systems and their continuation as sources for some of the ritual and nomenclature of the sectarian tantric traditions, including the predisposition to ritual creativity and bricolage.
Highlights
Our problem is simultaneously simpler and more complex, as we are first and foremost concerned with the activities of social, lineal, clan or caste groups operating under selective indigenous identity designations: yātudhāna, iks.an.ikā, māyākāra, aindrajālika, vidyādhara and so on
One problem for the idea that name may be based on a ritual is that we find, for example, the Tala image, a curious and highly disputed statue, where his testicles are carved in the image of bells; see (Nigam 2000) for disparate opinions on the nature of this image
Groups and individuals operating under a variety of designations; these people pursued avocations we would recognize as sorcery, magic or other ritual forms of the manipulation of reality for personal or professional reasons
Summary
In the emergence of alternative religious systems such as tantrism, a number of factors have historically been seen at play Among these are elements that might be called ‘pre-existing’. India is a reality worthy of investigation, given the observable contribution of these groups to the eventual emergence of tantrism in the sixth or seventh century They do not appear to have expressed ideologies of liberation or transcendent divinity but were concerned with magical crafts of various kinds. Such groups preceded the formation of sectarian, lineage-based tantrism by well over a millennium, but they continued to function outside of formal tantric structures until the present—a poorly studied and under-recognized reality of Indian social and religious life. Sanskrit Conference in Kyoto, 2009, invited by Dominic Goodall and Einoo Shingo
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