Hinduism, within which Tantrism is a arcane cult, constitutes the cultural root from which Buddhism asserts its independent religious precepts. Tantrism, centering around erotic, magical and mystical rites, in turn is influential in East Asia in the development of Mahayana Buddhism (Dasheng, meaning major vehicle) and also of Lamaism. Tantrism as a cult practises elaborate devotional ceremonies of eroticism derived from a theory of sexual love as the fundamental expression of a basic emotion of life. Its precepts hold that only through ritual sexual union would the gods respond to the initiated. Female divinities are worshiped and women are accorded high places in Tantrist cults. In Tang dynasty China, a woman named Wu Zhao, a devotee of Tantric Buddhism, would come to be known in history as Model Heaven Emperor (Zetian Huangdi), the one and only female huangdi (emperor) of normally male dominated China. The Tantra, sacred book of the cult, consists of dialogues between the Hindu god Siva and his consort, Parvati. Siva-worship in Hindu civilization is associated with phallic-worship and the lingam is the phallic emblem of Siva. Siva is considered a supreme deity with many aspects, the most familiar of which is the Destroyer, wearing a garland of skulls and surrounded by an entourage of demons. Parvati, the consort of Siva, is also known as Kali. She has dual aspects. As Mata (the Divine Mother), she is worshipped lovingly, but as Chandi (the Fierce), she is represented as a terrifying demon, wearing a garland of skulls, bearing a bloody sword in one of her many arms, and is associated with death, destruction and epidemics. Tantric symbolism ascribes ten aspects to shakti, the feminine phase of cosmic being. The ten aspects are:
1. Kali: mother time
2. Tara: power of creation
3. Sodasi: incarnation of sixteen forms of desire
4. Bhuvanesvari: substantial forces of the material world
5. Bhairavi: multiple forms and beings
6. Chinnamasta: distributor of vital cosmic energy
7. Dhamabati: frustrated desires
8. Bagala: destroyer of negative forces
9. Matangi: power to dominate 10. Kamala: state of restored unity. The Tantra constantly stresses that those who make love solely for carnal purposes are merely abusing themselves, because they risk wasting vital energy. It is through maithuna, the yoga of love, that cosmic union is achieved. In addition to its religious contribution, Tantrism is a cultural mainstream in the flowering of Hindu erotic art. Located at the famous village of Ellora in central Maharashtra state in India are thirty-four temples cut out of solid rock, dating from the fifth through the thirteenth century. Most of the temples were of Tantric-Buddhist origin and transformed later into Hindu shrines after the rejection of Buddhism in India. The incorporation of Buddha by Hinduism as the ninth incarnation (avatar) of its god, Vishnu, seriously adulterated the separate uniqueness of Buddhism in India. The jewel among these edifices is Kailasa Temple, a magnificent stone structure carved by order of King Krishna I (r. 756-773). Kailasa Temple is dedicated to Siva who is enshrined in the innermost sanctum as a giant lingam (phallus). Carved in place out of natural solid rock, but instead of being an interior cave, it is sculptured as a free-standing temple, 164 by 109 feet with a hundred-foot-high back wall defining a 276 by 154 feet courtyard. Its walls and pillars of solid rock are decorated with sculptural reliefs of voluptuous, sensual female figures and sacred animals. The English-speaking world would be introduced to The Kama Sutra (Adage On Love) in 1883 by British explorer and author, Sir Richard Francis Burton (1812-1890) of the East India Company. Burton would emphasize the carnal aspects of the classic work in the form of an underground publication to titillate Victorian England, the repressed sexuality of which would reduce eroticism to pornography. Sir Richard would become better known in genteel English-speaking circles for his publication of a translation of The Arabian Nights. The Kama Sutra, in its entirety, is a socio-political treatise, a manual for the art of control, of winning and of ruling, in which erotic sex is considered an effective psychological tool and an integral part of the art of life. The classic work would bring to mind its later Italian counterpart: Micheavelli's The Prince. Though seldom recognized, the two works would have much in common, if not in form and style, at least in substance and concern. Both deal with the art of power and the techniques of control in life. The Prince would focus on power and control through the medium of politics while the Kama Sutra focuses on power and control through the medium of erotic love. Many sengs are serious students of the Kama Sutra (Adage On Love). The Kama Sutra, a fifth-century authoritative treatise on eroticism as a social philosophy of love, is a respected classic of Hindu-Tantrist literature written in Sanskrit by Vatsyayana, a Hindu Brahman. By 680, the disappointment felt by Tufans from the refusal of the High Heritage Emperor (Gaozong), son of their great friend, the late Genesis Emperor (Taizong), to grant his daughter, 17-year-old Peace Princess (Taiping Gongzu), in marriage to 9-year-old Tufan zanpu (Tibetan king) Qinuxilong, on thinly-veiled ground that Peace Princess has been, since 8 years old, a nuguan (Daoist lay prioress), had developed into nationalistic dimensions with historic implications. It would contribute to cultural isolation of Xizang (Tibet) and her embrace of Lamaism. Lamaism, culturally-defensive, in time would evolve xenophobic and anti-Daoist sentiments, as well as attitudes of anti-Han, the indigenous majority nationality in China. Lamaism would develop as a modification of Mahayana (Dasheng, meaning greater vehicle) Buddhism (Fo Jia) by Tantric rituals of erotic mysticism and by ancient shamanism and sorcery of the Bon, a primitive, indigenous animistic religion of Xizang, which believes in the existence of spirits separate from the body. Tantrism, an arcane cult within Hinduism, centering around erotic, magical and mystical rites, has been influential in the development of orthodox Hinduism, of Mahayana Buddhism and later of Lamaism. Some 6 centuries after the time of Wu Zhao, Lamaism would enjoy imperial sponsorship in China under Kublai khan's Mongolian Yuan dynasty in 13th century, partly because of its anti-Daoist and anti-Han ethnic colorations. Buddhist reformer Tsong-kha-pa, who would die in 1419, would establish the Yellow Hat order which would gradually gain ascendancy over the original Red Hat order of Lamaism. Slightly more than a millenium after the birth of Wu Zhao, the decrepit Ming court, ruled by a dynastic house of the majority Han ethnicity, in 1641, nearing the end of its 320-year reign, 3 years before its final overthrow by the conquering Manchurians who would establish the Qing dynasty (1661-1911), in a feeble attempt to preserve its titular sovereignty, would grant de facto temporal power over Xizang (Tibet) to the 5th Grand Lama of the Yellow Hat order, whose title would be the Dalai (ocean-wide) Lama, and would install him in Potala in Lhasa. The Dalai Lama would be revered by his followers as a divine reincarnation of the Boddhisattva Avallokiteshvara, mythical ancestor of the people of Xizang. A boddhisattva is worshiped as a deity in Mahayana Buddhism. It is the name given to an enlightened being who compassionately refrains from entering nirvana in order to save others. The most well-known boddhisattva in Mahayana Buddhism is the female Guanyin, Goddess of Mercy. In 1652, the Dalai Lama would be invited to Peking (moder-day Beijing), where he would be received with great pomp by Emperor Shizu during the reign of Shunzhi (1644-1661) of the Manchurian Qing dynasty (1661-1911). Lamaism again enjoys imperial patronage under Emperor Shizong during the reign of Yongzheng (1723-1735) of Qing dynasty and would remain active and influential in the Qing court until 1911, the founding of the Republic of China. Nine years after his accession, Emperor Shizong would convert his palace in Peking, Yonghe Gong, into a Lama temple which would still function in modern time as a high holy place of Lamaism. Yonghe Gong would be in modern time one of the main tourist attractions and a focus of pilgrimage for Lamaism in Beijing. By the personal intervention of Premier Zhou Enlai, it would receive protection from ideologically-inspired vandalism by radical Red Guards during the turbulent Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). While the Dalai Lama would become traditional leader of Xizang (Tibet), spiritual supremacy would reside with the chief abbot of the influential Dashi Lumpo monastery near Zhikatse, 200 kilometers southwest of Lhasa, who would be known as the Dashi or Panchen Lama, a reincarnation of Amitabha, the Buddha of Light. The succession to Grand Lama, either Dalai or Panchen, depends upon direct reincarnation. Upon the death of either, his spirit is said to pass into the body of some infant born shortly after, the identity of whom is determined by a series of exacting tests and divinations. Upon identification, the selected child is then brought to Lhasa and meticulously trained to assume his awesome spiritual role. The 13th Dalai Lama would flee to Peking from a British expedition force in August, 1904. On April 27, 1906, China, represented by the dying Qing court, as suzerain of Xizang, known in the West as Tibet, would agree to the terms imposed by Britain not to permit third countries to send representatives, receive transportation or mining concessions, or occupy, purchase or lease territories in Tibet without British permission. It would be a policy designed by Lord Curzon, 1st Marquess of Kedleston, the expansionist viceroy of British India, after having retired a year before from a policy dispute with Lord Kitchener, commander of the British army in India who would be supported by the home government. The policy would aim generally to protect British interests in Tibet and specifically to contain Zsarist Russian expansion into the region. All "unequal" treaties signed by the government of the Qing dynasty during the age of Western imperialism, including those concerning Xizang, would since be declared null and void by all subsequent governments of China, nationalist and communist alike. Four years after the British-Qing dynasty agreement, on February 25, 1910, during the chaos of the nationalist revolutionary uprisings that finally established the nationalist Republic of China, the 13th Dalai Lama would again flee, this time to British India. The 14th Dalai Lama, a 5-year-old boy, would be installed on February 22, 1940 and the 9th Panchen Lama, a 7-year-old, in 1944. The 14th Dalai Lama would sign a 17-point agreement with the government of the newly established People's Republic in Beijing on May 24, 1951 that would reconfirm Chinese sovereignty over Tibet with local autonomy. Government forces would clash with ethnic dissidents in 1959 during the celebration of the Tibetan New Year, after which the 14th Dalai Lama would go into political exile in India. The 9th Panchen Lama, after taking office under the new People's Republic on May 1, 1952 at age 15, would die in Beijing on January 28, 1989 and his followers would search for the reincarnation of his soul to find the 10th Panchen Lama. On December 8, 1995, a six-year-old boy was annoited as Tibetan Buddhism's new Panchen Lama.
Now, wasn't the WSJ simplistic?
Henry C. K. Liu