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33
INTRODUCTION
XV
It has to be admitted that there is a dark as well
as a bright side to the Tantrik sadhana There is
unmistakable evidence, both in history and in literature,
to show that human sacrifices obscene rituals and orgies
of licentiousness were once associated with certain
forms of Sakt worship Winternitz in his History of
Indian Literature rightly says.
"In Saktism and its sacred books, the Tantras, we
find the loftest ideas on the Deity and profound
philosophical speculations side by side with the wildest
superstition and the most confused occultism, and side
by side with a taultless soci il code of morality and
rigid asceticism we seen cult disfigured by wild orgies,
inculcating extremely reprehensible morals"
The fact seems to be that the worship of the
Goddess which as we have seen, included many tribal
cult was in some parts of the country not fully assi-
milated to the orthodox Vedic religion And so rituals
and practices which that religion would have discouraged
went on unchecked and, when they invaded even the higher
classes, were sought by some to be justified by pseudo-
philosophical theories based on some stray passages in
the Vedic literature They were tolerated by others in
accordance with the Hindu doctrine of adhik ira bheda
The Devi Bhagavata for instance says in one place
"The Brahmins are not adhikaris for those Tintrik
texts that are contradictory to the Vedas Those per-
sons that have no claim to the Vedas can be adhikaris
3
INTRODUCTION
XV
It has to be admitted that there is a dark as well
as a bright side to the Tantrik sadhana There is
unmistakable evidence, both in history and in literature,
to show that human sacrifices obscene rituals and orgies
of licentiousness were once associated with certain
forms of Sakt worship Winternitz in his History of
Indian Literature rightly says.
"In Saktism and its sacred books, the Tantras, we
find the loftest ideas on the Deity and profound
philosophical speculations side by side with the wildest
superstition and the most confused occultism, and side
by side with a taultless soci il code of morality and
rigid asceticism we seen cult disfigured by wild orgies,
inculcating extremely reprehensible morals"
The fact seems to be that the worship of the
Goddess which as we have seen, included many tribal
cult was in some parts of the country not fully assi-
milated to the orthodox Vedic religion And so rituals
and practices which that religion would have discouraged
went on unchecked and, when they invaded even the higher
classes, were sought by some to be justified by pseudo-
philosophical theories based on some stray passages in
the Vedic literature They were tolerated by others in
accordance with the Hindu doctrine of adhik ira bheda
The Devi Bhagavata for instance says in one place
"The Brahmins are not adhikaris for those Tintrik
texts that are contradictory to the Vedas Those per-
sons that have no claim to the Vedas can be adhikaris
3