CONAN THE UKRAINIAN

STUDENT 1981 September  via @internetarchive

BLAST FROM THE PAST A BOOK REVIEW BY
EUGENE PLAWIUK

#CONAN THE #UKRAINIAN
By Way of An Introduction

The Internet Archive can be a terrible place or a great place depending on what is preserved there. In my case a number of articles and publications I have done in print and on the net have been preserved there apparently by some folks other than me. 

If you don't know it you should it is both a Memory Hole for archiving old internet sites since the beginning of Internet time including BBS times (Beginner Basic Sites)*

It is also the repository for digitized manuscripts from Microsoft and Google book projects. It includes digitized newspapers, old left wing and right wing hard to find and sometimes censored materials, for instance it has had the Anarchist Cookbook for download almost since its inception

You may have heard of it in the news because once Trump was elected POTUS they declared their intention to create a mirror site in Canada and to act as a depository in Canada for all the science records the Trump administration was ordering destroyed, following in the conservative footprints of our very own PM Harper. Now he is gone and the Natural Governing Party; the Liberals are back leading our social  democracy.

So I was searching the Internet Archive for an article of mine I know was preserved there when I came across this little gem from when I had just graduated from U of L and was working for the Department of Advanced Education and Labour under the Lougheed Government. 

STUDENT was the voice of SUSK the Ukrainian student union of ethnic Ukrainian Canadian Students, supported on campus by the Ukrainian Nationalist business association  KYK and the Catholic and Orthodox Churches Whats ironic is that this issue is one of the most Left Wing ever
and it covered the Crisis in the Ukraine and Eastern Europe from a Marxist Anarchist and Trotskyist analysis, the Left had taken over Student and SUSK.  I had been writing articles for them since the Left Wing Swing in 1979. 

I have also always been a comics fan, or as I spelled it in the article Comix, the Underground comics version of the spelling since I was kid. It is a big thing now, then it was a ghetto for nerd like science fiction, and I helped found the Edmonton Comic Arts and Science Fiction Society.  See Dr. Robert Runte's underground history of the Sci Fi community in Canada. We managed to publish two sets of fan journals, for Sci Fi and Comics which we published quarterly for two years.

This was just before I left for university, having been out of school and working since I was 16 I could apply as a mature adult student without requiring a High School diploma. It was then I began writing for Student as well as being an editor at the U of L student paper The Meliorist.

This article originates in my interest in Ukrainian history which I was doing independent research and self direct study on as part of my BA in History. This article about Conan's probable origins in the Ukraine are common knowledge now, and little disputed but such was not the case when I first published this.

                                                               --------------------------

Comics, cartoons, and comic books, are the last vestiges of the 'pulp' medium. Be they black and white or in full color, the paper they are printed on is characteristically grainy and full of cellulose chunks. Their content can range from funny animals to outer space, from true love to wizards battling dragons. In short, the subject-matter is only limited by one's imagination.

The genre of 'barbarian' comix is as old as Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan stories from the Golden Age of comix (1940s-1 950s). In the early seventies Marvel comix (the originators of Spiderman, The Fantastic Four, Captain America, etc.) launched the prototype of the adventure barbarian comic with a publication entitled Conan. It was an immediate success, mainly because of the artwork.

Conan's illustrator, Barry-Windsor Smith, introduced a new wave of seventies' art into comics while maintaining his own distinct style. Essentially, he struck upon the novel idea of creating as his main character a noble savage in a romanticized neo-classical setting. Smith stayed on for the earliest issues but later quit, because of disagreements with Marvel. He then set up his own fantasy-art workshop which is named The Studio. But Conan continued and has since spawned not only a series of imitators, but an entire genre of comics. It is not. however, the graphics but the storyline of Conan and that of a recent genre competitor, Arak the Thunderer (put out by Marvel's long-time competitor, D.C. Comics), that interests me most about this rich vein of popular literature.

Conan the Barbarian, is a Cimmerian. a mythical nationality that his author, Robert E. Howard, fabricated. In fact, Howard invented an 'alternate world' based on old myths and ancient history, populating it with Nubians, Cossacks, Ethiopian Pirates, Vikings and other peoples modelled on ancient Egyptian, Pict, Celtic and other sundry sources. Basically, the alternate world is centred in the Middle East, though it stretches from continental Europe to Mongolia and fhng of the Orient. Cimmeria is located in an area that is in the vicinity of the Crimean basin.

Significantly, some of Conan's first encounters read as if they were from a page of Ukrainian history. As a travelling mercenary in the Cossack tradition, Conan fights with Vikings from the northern regions and with alternate world Cossacks. At one point of the series, extending over several issues of the comic, Conan actually leads a group of Cossack bandits. Conan is modelled after Cro-Magnon man, but with an elevated sense of morality and principle; he robs from the rich, saves women in distress, and battles evil sorcerers.

Some of the most interesting of the stories in the Conan series have explored the dilemma that Conan faces when he encounters women mercenaries who are his fighting equals. Belit, the Pirate Queen of the Shemesh coast, and a fellow mercenary named Red Sonya are two such 'problematic' women in Conan's fantasy life. Red Sonya will not allow any man to touch her body unless he first defeats her in combat, which no man has yet proven capable of doing. The spectacle is an intriguing one: Cro-Magnon man meets Amazons who drink, fight, swear, and plot as well as he does. And how does Ukraine fit into all of this?

Well, not only is it the region from which Conan originates, but bordering countries in the alternate world border popular descriptions of Rus and prehistoric Ukraine. Of course, this is never mentioned directly, but the symbolism of Conan and the Cossacks plundering fat city merchants and fighting oppressive tyrants places Conan well within the tradition of popular 'bandit' folklore that is widespread among the Slavs. Arak the Thunderer is another interesting innovation in barbarian comics. Created by ex-Marvel writers and artists now employed by D.C. Comics, it is a newcomer on the market, its first issue having been released only two months ago. Ibwas initially previewed in another D.C. comic, Warlord #48.

In Arak the Thunderer we have a different twist, as the barbarian is an American Indian who is lost in ancient Europe. In the story we find Arak battling Vikings over amber, a gem that has very strong associations with Ukraine, where it is found in large quantities. The amber is being protected by a living dragon made of the same mineral. Add one sacrificial victim and a local priestess who speaks strangely familiar words — Volos, Kupala. Dziewanna — and we have a comic that reads like a story from the Book of Vies' In this case, however, our hero discovers that the female victim hardly needs rescuing, as she is protecting the sacred amber and controls the dragon, having tricked the Vikings and Arak into thinking otherwise. As it turns out our heroine is not just a priestess but a local goddess of the forest, who "bends tall treetops like stalks of grain!"

Although Ukrainian themes are only implied in these alternate worlds of the imagination, their presence is unmistakable No doubt, they can'probably be discovered buried within many other sources of popular culture. It just takes a critical eye to see the role of comics and other pulps in expanding the geography and the ethnicity of characters in fiction. D.C. Comics, no'doubt has discovered how popular Conan and Arak the Thunderer really are they appear appealingly different to an americanized audience Moreover, the possibility certainly exists that someday the pulps will draw upon actual events from Ukrainian history as the basis for their stories, as both its prehistoric and modern past are ideally suited to the 'barbarian-bandit' genre.

*Yes I know that BBS stands for Broadband Basic Service

CAPITALISM IS A JUNKIE

The social history of addiction is the social history of capitalism. It is the first form of consumerism that would later dominate the post WWII culture of American and European capitalism.

The fact is that capitalism is itself an opiate, in that it requires greater and greater doses of profit to continue. Each new level of profit taking gives less satisfaction than the previous. 
It is an amphetamine in that it requires faster and faster production on a mass basis in order to meet its insatiable appetite for profits. It requires faster and faster methods of accumulation in order to offset the empty feeling left as each quarterly profit increases over the last or last years.

Marx called this the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, or in short the falling rate of profit. And it is exactly the same as the drug addicts need for more in order to meet the same level of high.

I was reminded of this with the following news item

U.S. 'addicted to monetary heroin,' headed for a crash: Schiff

  CEO of Euro Pacific Capital Peter Schiff told CTV’s Canada AM on Thursday.                               “If you look at the fundamentals, if you look at the contracting labour force, the declining use of energy, the explosion of poverty in America, and income inequality, the record numbers of food stamps and disability, all the part-time jobs that are now replacing the full-time jobs that we’ve lost, all of this is consistent with a shrinking economy. But the government won’t admit it,” Schiff said.

  One authority on Junkies, the beat writer William Burroughs understood this and described it in his early novels Naked Lunch, Nova Express and the Ticket that Exploded. Capitalism produced the junkie,  the addicted personality, the hoarder, etc  as the result of mass consumption. They are the flotsam in the modern world of mass consumption. 
And they are the ultimate consumer.

 If drugs weren't forbidden in America, they would be the perfect middle-class vice. Addicts would do their work and come home to consume the huge dose of images awaiting them in the mass media. Junkies love to look at television. Billie Holiday said she knew she was going off drugs when she didn't like to watch TV. Or they'll sit and read a newspaper or magazine, and by God, read it all. I knew this old junkie in New York, and he'd go out and get a lot of newspapers and magazines and some candy bars and several packages of cigarettes and then he'd sit in his room and he'd read those newspapers and magazines right straight through. Indiscriminately. Every word. 

 Paris Review - The Art of Fiction No. 36, William S. Burroughs

What I found interesting is that Burroughs long considered an out there fringe writer, even more so after David Cronenberg's movie version of Naked Lunch, was compared with the Marxist Humanist; Frankfurt School for his analysis of the cultural addiction capitalism creates. And this should not be much of a surprise since they are writing in the era of the end of the greatest war humanity has ever experienced, the end of communism and the end of unregulated capitalism, in a time of technological and production advances made possible by the very same war. The Frankfurt School looked at the creation of this modern capitalist culture and its impact on the socio-psychology of human beings in much the same ways Burroughs does.

RealityStudio » “Giving Away the Basic American Rottenness”

 Both the Frankfurt School and Burroughs perceive an “ethical crisis” in western societies which was particularly manifest by the time of the Second World War. Both also see failings and weaknesses inherent in post-enlightenment republics and both reject the resurrection of old philosophical or religious traits as a solution to either of these problems. Central to the critique of the Frankfurt School is the reduction of human thought to the status of a mere “tool”. Thought is instrumentalized — “subordinated like a tool to whatever end it is expected to serve” — and the “ends” of thought are not questioned. The manifestations of this in fields of science are shown in Naked Lunch: science in Naked Lunch is always shown as something dominated by other forces and other interests, and scientific thought and practice is increasingly instrumentalized.1

It is not only the result of capitalist development that creates a market for addiction, it is the very condition of the creation of capital that results in addiction. During the earliest years of capitalism in England saw streams of disenfranchised rural labourers moving into London's working class ghettos ending up unemployed, or employed in drudgery and addicted to Gin. 

Gin being by far the worst of the alcoholic beverages consumed in this period, cheap and potent it was a newer brewing chemistry that allowed for fast produced Gin to dominate the marketplace in London over its historic rival beer. 

E W PLAWIUK 2020

POST MODERN CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS

REPEAT AFTER ME

'WE ARE CAPITALISM'

It (Capitalism) is thus, despite itself, instrumental in creating the means of social disposable time,in order to reduce labour time for the whole society to a diminishing minimum, and thus to free everyone’s time for their own development.

K. Marx, Grundrisse

PART 1. 

 Today's blog post is about the Grundrisse Marx's notebooks that were the basis for his later work; Capital. 

I first read the David Mclenan  edition, which was published in 1970. We sold it in our Anarchist coop bookstore Erewhon Books. Did I read it from cover to cover, no neither have I read all of Captial, or the collected works of any author. 

But what I read then and reread over the years was the chapters I have quoted from here today. Specifically about what Marx thought would occur in advanced capitalism as it moved towards the domination of what he called disposable time over labour time. 

Disposable time is what has occurred under advanced capitalism of the  twentieth century.  In particular the automation and mass production of post WWII North America and then the defeated Germany and Japan allowed for rapid postwar mass production that created the modern consumer societies of the OECD and G7 countries. The last decade of the 20th Century and the first decade of the 21st have seen its expansion into the developing countries, the BRICS and those who have added to the G7 to become the G20.

Back then computer automation was only just beginning, it was still called, quaintly; Cybernetics, and a whole academic industry was created to deal with predicting what would occur in the future with automation 'freeing' us from drudgery, and of course the crisis in Capitalism that would occur with the masses having no work, leisure time galore, and Freedom 55.

As George Caffatis discusses in his recent article on the Grundrisse, this was a period where sociologists waxed lyrical about the jobless future and the end of work, sounds familiar, but this was Stanely Aronowitz and Alvin Toffler not Jeremy Rifkin. 

Zerowork was a project like Zero Growth, that challenged the idea that with us producing surplus goods and plenty, we should address the fact that less was producing more and more, and more.

Zero Growth challenged capitalism with the Malthusian indictment writ large, globally, about how by the end of last Century the billions of us on the planet would use up all our resources.

Zero Work was a critique of workerism of the old communist parties and even the new left that classified the working class as blue collar industrial workers. It too talked about cybernetics, and self management, as did Norbert Weiner twenty years earlier. 

Later one of its American theorists would become so critical of capitalism that he would posit a return to Plato's cave, proposing to undo his first forms. His theory is that all of industrial society, created by and for capitalism was corruption itself, and he ran off to take to moral high ground, which would be embraced by Animal Rights anarchists, Primitivists and the Black Bloc from Oregon.

The future lay before us all in the Seventies, we had survived the tumultous Sixties, some could not wait to put it behind them, others still embraced its counter culture with hopes for a revolution any day, because the mass disapproval of the War in Viet Nam was growing and showing in the streets across America and the world. 

A TV show that reflected the sixties optimism and seeking that the seventies began with in North America was CTV' Here Come the Seventies, produced in 1970 projecting about the coming future of leisure and endless consumption while applying science to the problems of food shortages that would produce the Green Revolution. All this bright sci fi futurism was becoming an academic and pop culture industry it even produced its own university status with spokespeople who remained popular in the eighties and even nineties. 

As I was young and impressionable in this period it was for me a period of radicalization as it was for many of us who were teenagers or draft age adults. 

I grew up on sci fi, as well as reading Marx, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Engels, etc. etc. my library began then and is still with me today fifty years later. Now at least I have a place to house it.

I listened to rock n roll, embraced all the lifestyle culture that was occurring, including the occult revival, the rebirth of witchcraft and magick, but most importantly I too was a futurist. It was nature of the culture at that time as the book publishing industry would attest to, and which the record industry would come of age because of.

In fact beyond rock n roll the seventies sound was best reflected by the theme for Here Comes the Seventies Tillicum by the Toronto electronic band Syrinx. 1970 saw the emergence of electronic music in a big way, with Nice, ELP, Klauze Schultz, Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk, etc.

A rock and roll album that was a concept album telling a whole sci fi story about flying spaceship away from earth to colonize a utopia, called Blow Against the Empire. It was 

a collaboration between the Jefferson Airplane, Greatful Dead and San Fransisco area 

musicians. It won the only Hugo ever give to a rock album.

Of course only the year before two earth shattering events had occurred, man had landed 

on the moon and it was broadcast in glorious b&w around the world, even behind the Iron Curtain, and in Red China, and yes Viet Nam. The other was the release of the most advanced sci fi special effects movie ever, 2001 a Space Odessy in wonderful Technicolor and the latest in stereophonic sound..

In this hothouse of anything is possible, be realistic demand the impossible, out came a new edition of Marx's original notebooks for Capital. First published after WWII, in the midst of the Cold War, and the Mcarthyite purges it lay dormant in the ferment of the sixties not to be re-released till the seventies.

It was in this atmosphere of possibilities of anarchist dreaming of a utopia to be, I came across intellectual dynamite, something I read in this immense tome struck me as an answer. We all had questions in fact the Moody Blues even recorded an album about them. But here was an answer, a critical one, something that there and then I thought was damned important I should mark it down. I did and then I used it to develop my vision of workers class conciousness based on the idea of leisure time, cybernetics computer automation, and self management of society by us.

I read Wilhelm Reich's essay on Class Consciousness, and sometime later 
Luckas on History and Class Consciousness, and finally Erik Olen Wright. But I did not find this clear a statement about class consciousness. In fact whole fields of Marxist academia discussed the importance of real class consciousness vs false class consciousness,
who was the real vanguard of the revolution the much discredited white working class that sided with the Republicans, the Viet Nam war, or with radical students, African Americans, anti war activists, SDS, and yes the IWW.

Class consciousness was defined by academic sociologists as having been conquered by post modern post war capitalism. Everyone was Middle Class we were no longer producers neither farmers, nor factory workers, or trades people, we were all regardless of our jobs, primarily consumers. We saw the rise of a service worker sector in both government and the private sector.

Our aspirations despite the warning of  Death of a Salesman, was to embrace the post war service economy, to becomea  white collar suburban middle class . And while this was predominately a white American dream, it was embraced by sociologists as an explanation in at least one study of Oakland Afro Americans who while working as janitors, or rail car workers, were considered middle class because they had steady employment and could buy a house and belonged to Fraternal Orders and social clubs.That these wants, needs or aspirations were as much the promise of post war economics and working class dreams as they were part of a new mythical identity of a declasse America, the old American exceptionalism and with the help of Cold War paranoia, the socialst struggles in America became part of the post fifties social amnesia.

The irony is that the combination of deliberately induced historical social amnesia, made academics, pundits, cultural mavens, literati, media, etc. respond with the dance of the dialectic, at once both happy to have leisure and job security till retirement, the social compact that was the result of armed men coming home who needed to be reintegrated into society without overthrowing those in charge. 

Next the crisis was not what to do but what to do with all that leisure time, that disposable time as Marx called it. It was going to lead to all sorts of good and bad future possibilities from Star Trek wageless socialist future, or it could be a return to barbarism. The revolts of 1968 still fresh in peoples minds, were not of priveleged students or any privelged class but rather a revolt of overproduction, declining economies which had boomed in Europe for a decade were now
stable and declining in a global competiton for markets. 

These bourgeois revolutions occurred as the economies in Europe and North America and even in Latin America and Asia were booming, production was increasing, in fact it led to overproduction and by 1973 the world face a oil crisis. One so serious that it was predicted we would run out of oil and gas by 2000.

But all this had occurred before immediately after WWI Thorstien Veblen the American socialist economist wrote about the new methods of post war production, and the importance of the engineers, as a middle class between the workers in the factory and management. He told them they had a choice and he advised them to join with the workers.

He wrote of the new leisure class, and their conspicuous consumption as factories with mass production began processing food for housewives in cities to purchase in department stores.
Again a post war boom which led to a further boom until the crash of '29, and the resulting failure of capitalism with its Great Depression during a major climate event the dustbowl of the praries in North America and the steppes in Ukraine and Russia.

Veblen was influenced by the IWW and they intern worked with a group of engineers inspired by Veblen which would later become Technocracy Inc.

Veblen criticized the price system and trying to move beyond Marx came up with a time credit, an attempt to build on Marx's disposable time, this later became the energy credit of Technocracy.

Veblen was not the only economist coming up with new ideas to solve the crisis of capitalism and its overproduction, waste and inequality in sharing the wealth. WWI had devasted a generation, it was the first full scale capitalist war, one which saw huge advancements in science and technology aimed at mass killing. 

At its end there was a huge cultural revolution as well as a workers revolution, and during the depression post war ideas like Distributionism, Social Credit, the Cooperative Commonwealth, Guild Socialism, Syndicalism, joined with socialism and capitalism as economic theories of the times. Of course Keynes won and the Austrians took their marbles and left the stage for thirty years.

Each time there was a revolution or war in the twentieth century the following occurred;
capitalism adapted realizing that its most effective form would be state capitalism, 
Peasant economies were modernized often through militarization and corporatism
and later through wars of National Liberation resulting in the creation of a proletariat
in the cities
After wars or revolutions the victorious imperialist nation invested in infrastructure rebuilding
the capitalist economy in the defeated country.
The two most successful economies after the US and Canada following WWII were Japan and Germany and I would say they actually are more efficient capitalist states than the US because they are state capitalist with a social compact.

The sixties saw the discourse on development that Trotsky had first proposed;  the economics of even and uneven development in what became known as the third world and the third world anti imperialist struggles, we had Che and Andre Gunder Frank debate with Regis Debray and the beginning of serious Latin American marxist praxis in that developing world.

.What Kautsky prophetically called Super Imperialism divided up the world into four spheres of interlocking influence  three Superpowers USA, Russia, China and then the Non Aligned Movement of Nations.
. 
After the 1929 crash and depression state ca[pitalism as a historical phenomena saved Capitalism indeed it seemed triumphant, it had small crisis's like the oil crisis of the seventies but no severe crash till 1964 and then the big one like 1929 again in 2008.

I was brought up like many on the left with the economistic reductionist crisis theories of traditional Leninism. Despite our various designations or allegiances to parites or left ideologies I knew no one who doubted the mechanistic therom that what goes up must come down and if it goes high enough the crash is huge.  What occurs next according to the  mechanistic revolutionary theory of history was that this crisis was to be so severe as to challenge capitalism to its very core. All we then needed was the revolutionary party of the proletariat to lead it in the fight to defeat capitalism. It was like we were storming the Winter Palace of Capitalism, rounding up the parasites, and planting the red flag on top of the government buildings. And indeed that is what the Bolsheviks in Russia did.

But it was not a workers revolution, it was a bourgeois revolution conducted by the working class in order toe save capitalism from itself as Keynes would point out in his General Theory of Economy, in fact the failure of the Bolshevik revolution, not its success, was what saved capitalism from itself said Keynes. Something Hayek argued against in the mirror for the rest of his life.

END OF PART 1.
TO BE CONTINUED 
EUGENE W. PLAWIUK 

MIA AMOUR VENEZUELA

MISS ME

Facebook generating terror content, whistleblower reveals.

"Facebook itself has been creating and promoting terror content with its auto-generate technology," says report by National Whistleblowers Center.
Full story: http://u.afp.com/Jg37

A jaguar cub (Panthera onca) born in captivity is shown to the public for the first time at the zoo in Tlaxcala, Mexico.

Loss of habitat has resulted in falling numbers of the jaguar, which are native to the Americas and currently rated as Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List.

HYMN TO INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY. 

The awful shadow of some unseen Power 
Floats tho' unseen among us ; visiting 
This various world with as inconstant wing 
As summer winds that creep from flower to 
flower; 
Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain shower, 

It visits with inconstant glance 

Each human heart and countenance ; 

Like hues and harmonies of evening, 

Like clouds in starlight widely spread, 
Like memory of music fled, 
Like aught that for its grace may be 
Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery. 
Spirit of Beauty, that dost consecrate 

With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon 
Of human thought or form, where art thou 
gone ? 
Why dost thou pass away and leave our state, 
This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate? 
Ask why the sunlight not forever 
Weaves rainbows o'er yon mountain river; 
Why aught should fail and fade that once is 
shewn ; 
Why fear and dream and death and birth 
Cast on the daylight of this earth 
Such gloom, why man has such a scope 
For love and hate, despondency and hope ? 

No voice from some sublimer world hath ever 
To sage or poet these responses given : 
Therefore the names of Demon, Ghost, and 
Heaven, 
Remain the records of their vain endeavour : 
Frail spells, whose uttered charm might not 
avail to sever, 
From all we hear and all we see. 
Doubt, chance, and mutability. 

Thy light alone, like mist o'er mountains driven, 
Or music by the night wind sent 
Thro' strings of some still instrument, 
Or moonlight on a midnight stream, 

Gives grace and truth to life's unquiet dream. 

Love, Hope, and Self-esteem, like clouds, depart 
And come, for some uncertain moments lent. 
Man were immortal, and omnipotent, 
Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art, 
Keep with thy glorious train firm state within 
his heart. 
Thou messenger of sympathies 
That wax and wane in lover's eyes; 
Thou, that to human thought are nourishment, 
Like darkness to a dying flame ! 
Depart not as thy shadow came: 
Depart not, lest the grave should be, 
Like life and fear, a dark reality. 


While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped 
Thro' many a listening chamber, cave and ruin, 
And starlight wood, with fearful steps pur- 
suing 
Hopes of high talk with the departed dead. 
I called on poisonous names with which our 
youth is fed : 
I was not heard : I saw them not : 
When musing deeply on the lot 
Of life, at that sweet time when winds are wooing 
All vital things that wake to bring 
News of birds and blossoming, 
Sudden, thy shadow fell on me : 
I shrieked, and clasped my hands in extacy ! 

I vowed that I would dedicate my powers 
To thee and thine : have I not kept the vow? 
With beating heart and streaming eyes, even 
now 
I call the phantoms of a thousand hours 
Each from his voiceless grave : they have in 
visioned bowers 


Of studious zeal or loves delight 
Outwatched with me the envious night : 

They know that never joy illumed my brow, 
Unlinked with hope that thou wouldst free 
This world from its dark slavery, 
That thou O awful Loveliness, 

Wouldst give whate'er these words cannot ex- 
press. 

The day becomes more solemn and serene 
When noon is past : there is a harmony 
In autumn, and a lustre in its sky, 

Which thro' the summer is not heard or seen, 

As if it could not be, as if it had not been ! 
Thus let thy power, which like the truth 
Of nature on my passive youth 

Descended, to my onward life supply 
Its calm, to one who worships thee, 
And every form containing thee, 
Whom, Spirit fair, thy spells did bind 

To fear himself, and love all human kind. 


SONNET. 

OZYMANDIAS. 

I met a traveller from an antique land 
Who said : Two vast and trunkless legs of stone 
Stand in the desart. Near them, on the sand, 
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, 
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, 
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read 
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless 
things, 
The hand that mocked them and the heart that 
fed: 
And on the pedestal these words appear : 
" My name is Ozymandias, king of kings : 
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" 
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay 
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare 
The lone and level sands stretch far away. 

FINIS. 

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 
LONDON: 
PRINTED FOR C. AND J. COLLIER, 
VERE STREET, BOND STREET. 
1819. 

TANTRA

            Pancharatra Philosophy

THE AGÀMAS

INDIAN philosophy is nothing but a versatile compcndium of

Dhanna in all ìts ramifieations and possìble proliferations. To an

Indian, whatever be the assumptiQtis about ihe ultimate reaiity,

whoever be the preeeptor and whatsoever be the ultimate source

oí ìnspiration and knowledge, Dharma is essentially a way of

liíe, a logieat way of thinking, a genial way of feeling and a

eongenial way of willing not only for one's ov^n individual wellbeing,

but also for the summum bomtm of his family, elan and

soeiety, for the weal and welfaie of Lhe whole of mankind at

large, nay for the general welTbeing of the IJniverse as a whole

wiQi all its living and non-living beings. This well-known tenn

Dharma is derived from the dhalu 'DHR' - whìch has three

eonnotatìons.

a) DHARANA

b) POS AN A

e) AVASTHÀNA

DHARMA is thaL which holds Logether the entire ereation

(the whole IJnìverse), nurtures and sustains 'it and helps it to

continue to be and perpetuate itself. Whatever be the system of

thooght, whcthcr in eonformity to the Vedas or in noneonformity,

whcther Vaidiki or Avaidikì, every Indian sehoohof

philosophy has emphasised Dharma one way or the olher. It is

Lbis prìneiple of Dharma that is the rendezvous of all the

difíerent sehools of Indian thought. Philosophers may differ in

lheirconclusions and eonvielions about the ulLimaie realily, they

may say n is one or more than one or none at all, some may say

the ultimatc reality is a.person, others may say it is.an

ìmpersonal pnneiple, they may have different ontologies and

divergent epistemologies, they may employ or underline

2 Philosophy of Panearatras

dif'ierent means of approaeh for the iiltimate realisaiion whcther

Jífana, Bhaktí or Kaima, they make lalk through their hats

whatever they like, but none of them have ever ignored Dhaima.

Dhanna is the runníng eord in and through every philosophieal

systein, on whìch ail the beads of the different sehools are stning

and by which the entire neeklaee of indian philosophy is held

together and presented to the world as an invaluable jewel,

immemorial, ineormptible, unfading, undying and rare . It is ihis

Dharma that has given every sehool of Indian thought an

undying fame and an amhentie note. Philosophy in India

whatever be its tinge or tone or tune, has never been a pure

aeademie pursuit, an item of ami-ehair thinking or ìntcllectual

pursuit for its own sake. Philosophies are bom in India by the

eonfrontation of dedieated men with evil, with the ills of life,

philosophies ate made to mlíeve mankind of their sorrows and

sufferings, to show them a path of self-realisation, to lead ihem

Lo permanent happiness unsullicd even by temporary relapses.

VVith this salutary end ìn view every one of the founders of

the varying sehools has in his iepertoire a seheme of praetiee, a

pieseiibed way oí' living, a dharma to put it in one word. Preeepi

and praetiee have never been divoreed. Eaeh illustrious

preeeptor was ìn himself an ìllustration of his philosophieal

eoneepts and imellectual eonvietions. He was hìmself the

cxemplar of his teaehings and the rest wouId fo!low siiil. VVhen

onee the desiination was detennined, the road of Dharma was

immediately paved to reaeh the destination. It was smooth going

for the foIlowers as they were eonfidenl of their destinations and

had absoiute trust in the paih-layers. Henee the walch word of

Indian Culturc and Phìlosophy is DHARMA vvhieh it has not

been possible for any westemer to translate it into a single word

of hís language. This is exactly the distinetion and cynosuro of

Indian thought.

' Dharmàt param nàsti ' - says the Bthadìranyaka Upanishad

<

1 4 - 14 )

,

There is nothìng beyond Dhamia.

' Dharmo viávasya jagatah pratishlhà' - The entire líniverse

is.sustaìned on the foundation of Dhamia. (Mahanarayana 2 - 6)

The Agamas 3

'* Dharmànnapramaditavyam ‘ -Taitiiriya- (1 - 11 - 1 ). Let

ihere be no negíeet of Dharma.

1 Dharma eva hato hanti - Dharmo rakshati rakshitah

(Manu - 8 - 15 ) Dharma is killed by the transgressor * The

iransgressor is ruined by himself in the proeess. He vvho proteets

Dharma, preserves himself therein.

The orthodox Hindu sineere to his heritage is of the

eonvietion that the Vedas are the ultimate source and the mie

neasurc-house of all Dharmas.

Vedokhilo Dharmamà lam ' - ( Manu - 2-6 ).

1 Vedo Dharmamiáam 1 - (Gautama Dharma Sitra - 1)

.

' (Jpadishio Dharmah prativedam 1 - (Bodhayana Dharma

Sutra - 1). Dharma is the means (Karana, Sadhana) to acquirc

truc knowledge.

Harita Maharshi has pronounced

Athàto Dhannam Vyàkhyàsyàmah I § ruti pramanako Dharmah I

ámtisea dvividhà

Vaidikì tantrikí ea -

Srutí the revealed tmlhs are two-fold in eharaeter -Vaidikí and

Tantrikf . As Yaksa the well-known eommentator on the Vedas

says

1 Mantra drashtaro risayah ' - The sages are those who have

seen the revealed tmtíis. That is why the original preeeptors are ealled Seers. Honest Hindus believe that the Srutis are Apt^vaeana ’ - trnths revealed, the tesiimony of God Himself

than whom a better well-wisher (apta ) eannot be even surmised.

The rcnowncd eommentator on Manus Dharma Sastra says

'Vaidikf tamrikf eaiva dvividhà smtih kíniià

1 - So God's

primeval revelations to mankind (^RUT1 ) are lwo-fold, namely

Vedie and Tantrie. Just as the vedas aie eonsidered to beThe

Simis, ihe Tantras are also taken to be the Srutis ihemselves.

4 Philosophy of PenearatrGS

1 VedaSástram ’ - ( Manu- 12-99).

' femtism Vedo vijnema ( Manu - 2-10 ).

Jnst as the pulses reveal a binary fission when broken, so

also the Srutis when probed into and nnderstood reyeal the two

pails of tlie Vedas and tlie Tantras, - it is presumed, Sometimes

the Vedas and the Tantras, the Nigamas and the Agamas are

eompared to that legendaty bird, Gandabhemnda which has two

neeks with faees eontained in one and the same body.

Often in aneíent Indian lore wc meet with the tenns, Smti,

Veda, Ágama and Amnàya almost as synonyms with an

interehangeable import (As paryàyavSeakas). In the contcxt of

cxplaining Vedie terms wc fínd referenees made as

-

' Ityàgítinát

Similarly in ihe coursc of cxplaining Tantrìe doetrines, we eome

aeross tefeienees made as

-

' Iti Smreh '

,

It is unfortunatc to find that sometimes some people look

down on the very word ' Tantra

1 as though it means somelhing

erooked, something undcsirablc, as though it is unbecoming of

honest beings and somelhing of a subterfugc and resorting to

eheap if nol reprehensible means of gaining one's end. This kind

of vicw is uncalicd for. Before delvíng into the meaning and

signifieanee of the Tanlra Sastras, it is neeessary lo knovv the

cxact meaning of the very term Tantra' itself. The Medìníkosa

kára says

' Tantram kutumbakrtye sýit sìddhínte ea ausadhottamc -

Pradhòne tantuvaye ea sastrabhede parieehade.

Snitisàkhàntare hetávubhayàrtha prayojake -

Iti kartavyafiyam ea

1

. The word ’Tantra’ has different meanìngs. It may mean any

of the following: Family-proteetion, an established system, the

best medieine, the most important or the outstanding, a spíder,

the eorollaries of any system of thought, a braneh.of vedie

knovvledge, a thing that may serve doubIe purposes, or that

which preseribes a paiticular way of doing a thing. In popiilar

The Àgamas 5

parlanee Tantra may mean a knoW“how; Often Tantra Sastra is

eharaeterised as a 'Prayoga Sastra' - a spirimal tcchniquc, a

religious teehnology, a

1 Do-it-yoursclf ' Sastra for the aspirants.

Often Tnatriki áruti is ealled a Siddhanta Agama, a Sàdhana

Sastra. Amarasimha says

' Tantriko jfíatasiddhantah

1 -

He means thereby that Tantra is Siddhanta - an established

system of knowledge and praetiees. He who*is wcll-veised in the

Siddhanta is ealled a Tantrika. The different established systems

of thought such as the Mimamsa, Nyaya, Vaiseshika usually

delineated as Darsanas are also often referred to as Taniras. For

instanee Sankara inhis Brahma Sutra Bhashya (3. 3. 53 ), while

eommenting on Purvamimamsa Darsana refers to it in the style -

Prathama-tantre - thereby implying that Darsana and Tantra are

interehangeable terms. Often great seholars are eonferred with

the title ’Sarvatantra Svatantra’ extolling their erudition and

mastery of the Sastras. If Manu could eall the Vedas ’Veda

Sastra, - Veda Sastram sanàtanam ( 12-99 ), the Tantras ean

be ealled 'Siddhanta Sastra’ with equal foree. For instanee

Sankara ealls Samkhya, a Tantra. Why , the Sàmkhya Karika

does so iiself, by ealling its own Darsana a Tantra in Karika - 70.

There is of course the long-standing eontroversy whether

the Vedas are really ’ Apaurusheya - Authorless' - While the

orthodox Hindus believe so, indologists both eastem and

westem are of the opinion that the authors of Lhe Vedas may be

assigned various dates upto 1500 B.C, Reeent excavations at

Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro and also Tìlak’s researehes have

pushed baek the orìgin of the Vedas by many thousands of

years. I do not wish to enter into the eontroversy whether the

Vedas are Apàurusheya or Pàurusheya. The point relevant here is

that the Smtis lose their elaim as revealed literatme. If the Vedas *

have theìr authors, then the Tantras will have to have their

aulhors. These very same indologists are of the opinion that

the Agamas and Tantras are of later origin than the Vedas and

that they are definitely later than the Purànas. They are of the

6 Phllosophy of Penearatros

farther opinion that the Parànas themselves are ncwly ereated

Post-Buddhístic litcrature speeially formulatc

to offset Buddhìsiì^ìnriuences and boost Hindiiism If that is so

Tantrie Literature is 10 be eonsidered as of veiy laie origin and

eannot be deemed as pari passu with the Vedas as elaimed

earlìer ìn terms of the aeeredited eonvietions of ìhe ortliodox

sehools.

The above argument of the Indologists that the Tantras aie of

reeent origin later to the Pates, ean be easily refutcd by

pointing out that Ìn the various Purànas themselves we find

mention made bolh of the Vaidiki and Tantriki foims of worehip,

So also the allegation that the Tantras are of Post-Buddistic

origin ean be easily rcfutcd. Lord Buddha liimself eondemned

the Tantrie worships of Brahma, Indra, Vìsnii, Kàtyàyìnì,

OinapaEi and others. Lalitavislàra, a gieat Biiddhistie work,

makes mentíon of Buddha's denounccmcnt of Tantne culls in its

I 7th ehapter, After Buddha, vve find Buddhists ihemselves

began to have theìr own innumcrable Tantras. Tliey veritably

began to worship innamerable deilìes sneh as Àdibiiddha,

Prajnapàramita, Manjusií( Tàrá,Árya-T'aràand so on , In other

words Baddhists eoald not resist tlie temptations of having iheir

ownTantras on the lìnes sìmìlar lo those of the IIindus.

Thus if Buddha could denigrate Tantrie worship, Ihe Tantras

shoaid have existed earlier to Buddhism.

Quile in eontrast with the eonsidered opinion of ihe

Indologists, one of tlie Tantras themselves, namely the

Naràyàníya Tantra poìnts out that íhe Vedas themselves have

originated from the YAMALAS, a elass of Tantras of

eonsiderable importanee and also magnUude, The prineipal

Yamalas are eight in number namely:

Rudra Yàmala

Kanda (skanda) Yìmala

Brahma Yàmala

The Agamas 7

Visnu Yamala

Yama Yàmala

Vayu Yàmala

Kubcra Yàmala

Indra Yamala.

Just as the original Siva Tantras or Agamas represent Ltie

Rudra or Sadasiva tradition, the Yàmalas represent the

BHAIRAVA tradition and it is further narrated that the

Yamalas vvere fìrst communicated to mankind by the follovving

eight Bhairavas:

Svaeehanda,

Krodha,

Unmatta,

Ugra and Kapalin

Jhankàra,

Sekhara,

Vijaya.

The Yàmala tradition believes ìn a huge pantheon of gods

and goddesses. Tantrie Sadhana is open to all eastes.

It is believed that the Rigveda has originated from Rudra

ìíimala, Sama Veda from the Brahma Yàmala, Yajur V,eda

from Vishnu Yàmala and Ahtarva Veda from the Sakti Yàniala.

Siddha Sarvánanda in his compendium ealled Sarvollàsa

Tantra means to eonvey the idea that the Yàmalas are so aneient

that they preeede even the Tàntras. All these of course are highly

eontroversial issues. Aeeording to Brahma Yamala it is

believed Isvara communicated the seeret knowIedge to

Srikantha. This Srikantha reineamated himself near Prayag and

communicated the Tantra in 1,25,000 anushtubh slokas to

various diseiples and that one of those diseiples was a Bhairava

and that that v 'as how many Bhairavas eame to know of it.

8 Philosophy of Panearatras

Aeeording to Mahà-Siddhasàra Tantra, Bharatavarsha is

divided into three KRÁNTAS or sub-dÌvisions and eaeh Kr ánia

is said to possess 64 Tantras. The three KRANTAS are :

Vishnu Kràita

Ratha Krànta

Asva Krànta.

Saktimangala Tantra defines the Krantas.

i) The land east of the Vindhya hills extending upto JAVA

eomprises Vishnu Krànta.

ii) The country north of Vindhya hiils including mainland

OHINA forms Ratha Krlnta.

iii) Rest of India westwards is Asva Krànta.

Hindu temples could be found in Indo China, Indonesia, Bali

and many other islands. Images of Kàli, Tára, Rudra could be

found all over the far east and south -east Asia,

Even Egypt eame under Asva Krànta and worship of the

Indían phallus was very popular there, In the Brihannila Tantra it

is said worship of Paramananda was in voguc in Persia. In

Rhodesia phallie emblems made of gold have been diseovered.

The worship of ASHTAROTH, ASTARTE, ISHTAR referred to

in.the Oìd Testament of ihe Bible is interpreted to be none other

than the Bljàksara - ‘STRÌM' - thé bíja of TARA. Thus it is

evident that Tantrie worship was widely prevalent in aneient

times in many parts of the world other than India even and thaL

Indian influence was all over Asia, Afriea and the middle éast

too, The Shat-Sambhava-Rahasya mentions 4 famous

Sampradàyas of Bharata - 4 fánious sehools very popular all

over Gauda in the east > Kelara in the middle Kàshmíra in the west The Agemas 9 Vilasa - all over ( an eeleede Sampradaya ). V/hether we agree with the vìew or not ihat ihe Vedas Lhemselves have iheir source ìn the Yamalas, we ean atleast be eonvineed that the Tantras are of very aneient orígín and that they are not postpuranic or post-buddhistic lìteramre. There is then another insinuatìon against the Tantras namely that the Agamas and Tantras represent a revolt against the Vedas. The objeetioners quote the Bhagavadgita sometimes, stanzas 45 and 46 in Canto IL In the same Bhagavadgila Canto X, stanza 22 Krishna says - " Of the Four Vedas, I am the Smaveda " - Again in Oanto XV Stanza No. 15 Krìshna says - " I am Lhe Tmth which all the Vedas seek to know. The author of the Vedànta ( the Upanishads) am I ; And I too am the real Knower of the Vedas " - Sometimes it is argued that the Tantras eannot be on a par wìth the Vedas for the simple reason that ìn many plaees blaek magie is deserìbed ìn the Tantras, that in some parts ihey eontain obseenities and that therefore they are not of good taste. In reply we may raise the qucstion - what about the Vedas themselves? Manu says -(11-33) Smtiratharvàngirasih kury adityavieárayan 1 Vak sastram Vai Bràhmamsya tena hanyàdarin dvijah II- On eertain oeeasìons a brahmin ean undoubtcdiy make use of the Atharvaveda. A brahmin's strength lies in his tongue (Vak) meaning thereby Mantra, To overeome an enemy a brahmin is permìtted to resort to the praetiees enjoìned in ihe Alharvaveda. The followìng Suktas diieetly deal willi blaek Arts ríagie in the Athaivaveda. . First Khanda Suktas - 14-17 Seeond n ii 17-31 Third it 11 25-30 Fomth it tt 12-16-36 10 Phllosophy of Panearatras Fifíh Khanda Snktas 14-23-27 Sixth “ " 37-105-130 Even in Rigvgela atul Yajurvcda there are referenees to 'AbhieSra Kftya ' Blaek Arts and Magie. Referenee : JjtGVEDA - Eìghth Astaka - " - Tenth Mandala 14th Síikta. " - 11 16thSíikta, " - " 163rd Sukta. ” - " 58-60 Sukta. YAJURYEDA - Taittirya Brahmana Kt$a - 2 Pra - 4 Anu - 2 To make a svveeping remark that all 7’antras teaeh Blaek Àrt and tiothing else is wrong and smaeks of an \mwammted hasty generaljsatìon and |>ad faith. Thore may be separate Tantras exclusively moant for Blaek arts and they are cjídusively known by theìr dìstlnPtìve apppdattons such as Gàruda, Daksìna, Vana, Bhpta ote. " Athábhietrah satriinám vedadharmadmham sm.tà h " If the Vedas themselves could advoeate and enuneiate a few items of blaek arts to bring couple$ together or punìsh fhe enemies of the Vedie brahmìns, why shonld any ope denounce an assemblage of Tantras most of which do not ovon toneh upon thp blaek arts or magìe or any sneh thing. When we take ìnto eonsideration any diseonrse on ereation in the Vedas, we ean easlly obsprvp Simiiarity of vìews between the Vaidiki and Tmtriki smtis. Rigveda ; 10 - 90 , * ? " Tasmàdyajhatsarvahuta!h teah sàmmì jajhire " - Atharveda ; 10.7.14 “Yatra tsayah prathamajà reah Samayajumiahì ekarshi yasmi - The Agomae 1 1 Unapiiah skambham lam brghi Kathamassmi devasah " ( Every one is avvare of tho Panea J3rahmu Mantras beginning wiih 'Sadyojfltam prapadyami ' and ending wìlh 'IsDnali sarva vidyàmm ' - To iinderstand the Panea Braiima mantras, wc have lo know elearly about the Paneasadakhyas. So also about the mantias as 'Adhvanimadhvapate 1 ete. - To nnderstand the signifteanep Qf ífiese mantras it is absointely neeessary to have rccourse into the Agamg$. Othcj*wisc it is impossible. The Brahmft Svoiàpfl fls ^Hggesfed ífl fh? Vaidiki snjtìs is elearly cxplained and illustratod in the Tintríki snitis, 5o also there is elose assoeialion and muuial substantiation between the Bràlimanas of the Vaidiki srntis and ihe Tfmtrjki srulis, For inatflnpp in Arsheya Brálimara ; (Arsheya - 1 ) ,r Yo-hava avìdÌums;eyacc)]ítndQ daivatabrahmanena niantiena yajayati va adhyapayati va Sthfti.ium Vàreehaii-gartan và pratìpadyate " - The same Ìdea that not knovving the Risi, Chandas and Daivata viniyoga of any Mantm if a person instmets or praeiises a Yantra worsliip he is surc to be a sinner only - ís cxprcsscd in the Agamas also- " Avidilvà Rsìm Chando Daivatam Yogamevaea Yo adhyàpayedjapedvàpi papfyan jàyate tiisíih" - Thflt is why it is often said about the Tantras, 1 Sruti - sàkhàvlsesati r a distinetive braneh of the SruUs. Rooted in the Smtis, it is elassed with the Vedas. In the Kasikavrtti, the word Tantra is derived from the root 'TAN 1 - whieh means ' to spread'- some later seholars have derived it from the rooi 1 TATRI 1 or 1 Tantri ’ meaning 'Orígination' or knowlcdgc. In a speeial sense Tantra is defined 12 Phílosophy of Panearatras " Tanyate Vistáryate Jnanam anena ili " -that which amplifies and nurtures knowJedgc, Tantra ìs that braneh of knowlcdgc that notonly enlarges and iUustratcs, but also sustains Smtijmna. In Kaníkagama il is stated about the Taniras : " Tanoti vipulíinarthm tattvamanlra samanvitfm, Trananea kurutc yasm at tantram iLyabhìdliíyate ", Not only does Tantra promulgatc profound knowlcdgc eoneeming Tattva (Cosmic prineiples) and Mantra (the seienee of mystie sounds), it breathes life into tliem so to say and makes them praetieable, It helps ín true praetieal realisation the greatness of ttie Tantras and Maniras, ít helps in self-realisation through self-elevation so to say, One of ihe oldesi Tantias, the Nisvasa tanlra Samhita ìs of the view that Tantra is jusL a culmination of the esoieiie aspeets of Vedanta and Samkhya for the reason that it upho!ds the ullimacy of Sìva with the validity of the world as an expicssion of His Sakti. Siva, the supremc Lord is saíd to have taught his eonsort íìrst the Vedanta, then the twcntyfive Samkhya tattvas and finally Siva tantra. Pingalamata, another tantrie tcxt says that Tantra was fir.^L communicaied by Siva to Parvati. It ìs Agama with the eharaeteristies of Chandas (Vedas). Knlamava Tantra (II 140-41 ) says ihat kiiladhamia is based on and inspired by Lhe trmh of the Vedas. This Tantra says that there is- no knowledge (vidya) higher than that of the Vedas and no doetrine (Darsana ) equal to Kaula - ' Na hi Vedadhika vidya ’ - III - 113. Prapaneasara eites Vaidikì mahavakyas and mantras. Meru Tamra says, as mantras are part of the Vedas, Tantra is also a part of the vedas (Pranatoshini - 70). NimtLara Tantra ealls Tantra the fifth Veda and Kulacara the fifth Ásrama (Pranatoshini ), Kulamava tantra reiterates that the Sastras have as theìr heart both the Veda and the Kaula tantra - ,l Tasmadvedatmakansastran Viddhi Kaulatmakan , priye - (II 140-141). Matsyamukha mahstantra says that the Tantrie díseiple must be pure of soul (Suddhatma ) and a knower of the The Agamas 13 Vedas. Knowledge of Ihe Vedas is an essential preliminary lo initiation into the Tantrie cult. Maharudra Yamala says that a person berefi of Vedie Kriya - ‘Vedakriya Vivarjita' is disqualificd for Hhe study and praetiee of Tantrie Sadhana (Mahamdra Yamala - Khanda I , Chap. 15. Khanda II, Ohapt. 2; Pranatosiiini - 108). Gandharva Tantra (Chapt. 2; Pranatoshini - 6) says that the Tanirie sadhaka must be an asiìka, a believer in the Vedas, ever attaehed to Brahman, ever speaking of Brahman, living in Brahman and taking shelter in Brahman. Tliat Hinduìsm is revealed in ihe six darshanas is a well-known faet. The sìx darshanas are the six stages lhrough which the mind progressess in its quest for Brahman. The six darshanas aie the six limbs. These six systems are not to be trealed separately, They must be taken together as darsana is not a philosophy as such, but oniy a vicw point. Tantra is preeisely a darsana and a sadhana sastra. In general it lays down differeni forms of praeiiee for the aitainment of the highest aim of hiiman cxistcnce by one lìving the ordinary iife of a housc-holdcr. In this respeet Tantra eorresponds to the Upasana Khanda of-ihe Sruti. The Tantras aie elassified undcr five heads namely: Saiva Sakta Vaishnava Saura and Gìnapatya. These five elasses of worshippers are eolleetively ealled PANCOPASAKAS. Eaeh elass of worshippcrs has iis own tantras. In Mahanirvana lantra, I. 18, 19, II.8 - 15, III. 72, the Mantra 1 Aum Saeeidekam Brahma' is stated and Tantra is aeelaìmed as a darsana. As already staied the teim ‘Tantra' is derived from the root ‘TAN' lo spread. Il means a system, a melhod a dìseipline. It helps in aehieving two ends, namely I 4 Phìlosophy o f Panearatras i. Abíiyiidaya - General progress or iiplift, ii. Nihartíyflsa- Attaining liie suprcme god nflitiely Salvation oi liberátion Tflhtra inay aptly be deserìbed as Sadhana rcduccd to a seienee, The Síddhi aehieved is a demonstrable faeL, cxpcrìtncntally verìfied. Tantra noL only helps in aehieving the suprcme end of self-realìsation and liberation but also helps to aehieve the ordinary ends of living cxistence such as Dharma, Artha and Kaína. The Tantra Sastra is based on the firm eonvietions that f Mamra ' is efficacious, ihat 'Yantra ' is potent and tiiat uitimatc siddhi at the level of Saeeidananda - ' Being - consciousness - bliss ' - is a eertaínty. It helps ìn the eoordination of Karma, Yoga, Jnana and Bhakti. Although il emphasises will and effon on the part of the individual sadhaka, it glorifies self-stirrender to ihe Alinìghty and seeking His merey and graee. It demands Bhakti and Prapatti, yeaming love of the votary, the upasaka. The Tantrie sadhana einploys both the cxoteric rituals of the Vedie type and the esoterie riluals of the Yogie type, The'Tantras just simpiify the Vedie rimaís and make greater use of esoterie symbols. We know the esoterie symbolism was evident even in the Brahmanas and Upanishads , Ex: Satapaiha Brahmana I. 3. 2-3. The same account ìs repeated in the opening verses of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad also. The Tantras plaee greaier emphasis on the esoterie saerifiee. So we need not hesitate to say that the Tantras have emerged from the Vedie religion and saerifiees. In ihe vast reservoir of aneie/it ‘Hi