Much like the words “Natural,” “Organic,” and “Holistic,” today’s word has become a buzzword for New Age health and spiritualism. From massage to yoga and even love making, tantra has moved from the realm of religion to the realm of marketing. But it has remained a mystic and often misunderstood concept by the majority of people who, ironically, buy into the marketing hype of it. So, to prevent misrepresentation, let’s get to the truth about tantra.
Often taken to mean “treatise or doctrine” the Sanskrit word tantra– literally meaning “loom or weave”- is a combination of the word tan, meaning “stretch or extend,” and the suffix tra, meaning “instrument.” Though the term first appeared in the Rigveda (71.9) circa 1500-1200BC in a literal sense, the first application to a set of principles dates to a 423AD stone inscription in Gangadhar, Rajasthan, India. Having influences on Jainism, Hinduism, and Buddhism, understanding the nuances and subtle variations of tantra can take quite some time. In a simplified and condensed sense, tantra is a system of beliefs, meditation, and practices that attempt to channel the energy of the universe into the individual.
Somewhat outside of the belief system, “tantra” has become quite a substantial business. While there are no separate statistics for “tantric businesses,” let’s use a business often associated with tantra as an example: yoga. Typing “yoga” into Amazon.com results in over 750,000 results, which is proof of an industry that has a value of well over $30 billion in the United States alone. A 29% increase in yoga participants has fuelled an 87% increase in yoga product spending, which could explain why 44% of yogis have an income of over $75,000 annually.
The first use in English of the word tantra occurs in the London edition of the 1799 work, Asiatic Researches, which writes that “The Tantras form a branch of literature highly esteemed, though at present much neglected.” In 1877, Monier Monier-Williams wrote in his book, Hinduism, predicting the demise of the Hindu religion and calling for Christian evangelism, that, “Tantrism, or Saktism, is Hinduism arrived at its last and worst stage of medieval development.” Ironically, little could Monier-Williams have predicted that, instead of dying out, tantrism would be in the midst of a huge revival precisely by the people he was calling on to “save” India.
