Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts. Newsletters Donate My Account. Research Topics. Median Age Globally, Buddhists are older median age of 34 than the overall population median age of Footnotes: 12 Alternatively, some scholars consider there to be two main Buddhist branches — Mahayana and Theravada — and classify Vajrayana as part of the Mahayana branch.
Related Interactives Mar 8, Interactives Mar 8, A ruler and his attendants visiting Nath yogis , gouache on paper, Rajasthan, India, 18th century. These include the Hindu Rajput rulers of the north-west, the Muslim rulers of independent sultanates to the south and, from , the Mughal rulers of an empire that dominates India for the next years. One form of Tantric practice that becomes popular is Hatha yoga yoga of force , which harnesses the body as a sacred instrument.
British rule develops across India following the decisive Battle of Plassey in Until , the British capital is at Calcutta in Bengal now Kolkata , a centre of devotion to the Tantric goddess Kali.
Misinterpretations of Tantra reinforce British stereotypes of India as corrupted by black magic and sexual depravity, while Bengali revolutionaries play on these anxieties and reimagine Kali and other Tantric goddesses as figureheads of anti-colonial resistance. In the s and 70s, global countercultural movements draw on Tantric ideas and imagery.
South Asian artists associated with the Neo-Tantra movement adopt Tantric symbols and adapt them to speak to the visual language of global modernism.
In Europe and the USA, interpretations of Tantra influence the period's radical politics — inspiring anti-capitalist, ecological and free love ideals. Courtesy of Hauser and Wirth. As a worldview, philosophy and set of practices, Tantra is as alive as ever, and there are many Tantric sites that are actively worshipped. In the contemporary art world, female artists have harnessed Tantric goddesses through the bodies of real women, evoking them through a feminist lens.
You may also be interested in. In depicting the highly symbolic and non-naturalistic visions of Tibetan Buddhist art, the artist was in an ideal sense a yogi, who could thus convey the type of spiritual, extra-sensory vision required for this art.
The concepts and practices of tantrism in the Buddhist universities of eastern India have been dated at least to the eighth century, from which time translations have survived, yet the theory and some of the texts may be several centuries older. In its origin and later development in India, it is connected with Shaivism, rites performed by yogins, followers of the Hindu god Shiva. The influence of those ideas and practices reached the great Buddhist monastic universities that flourished in eastern India, and which were at their prime between the seventh and eleventh centuries.
Some of the tantric masters who became known as mahasiddhas -- great adepts, master yogins -- were not necessarily attached to the monastic universities and the rules of the monastic orders, but were freely wandering yogins. Arcane as Tantrism may seem, neither Tibetan Buddhism nor Tibetan art can be understood without this fundamental concept. Although its divergence from "original" Buddhism may appear extreme, and despite its mysticism and aura of magic, followers and scholars of Vajrayana Tantrism hold it to be authentically Buddhist in its essence, affirming the interdependence of all things and thus the illusive nature of duality, and the truth of the interaction of cause and effect.
Mahayanists hold that in each of us may be found the desired "Buddha-nature," which we can learn to uncover. Vajrayana goes farther, claiming that by cutting through misconceptions and delusions, one can perceive the deepest reality, the fundamental unity of phenomena. Because of the latter idea, Vajrayana can appear to hold good and evil to be equivalent, but that is a misinterpretation.
Moreover, some tantric texts refer to practices involving foods, physical functions, sexual acts, and even immoral acts that contravene essential Buddhist teachings. Questions about the historicity of such practices, and whether they are meant to be viewed symbolically rather than understood literally, are complex and disputed. Because of the risk of misinterpretation of Vajrayana texts and concepts, even when they are understood symbolically, and because of the risk of other misdirections, Vajrayana emphasizes the necessity of having a spiritual guide, a teacher or "guru," to lead one through the complexities of meaning and practice.
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