The rites celebrated in honour of these deities are often of a questionable character and include dances by naked women and offerings of spirituous liquors and blood. Similar features are found in other countries. Prostitution formed part of the worship of Astarte and Anahit: the Tauric Artemis was adored with human sacrifices and Cybele with self-inflicted mutilations. Similarly offerings of blood drawn from the sacrificer's own body are enjoined in the Kâlikâ Purâṇa. Two stages can be distinguished in the relations between these cults and Hinduism. In the later stage which can be witnessed even at the present day an aboriginal goddess or demon is identified with one of the aspects (generally a "black" or fierce aspect) of Śiva's spouse.[686] But such identification is facilitated by the fact that goddesses like Kâlî, Bhairavî, Chinnamasṭakâ are not products of purely Hindu imagination but represent earlier stages of amalgamation in which Hindu and aboriginal ideas are already compounded. When the smallpox goddess is identified with Kâlî, the procedure is correct, for some popular forms of Kâlî are little more than an aboriginal deity of pestilence draped with Hindu imagery and philosophy.
Some Hindu scholars demur to this derivation of Śâktism from lower cults. They point to its refined and philosophic aspects; they see in it the worship of a goddess, who can be as merciful as the Madonna, but yet, since she is the goddess of nature, combines in one shape life and death. May not the grosser forms of Śâktism be perversions and corruptions of an ancient and higher faith? In support of this it may be urged that the Buddhist goddess Târâ is as a rule a beautiful and benevolent figure, though she can be terrible as the enemy of evil and has clear affinities to Durgâ. Yet the history of Indian thought does not support this view, but rather the view that Hinduism incorporated certain ancient ideas, true and striking as ancient ideas often are, but without purging them sufficiently to make them acceptable to the majority of educated Indians.
The Yajur Veda[687] associates Rudra with a female deity called Ambikâ or mother, who is however his sister, not his spouse. The earliest forms of the latter seem to connect her with mountains. She is Umâ Haimavatî, the daughter of the Himalayas, and Pârvatî, she of the mountains, and was perhaps originally a sacred peak. In an interesting but brief passage of the Kena Upanishad (III. 12 and IV. 1) Umâ Haimavatî explains to the gods that a being whom they do not know is Brahman. In later times we hear of a similar goddess in the Vindhyas, Mahârânî Vindhyeśvarî, who was connected with human sacrifices and Thugs.[688] Śiva's consort, like her Lord, has many forms classified as white or benignant and black or terrible. Umâ belongs to the former class but the latter (such as Kâlî, Durgâ, Câmundâ, Candâ and Karalâ) are more important.[689] Female deities bearing names like these are worshipped in most parts of India, literally from the Himalaya to Cape Comorin, for the latter name is derived from Kumârî, the Virgin goddess.[690] But the names Śâkta and Śâktism are usually restricted to those sects in Bengal and Assam who worship the Consort of Śiva with the rites prescribed in the Tantras.
Śâktism regards the goddess as the active manifestation of the godhead. As such she is styled Śakti, or energy (whence the name Śâkta), and is also identified with Mâyâ, the power which is associated with Brahman and brings the phenomenal world into being. Similar ideas appear in a philosophic form in the Sâṅkhya teaching. Here the soul is masculine and passive: its task is to extricate and isolate itself. But Prakṛiti or Nature is feminine and active: to her is due the evolution of the universe: she involves the soul in actions which cause pain but she also helps the work of liberation.[691] In its fully developed form the doctrine of the Tantras teaches that Śakti is not an emanation or aspect of the deity. There is no distinction between Brahman and Śakti. She is Parabrahman and parâtparâ, Supreme of the Supreme.
The birthplace of Śâktism as a definite sect seems to have been north-eastern India[692] and though it is said to be extending in the United Provinces, its present sphere of influence is still chiefly Bengal and Assam.[693] The population of these countries is not Aryan (though the Bengali language bears witness to the strong Aryan influence which has prevailed there) and is largely composed of immigrants from the north belonging to the Tibeto-Burman, Mon-Khmer and Shan families. These tribes remain distinct in Assam but the Bengali represents the fusion of such invaders with a Munda or Dravidian race, leavened by a little Aryan blood in the higher castes. In all this region we hear of no ancient Brahmanic settlements, no ancient centres of Vedic or even Puranic learning[694] and when Buddhism decayed no body of Brahmanic tradition such as existed in other parts of India imposed its authority on the writers of the Tantras. Even at the present day the worship of female spirits, only half acknowledged by the Brahmans, prevails among these people, and in the past the national deities of many tribes were goddesses who were propitiated with human sacrifices. Thus the Chutiyas of Sadiya used to adore a goddess, called Kesai Khati—the eater of raw flesh. The rites of these deities were originally performed by tribal priests, but as Hindu influence spread, the Brahmans gradually took charge of them without modifying their character in essentials. Popular Bengali poetry represents these goddesses as desiring worship and feeling that they are slighted: they persecute those who ignore them, but shower blessings on their worshippers, even on the obdurate who are at last compelled to do them homage. The language of mythology could not describe more clearly the endeavours of a plebeian cult to obtain recognition.[695]
The Mahâbhârata contains hymns to Durgâ in which she is said to love offerings of flesh and wine,[696] but it is not likely that Śâktism or Tantrism—that is a system with special scriptures and doctrines—was prevalent before the seventh century A.D. for the Tantras are not mentioned by the Chinese pilgrims and the lexicon Amara Kosha (perhaps c. 500 A.D.) does not recognize the word as a designation of religious books. Bâṇa (c. 630) gives more than once in his romances lists of sectaries but though he mentions Bhâgavatas and Pâśupatas, he does not speak of Śaktas.[697] On the other hand Tantrism infected Buddhism soon after this period. The earlier Tibetan translations of the Tantras are attributed to the ninth century. MSS. of the Kubjikâmata and other Tantras are said to date from the ninth and even from the seventh century and tradition represents Sankarâcârya as having contests with Śâktas.[698] But many Tantras were written in the fifteenth century and even later, for the Yogini Tantra alludes to the Koch king Bishwa Singh (1515-1540) and the Meru Tantra mentions London and the English.
From the twelfth to the sixteenth century, when Buddhism, itself deeply infected with Tantrism, was disappearing, Śâktism was probably the most powerful religion in Bengal, but Vishnuism was gaining strength and after the time of Caitanya proved a formidable rival to it. At the beginning of the fifteenth century we hear that the king of the Ahoms summoned Brahmans to his Court and adopted many Hindu rites and beliefs, and from this time onward Śâktism was patronized by most of the Assamese Rajas although after 1550 Vishnuism became the religion of the mass of the people. Śâktism never inspired any popular or missionary movement, but it was powerful among the aristocracy and instigated persecutions against the Vishnuites.
The more respectable Tantras[699] show considerable resemblance to the later Upanishads such as the Nṛisinhatâpanîya and Râmatâ-panîya, which mention Śakti in the sense of creative energy.[700] Both classes of works treat of magical formulæ(mantras) and the construction of mystic diagrams or yantras. This resemblance does not give us much assistance in chronology, for the dates of the later Upanishads are very uncertain, but it shows how the Tantras are connected with other branches of Hindu thought.
The distinction between Tantras and Purâṇas is not always well-marked. The Bhâgavata Purâṇa countenances tantric rites[701] and the Agni Purâṇa (from chapter XXI onwards) bears a strong resemblance to a Tantra. As a rule the Tantras contain less historical and legendary matter than the Purâṇas and more directions as to ritual. But whereas the Purâṇas approve of both Vedic rites and others, the Tantras insist that ceremonies other than those which they prescribe are now useless. They maintain that each age of the world has its own special revelation and that in this age the Tantra-śâstra is the only scripture. Thus in the Mahânirvâṇa Tantra Śiva says:[702] "The fool who would follow other doctrines heedless of mine is as great a sinner as a parricide or the murderer of a Brahman or of a woman.... The Vedic rites and mantras which were efficacious in the first age have ceased to have power in this. They are now as powerless as snakes whose fangs have been drawn and are like dead things." The Kulârṇava Tantra (I. 79 ff.) inveighs against those who think they will obtain salvation by Vedic sacrifices or asceticism or reading sacred books, whereas it can be won only by tantric rites.
Various lists of Tantras are given and it is generally admitted that many have been lost. The most complete, but somewhat theoretical enumeration[703] divides India and the adjoining lands into three regions to each of which sixty-four Tantras are assigned. The best known names are perhaps Mahânirvâṇa,[704] Sâradâtilaka,[705] Yoginî, Kulârṇava[706] and Rudra-Yâmala. A Tantra is generally cast in the form of a dialogue in which Śiva instructs his consort but sometimes vice versâ. It is said that the former class are correctly described as Âgamas and the works where the Śakti addresses Śiva as Nigamas.[707] Some are also called Yâmalas and Dâmaras but I have found no definition of the meaning of these words. The Prapañcasâra Tantra[708] professes to be a revelation from Nârâyaṇa.