The Sufis - by Idries Shah

Book Review: The Sufis by Idries Shah

This has got to be the quintessential book about the Sufis, their lore, and their history. It is quite comprehensive and represents an admirable survey of a vast topic. The Sufis are hard to confine into an easy classification. They are often considered an Islamic sect but as Shah points out they are not exclusively associated with Islam. It is just that they so happened to reach their greatest flowering among Islamic societies. There are Christian Sufis and secular Sufis and Sufis influenced by various paganisms, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and even shamanism. The Sufis inherited much of the Neo-platonic tradition and alchemical lore of Alexandria which was quite well developed.

This book is a gem of lore, of keys to cryptic Sufi customs, of teachings, and of the little know influence of the Sufis on various Western traditions – particularly those that came through the Spanish Arabs known as the Saracens. The Sufi traditions and literature are extensive, appearing in many places and times from the Islamic period onwards and  having sources previous to the Islamic period. Though Shah suggests Sufism as a kind of Universal Esotericism there are quite potent cultural and religious influences as well in various places and times. In most cases it accords with an inner version of Islam but often there was discord between this inner form and the outer exoteric forms of Islamic theology. Some Sufis were beloved of Islamic rulers and scholars, others were persecuted and martyred. According to Shah in the early days of Sufism it was important to speak allegiance to Islamic theology in order to be left alone. The Wisdom traditions of the Egyptian, Persian, and Byzantine empires were able to reconfigure at least somewhat in Sufic forms. Sufism certainly re-gathered the alchemical and Neoplatonic traditions that would later fuel the Renaissance.

Shah warns against classifying Sufism in specific ways, suggesting that it is an esoteric form that appears to fill a need, arising, flourishing, and disappearing as needed. Throughout the book he examines and expounds various Sufi word plays based on multiple and alternative word meanings in Arabic, but occasionally extending to other languages as well such as Persian and Spanish. Indeed the word ‘sufi’ seems to have a resemblance to the Greek word for wisdom ‘sophia.’ Even so, Sufism is more mystical than philosophical so preaching and debating about concepts and precepts are typically not a feature. Sufism is esoteric and mystical and so symbolic and suggestive rather than a literal tradition as the main forms of both Islam and Christianity have become. He suggests Sufism as a perennial tradition where comparisons were made among mystics of different types and sects. Shah notes the Sufi psychological views of Ghazali and Ibn El-Arabi as being legitimate precursors of the ideas of Freud and Jung. It cannot be denied that the Sufi schools and wisdom societies were the models for freemasonry and other traditions of the Middle Ages.

Shah gives detailed chapters on the most famous Sufi teachers and societies. The first is on the Mulla Nasrudin. I read these stories when I was in college from beautifully illustrated books and enjoyed them. Nasrudin was wise, witty, courageous, practical, and utterly hilarious at times. These are clever tales, often referred to as “subtleties.” They date from the 13^th century or earlier and have certainly influenced later tales such as those of Don Quixote, whose Arabic origins are established, and some of those stories are the same stories as Nasrudin tales. Nasrudin doesn’t have a history, only stories. Thus he is sometimes considered a figure concocted by the dervishes. Here is a quick tale that Shah relates:

“Nasrudin used to take his donkey across the frontier every day, with the panniers loaded with straw. Since he admitted to being a smuggler when he trudged home every night, the frontier guards searched him again and again. They searched his person, sifted the straw, steeped it in water, even burned it from time to time. Meanwhile he was becoming visibly more and more prosperous.

  “Then he retired and went to live in another country. Here one of the customs officers met him, years later.

   “You can tell me now, Nasrudin,” he said. “Whatever was it that you were smuggling, when we could never catch you out?”

   “Donkeys,” said Nasrudin.

These stories are reputed to have many meanings. The Nasrudin tales do show a similarity to Zen koans and Shah would have us believe that Sufis influenced Zen, which is possible but not at all established.

“It is believed that the mystical effect of seven Nasrudin tales, studied in succession, is enough to prepare an individual for enlightenment.”

Shah goes through many of these tales and provides Sufi interpretations.

“When a Nasrudin tale is read and digested, something is happening. It is this consciousness of happening and continuity which is central to Sufism.”

Nasrudin is certainly a version of the fool, the jokester, the trickster and one of the best and most effective versions. I can only recommend the enjoyment of reading and studying these tales.

Sheikh Saadi of Shiraz (1184-1291) is the next Sufi portrayed. His writings include The Gulistan (Rose Garden) and the Bustan (Orchard) and the – Scroll of Wisdom. According to Shah he had a strong influence on European literature, his works first being translated in the West in the 17^th century. His works are said to be allegorical (as are many Sufi works) and to have especially influenced European allegory. Saadi notes in the Gulistan that:

“A conference of the wise is like the bazaar of the clothsellers. In the latter place you cannot take away anything unless you pay money. In the former, you can only carry away that for which you have the capacity.”

Saadi was one of Persia’s most famous poets and his tales are in moral allegories. The Gulistan is said to be the most widely read text of Persian literature and is thought to be especially suitable for youths as a preparation for later entering the Sufi path.

Next we have Fariduddin Attar, the Chemist. He wrote the famed Parliament of the Birds which Shah calls a forerunner of Pilgrim’s Progress. He also notes parallels of the Order of the Garter to Attar’s Sufism. Attar studied the biographies of previous Sufi teachers. He wrote about them in a work known as the Recital of the Saints. He is said to have been killed as an old man by invading Mongols (with a story there as well). The traversing of the seven valleys in The Parliament of the Birds is considered to be allegorical of Sufic development. These are the valleys of quest, love, intuitive knowledge, detachment, unification, astonishment, and death. Shah gives some interesting commentary on these stages. Attar was an organizer of Sufi knowledge and schools. Rumi is said to have visited him when Attar was an old man. Shah goes through the secret symbolism of Attar’s name through the Abjad system where numbers are attributed to letters in Arabic similar to the gematria of Qabalah. He deciphers hidden word allegories in Attar’s works as well. The aim of the Sufi is to manifest the “Complete Man’ or “Perfected Being” as an enlightened state. This is akin to and directly related to the “Great Work” of alchemy and the Western Esoteric traditions.

The next master is the famed Jalaluddin Rumi, maker of thousands of profound poems. He lived in Asia Minor and his works were written in Persian. Rumi died in 1273. Rumi as well as Attar’s Parliament of the Birds directly influenced Chaucer and his Canterbury Tales. Although Rumi is counted among the greatest of poets from those who have read his works translated into English and other languages, Shah says they are even greater in the original Persian, fostering exalted states. He lists the most famous works of Rumi such as – The Spiritual Couplets. Rumi was a major influence on the Dervish schools. Rumi was not fond of dogma and promoted religious tolerance. Rumi’s poetry is full of aphorisms and practicality concerning the psychological and spiritual quest. Rumi was associated with the Mevlevi Order of dervishes. Rumi stressed that his poetry was a gift to others, particularly for their understanding: “What, after all, is my concern with poetry?” He saw his poetical work as being a good host to his guests. Here is a quote from Rumi about his search for Truth (or God) through examining different beliefs:

“Cross and Christians, end to end, I examined. He was not on the Cross. I went to the Hindu temple, to the ancient pagoda. In neither was there any sign. To the heights of Herat I went, and Kandahar. I looked. He was not on height or lowland. Resolutely, I went to the top of the Mountain of Kaf. There only was the place of the ‘Anqa bird. I went to the Kaaba. He was not there. I asked of his state from Ibn Sina: he was beyond the limits of the philosopher Avicenna… I looked into my own heart. In that place I saw him. He was in no other place…”

Ibn El-Arabi, the ‘greatest master’ was the most famous Spanish Sufi. He was from a Sufi family and his education was from the rich academic tradition of 12^th century Moorish Spain. Shah notes that:

“According to Sufi tradition, Ibn El-Arabi’s mission was to “scatter” Sufi lore throughout the contemporary scene, connecting it with the existing traditions of the people.”

El-Arabi, like Rumi, was a master of mystical love poetry: “The sight of God in woman is the most perfect of all.”

El-Arabi was known for cultivation of the dream state:

“A person must control his thoughts in a dream. The training of this alertness will produce awareness of the intermediate dimension. It will produce great benefits for the individual.”

El-Arabi stressed Mohammed as the ‘perfected man.’ He spoke of not Mohammed the prophet but of Mohammed as the universal prophet, which includes all prophets – as a divine archetype. Jesus as the Logos and Mohammed as the Reality of Mohammed have a similar source, says Shah. Certainly the Jesus as Logos idea is Gnostic in origin. El-Arabi’s poetry has been described as sublime, full of fantastic imagery, and multiple meanings. His work has also been described as theosophical and full of metaphysical paradoxes. He was well loved and had a following but was also controversial and sometimes branded a heretic. He says of the universal esoteric form - of love, thus:

“My heart is capable of every form:

A cloister for the monk, a fane for idols,
A pasture for gazelles, the votary’s Ka’ba (temple),
The tables of the Torah, the Quran.
Love is the creed I hold: wherever turn
His camels, Love is still my creed and faith.”


El-Ghazali of Persia was known as – the Spinner, as most Sufis adopted a work title, acknowledging the value of trades. He was an orphan brought up by Sufis. He was also known as Algazel. He is said to have influenced St. Thomas of Aquinas and St. Francis of Assisi. He is said to have further merged Sufism with Islam. He spent the requisite 12 years wandering and meditating that was the habit of the dervishes (and incidentally also of the tantric mahasiddhas). He was concerned with the alchemical transmutation of the human mind and not with intellectualism and scholasticism. He is said to have stressed experience rather than learning. Geber (Jabir the Sufi) was said to be the first Sufi. It was Geber that is connected to the preservation and transmission of the lore of alchemy. El-Ghazali’s books were burned in Moslem Spain but later he was acknowledged as a great teacher.

The works of Omar Khayyam, particularly his Rubaiyat is famous throughout the world – and in English translation by Fitzgerald. Shah notes that Khayyam was not well-known among non-Sufis even in Persian until after his works were translated and made popular in Western languages. He became very popular in England. Shah indicates his value as a Sufi teacher though he was not as well known in Islamic lands as the others.

Next he goes through the secret language of the Sufis based on the Abjab method of Arabic gematria. It seems one would have to know the language and be initiated into the codes, perhaps knowing Persian as well. He mentions a secret society called the “Coalmen” which in Italy was called the Carbonari, or ‘charcoal burners.’ Since the last of the Moors were expelled from Spain in 1601 many likely went underground to different places in Europe. Another secret society was called ‘the Builders.’ According to Sir Richard Burton, a prominent English Sufi, these were the Oriental parents of freemasonry. The level, the square, and the letter G – of masonry – can all be logically traced to Arabic origins. The so-called “Scottish Rite” may have a different meaning since Shah notes that ‘Scotland’ was a code for ‘Spain.’ The Masonic G, he says, is the Arabic Q. He goes through a lot of this lore. He notes that the color black was associated with wisdom due to Arabic word associations and this can explain a lot of manifestations of  black icons like the black virgins of the Middle Ages, the black stone of Mecca, the black head of Baphomet, etc. The Islamic alchemy from Hermes Trismegistus in cosmopolitan Alexandria through the Islamic alchemy of Geber to the Taost alchemy of China and the Christianized alchemy of the Rosicrucians and Renaissance magicians all likely intermingled through these Medieval secret societies of Sufi type. The symbolisms of Sufism and alchemy had much overlap. One of El-Arabi’s famous texts was called – the Alchemy of Happiness. Sulphur and Mercury and the Philosopher’s Stone were key components of Sufi alchemy. Geber (Jabir) the alchemist was said to be a close companion of the Barmecides – the barmakis – said to have been descended ‘from the priests of Afghan Buddhist shrines.” Sufi lore states that alchemy was transmitted through Dhu’l-Nun the Egyptian, the Lord of the Fish, a famous Sufi teacher. So in terms of the alchemical tradition the hybrid of Hermes-Thoth (and Mercury) is considered an early master of the Sufis. So Hermetic magic and Sufism share similar origins. Shah does acknowledge the earlier origins of alchemy in the Vedic elixir traditions and also rightly notes that the alchemy of the Taoists is an offshoot of the same traditions. Dante is even given in Sufic alchemical lineages as his work is well known to have Sufi influence. The same can be said of Bacon and Raymond Lully who pioneered Renaissance alchemy. The mage Agrippa is also known of the Sufis.

An interesting part of the book is the association of Moorish/Saracen traditions with European witch lore. Frenzied dancing of people under the influence of hallucinogenic plants could be traced to Saracens. The waltz (thought to have come to Europe through the Balkans) and the dibka, or Middle Eastern ring dance are thought to have come from them as well. Shah suggests that the so-called witch’s Sabbat comes not from the Hebrew word Sabbath but from the similar Arabic word – Az-ZABAT. The word ‘Athame’ he says, may have come from the Arabic Adh-dhame. The word ‘coven’ may well derive from the Hispano-Semitic kafan – referring to a shroud over the heads of “Revelers’.

Shah mentions the Aniza Bedouin clan as the bringers of Witchcraft and the Middle Eastern round dance to the West. He notes that these were likely pre-Islamic Bedouin traditions of desert areas. He associates them to the Cult of the Revelers – known to have been in the Syrian desert areas since at least the 700’s AD. The disciples of a great Aniza teacher were known as the ‘Wise Ones.’ The word ‘Aniza’ refers to the goat as a tribal symbol:

“A torch between goat horns (“the devil” in Spain, as it later became) symbolized for them the light of illumination from the intellect (head) of the “goat,” the Aniza teacher.

He equates the Bedouin tattoos with so-called witch’s marks and the use of the symbol of the goosefoot to represent a secret meeting place. Other strange relations of Sufi and European lore are the practice of the code of Chivalry which is well known to have come from the Saracens. The troubadours of the Middle Ages brought Arabian musical forms and love poetry. The Order of the Garter (of St. George) or the Sufic St Khidr is a cult that originated in Syria and became manifested among English royalty. Morris dancing is thought to have come to England and Holland from the Saracens of Spain – thus Moorish dancing. Before that they may have come from Arab Sufis. The figure of the jester, the fool, the harlequin is also thought to have been Moorish. The mystical head of wisdom associated with the Baphomet of the Templars is also thought to have referred to a Sufi custom of ‘making a head’ referring to pursuit of spiritual development. Albertus Magnus was said to have spent years constructing a marvelous brass head. Shah notes that the Spanish Arabic word bufihamat meant ‘father of understanding’ and as well Baphomet may have been connected to Mahomet (Mohammad) as the ‘perfected man.’ Albertus Magnus was thought to be well-versed in Sufic and Saracen lore. He suggests that the cross-quarter witch holidays: May1, Aug 1, Nov 1, Feb 2 came as well from the Aniza and other Arabs. He also attributes the widdershins (counter-clockwise) circumambulation of the witches as being sourced among Arabs who circle the Kaaba in this fashion.

Shah traces the influence of Sufi teachers and Saracen troubadours on St. Francis of Assisi and his subsequent Franciscan order of Christian contemplatives. Shah suggests other general communications of Sufic and Christian mystics – those interested in illumination beyond mere dogma. Even Shakespeare could be seen as Sheik peer in Persian.

Shah devotes a chapter to the Western Sufi – Sir Richard Burton – who also used an Arabic pseudonym. He translated works but is thought to have written some as well including the Kasidah – The Tinkling of the Camel Bell. He says Burton commented on Western methods of thought and philosophy from a Sufic point of view. The Kasidah is great contemplative poetry. Shah provides plenty of excerpts and I plan to read it soon as well.

“You are all right, you are all wrong,” we hear the careless Sufi say,
For each believes his glimm’ring lamp to be the gorgeous light of day”

Sheikh Shahabudin Suhrawardi (1145-1235) was a great teacher and organizer of Sufi Dervish methods and originator of the Suhrawardi Order. Colonel Wilburforce Clarke translated one of his works – The Gifts. Clarke gives one Sufi saying meaning that Sufis tended to shun asceticism and monasticism but to practice within every day life:

“Neither fear we hell, nor desire we heaven.”

Sufis are respected and associated with the ‘sincerity’ of the wise – by the common people and so the teacher is said to encourage the development of this sincerity among the students. He lists three stages of Dervish dwellers: People of Service who serve other dwellers, People of Society who work and bond through assemblies, and People of Retirement – those of age who spend more time in solitude. Dervishes traditionally spend time traveling: travelling within, traveling in one’s own land, and traveling to other lands.

Shah goes through many dervish customs and mystical philosophy. He mentions the Science of State (hal) where various ecstatic states are catalogued and practiced. The Baraka, or mystical grace-force-essence is key to the dervishes. There is also the Baraka of the Order or School itself – mostly carried by the teachers.  The ten veils, or ‘blameable qualities’ are given as: desire, separation (rationalization), hypocrisy, desire for praise and love, illusions, avarice and parsimony, greed, irresponsibility, haste to fatigue, and negligence. One may be encumbered by mystical states (hal), stuck in the rapture, being a mere inebriation mystic:

“A Complete Sufi may be called a Master of Time, meaning master of starting and stopping, of modifying cognition”

Outward detachment and interior solitude are goals of dervish practice. Suhrawardi was eventually executed for political reasons but managed to mold a vast tradition. Other Schools are the Chishti (musicians), the Naqshbandi (silent), the Kubravi, the Rifa’I (howling), and the Mevlevi (dancing). The styles refer to methods of development. Sufi organizations are said to be deliberately temporary and meetings without great regulation. Each school had markers like types of patchworked garb. Some meeting places had checkerboard floors – perhaps a precursor to the OTO Gnostic Mass temple format. Although Sufism is not associated with asceticism there seem to be many exercises of a mystical sort – similar to yoga and visualization yoga. Each school specialized in various techniques and one could be sent from one school to another according to one’s abilities.

Shah includes a chapter of a more modern inquiry of a Western seeker to a Sufi master that is quite interesting. The master points out the preconceived notions always apparent in intellectual approaches to knowledge and suggesst openness and detachment as a better starting point. This seems akin to the Zen ‘Beginner’s Mind.’

He devotes a chapter to the ‘creed of love’ brought to Europe by the troubadours, the wandering musicians. The Sufi poet Hafiz is a famed example of a love poet. To be a poet is to be a lover – it has been said. The troubadour influence was from Arabia to Saracen Spain to southern France and into Europe. It is thought that the Church adapted by further idealization of and devotion to the Virgin Mary. It should be noted that Sufi schools were very early in Spain – from the 8^th century – since Arabs ruled there since that time – so this influence on Europe was long and probably came in phases. There were Jews as well in Spain and interactions among the intellectuals of all were likely.

There is a section on – Miracles and Magic. Miracles are seen in the context of how they affect the development of the student. One of their functions is to inspire in story. Magic is subordinant to the Great Work of spiritual development:

“Magic is worked through the heightening of emotion… Magic is a training system as much as it is anything else…. Magic not only assumes that it is possible to cause certain effects by means of certain techniques; it also schools the individual in those techniques.”

Shah mentions his view of the development of Cabala and Markabah Jewish mysticism as strongly influenced by Sufi ideas. The Jewish Yudghanites of the 8^th? century were aligned with Sufism. Hebrew grammar was first written in Arabic under Arab philological rules. So there is very strong evidence that Hebrew grammar and Cabalistic attributes are founded on earlier Arabic models. Shah says that the 10 sephira were originally 8 in the Arabic system. This period beginning in the 900’s? AD is called the Judeo-Arabian period. The Arabized Jews of Spain were plentiful.

Other topics include more famous teachers, hidden Sufis, esoteric interpretation of the Koran, and Malak Taus and the Yezideh cult of the Peacock Angel. Shah gives specific Sufi symbolism to the Peacock Angel cult rather than the pre-Islamic Babylonian paganism sometimes attributed to it. He thinks that the Catholic rosary was adopted from the Saracens.

Tariqa is the Arabic word for path, way, or dervish order. It has many other meanings but it mostly refers to the Sufi habit or ‘rule of living.’

Shah mentions the Tarot as having an Arabic or Sufi origin – and subsequently playing cards as well. He says some current attributes are incorrect to the original system. Certainly the Sufis carried the Tarot lore and if this lore did not originate earlier in Egypt as is legend, they certainly preserved it and re-introduced it to the Western Esoteric tradition. He suggests the word Tarot coming from the Arabic turuk, meaning ‘four ways’ although the original Latin (and Hebrew) wordplay (Taro, Rota, Orat, Tora) differ somewhat – but Tarot is said to mean “royal path” or ‘royal way’ so not so different from the turuq meaning nor the Tariqa as well.

An Egyptian Sufi from the 800’s is thought to been in the succession of the Sufi Solomon and the Solomon Temple of the Masons may not have referred to the Hebrew Solomon and Temple but to this more recent Sufi Solomon and the 8^th century octagonal Sufi – Dome of the Rock temple. This Egyptian Sufi mentioned founded the Malamati Sufi Order which like ‘the Builders’ has apparently been pointed out as quite similar to the Freemasonry.

Overall this is a fantastic book. Shah sometimes seems too Sufi-centric, giving the Sufis credit for the origins of nearly everything it seems. The level that he suggests that they influenced the Hindus and even the Zen Buddhists does not seem likely though certainly these currents cross-pollinated one another here and there. I would say that Sufi influence on European culture was considerable and has not been properly acknowledged and is not at all widely known. Shah wrote several books but I am guessing this is his Magnum Opus – for he was certainly a formidable Sufi as well.

Adam's Tongue: How Humans Made Language, How Language Made Humans

Book Review: Adam’s Tongue: How Humans Made Language, How Language Made Humans by Derek Bickerton   (Hill and Wang 2009)

 This is a mind-blowing account of how we may well have discovered and developed both language and conceptual thought. By no means is this sometimes complex scenario certain but the logic is compelling and the story coherent even though some assumptions have to be made. Cutting edge ideas in evolution are all through this book. The author dukes it out with all the current ideas about language origins and points out many shortcomings. The book is fascinating and holds one’s interest well. The only problem I have with it is that he did not summarize enough after his initial arguments to package it up finer and into a more coherent whole. Bickerton is a linguistics professor but he is quite well-studied in evolutionary biology as well.

Bickerton notes that the question of language origins is very important in science for without language there would be no science. Language is perhaps what makes us human – or beyond mere animals. For all the great sensory and biological abilities of various animals it seems that language is of a magnitude greater. He notes that the evolution of language is a difficult problem to unravel. Did brain size and intelligence make language or vice versa. Or was some of the process co-evolutionary. These are some of the questions pondered. He compares the development of language in humans to the development of flight in insects. He thinks that language is the key to being human. Bickerton sees things more as a loop between genes and environment rather than as all genes a la Richard Dawkins. He also warns against regarding language as a target for natural selection. Many things have been proposed that caused language to be selected: “hunting, toolmaking, child care, social competitiveness, sexual display.” He debunks all these as triggers for language to have been selected but does note that they all have a role in the further development of language after a rudimentary functional language was in place.

He begins with a discussion of Animal Communication Systems (ACS). He points out that these are not at all similar to language and certainly not a close precursor to language – or rather, that there is no hierarchy from ACS to language. He goes through Marc Houser’s criteria for ACS – three broad categories that can overlap: 1) signals that relate to survival, 2) signals that relate to mating and reproduction, 3) social signals. These are how animals communicate in order to increase survival and reproductive success. So survival, mating, and social signals make up the full amount of ACS. The author points out that ACS are concerned with the present, that they are grounded in the here and now, and before language there is no real notion of past and future. Later he notes that animals have an ‘episodic memory’ which is a vague connection to the past, but do not really have memory or a real conception of past and future. Words and language, on the other hand, express qualities that go beyond the present. ACS are concerned strictly with survival fitness. Humans alone, he says, developed a need for language.

Bickerton analyzes and debunks language origin theories having to do with tools, hunting, sex, and grooming and gossip. He notes four tests that any theory of language must pass: 1) Uniqueness – why humans uniquely acquired language and no other species did; 2) Ecology – environment of humans that developed language needs to be taken into account; Credibility – the theory must be credible – he doses not really explain this condition well; 4) Selfishness – there should have been some selfish benefit.

Bickerton systematically rejects the idea that humans developed language as a function of increasing brain size. His conclusion is more that language allowed us to develop bigger brains rather than bigger brains being an impetus fro the development of language.

He goes through the development of language in terms of linguistics theory – from phonology – meaningless sounds, to morphology – sounds with meaning, to syntax – meaningful utterances that we understand as language.

One area of Bickerton’s expertise is with pidgin language development and here he sees a parallel to the development of early language where whatever worked to affect the transfer of ideas was used – words, sounds, gestures, body language, emphasis, etc. He does note his detractors who don’t think pidgin is a good model for language development. He sees pidgin as something intermediate between ACS and language as we know it, a protolanguage. The factor that language shares with protolanguage beyond ACS, he says, is ‘combinability.’

“Languages combine lawfully and protolanguages combine lawlessly. In other words, languages have all kind of constraints on what you may put together with what; protolanguages don’t.”

So language has syntax but protolanguage need not have it. ACS, he says, have no combinability and cannot have it. No precursor to syntax has ever been found in an ACS.

Predication, he says, is the precursor to syntax, and this requires combinablity (of sounds) in some meaningful way. Much of the search for the link between ACS and language has been involved with alarm calls among primates. They have different ones for different threats such as eagle, snake, or leopard, though these only refer indexically to the animals themselves or to threats from above, near, or below. He notes that some have tried to suggest combinability – of such things as calls for food and danger – but when analyzed they are two separate calls and not blended or combined into one.

ACS signs are indexical rather than symbolic – indexical signs point directly at what they refer to. Symbolic signs are not confined to the here and now and so are in the domain of language. He notes that both ACS and language are both informative and manipulative. ACS is primarily manipulative and only secondarily informative, while language is primarily informative and only secondarily manipulative. Information is only a byproduct of ACS. Manipulative signals are confined to the here and now while informative signals are not. He contends that symbolism rather than syntax is the uniquely human ability that allowed language to develop. In terms of development beyond ACS it was ‘displacement’ (in space and time beyond the here and now) that had to develop. Of the three types of ACS signals, it is only survival (and not mating or social signals) he explains that could have made the leap to displacement. ACS survival signals can be divided into alarm calls and food calls. Distance of newly discovered food and time to reveal news of such food is a candidate situation for displacement to have developed. There is a third class of signal different from the indexical and symbolic. This is the iconic, which is something that resembles what it refers to such as mimicking the noise a certain animal makes. This is the route (from icon to symbol) he thinks the development of symbolic language took. He gives the selective pressure as “the need to transmit information about food sources outside the sensory range of message recipients” and the means of doing this through iconic signs.

He talks a lot of the “primate-centric bias” where genetics is seen as the most influential factor on language development and perpetuated by the determinism of Richard Dawkins and many others and the focus on other primates in the search for the development of language. So ape ACS has been a main focus in this search. He goes through some theories where language is presumed to be derived from primate ACS – the primate gestures idea of Pollick and de Waal and the theory of the singing apes (as a pair-bonding mechanism) of Mithen. He re-iterates that ACS and language are different things – that ACS did not necessarily directly evolve into language.

He goes through and debunks the ‘talking apes’ experiments to teach language to apes and shows that it is not symbolic language that they are learning but an a learned extension of their ACS. He sees these experiments as teaching the apes a rudimentary form of protolanguage – with some combinability. He suggests that their neurology was altered in the sense that, “Neurons that fire together, wire together.”

Homology is discussed – ie. genetic possibilities related to earlier animal forms that lie dormant in genes. Intra-species communication among other species, particularly social insects such as ants and bees indicates a latent genetic capability for deeper than ACS communication.

Next he goes through the very interesting theory of niche construction. In explaining this he gives the example of beavers. They designed their environments by making them but their environments have designed them as well – their tails, their teeth, their mouth configuration, their eyelids, their webbed feet, and their thick fur. As the author states it, it is a situation where:  “Chance + Necessity + Time = Perfect Fitness.”

“… it’s the interaction between genes and behavior that starts the evolutionary motor, and feedback between genes and behavior that keeps it going. That’s the insight that gave birth to niche construction theory.”

“… animals themselves modify the environments they live in, and that these modified environments, in turn, select for further genetic variations in the animal. So a feedback process begins, a two-way street in which the animal is developing the niche and the niche is developing the animal, until you get the lock-and-key fit between the animal and niche that makes people say, “But there must  have been a designer!”

In defining a niche Bickerton notes three components of a niche: 1) habitat – macro and/or micro, 2) nourishment, and 3) means of obtaining food or nourishment. Though one may not think of niches as being actively constructed, many are in nature. Farming is niche construction, including ants that farm fungi or aphids. Earthworms construct their niche. Termites construct climate controlled dwellings. The photosynthesis of plants constructs a niche that allows other species, those that breathe oxygen, to thrive. The bottom line is that it is not just the species that makes the niche but the niche that makes the species. Humans, he says, have the greatest capacity to adapt the environment to their own needs. So what he says is that the development of language among humans is a form of niche construction. Humans, it seems, constructed new niches at unprecedented scale and speed. He thinks that the search for a gene for language is ultimately futile as niche construction explains language development rather than genetics. He says that alarm calls did not morph into words but probably helped ready us for words.

His explanation begins with the niche carved out by australopithecines about 2.5 mya. Aside from possible endurance hunting and living in constant danger from predators due to their small size he thinks that these proto-humans ate by foraging and by scavenging. The scavenging hierarchy would have been led by larger fiercer predators with vultures at the lowest followed by the lowliest – the humanoids. He and others think they were last but they figured out how to crack bones and devour the nutrient-dense marrow. Bones of large herbivores would have been plentiful, long-lasting, and without competition. This nutrient-dense marrow may have resulted in increased brain growth. Even so there is only a small amount of marrow in bones. Dead megafauna would have been relatively abundant. These are large animals that could not be taken down by predators – things like mammoths and hippos. They have very thick skins that predators cannot rend until they decompose for a few days. The theory is that the humans – normally at the low end of the scavenging totem pole, found that they could go in before the predators and cut open the thick skin with sharp volcanic rocks or flint. There is evidence for this in the fossil record. Up until 2 mya the cut marks on fossil bones came after predator marks – suggesting humans utilizing the bones for marrow. After this time the cut marks seem to occur before the predator marks indicating that humans got there first. This indicates a new form of scavenging and the author places it in terms of ‘optimal foraging theory’ which states that, “… any species will choose, out of available foods, just those that yield the highest calorific intake relative to the energy that’s expended in obtaining them.” This change in foraging strategy would have required these early humans to range over larger distances than before – which is indicated in the fossil record. According to the theory the humans would have to find the recently dead megafauna, quickly gather sufficient numbers of humans with sharp stones to hurl at carnivores who would be hovering near and try to move in especially as they smelled the meat better as the skin was pierced.

Next he digresses to discuss evolutionary and development biology – known as “evo-devo” which suggests that homology is more widespread than thought. Homology means going back, sometimes way back, to common ancestors to see how features developed in some but not in others – though the genes they developed from are still there, latent. If a similar niche comes about in a totally different species much later on,  that species may draw on the same genetic material in a similar way. Here he is referring to the selective pressure of the need to transmit information about food sources beyond the sensory range of recipients of that information. Both ants and bees are able to do this. Bees do it through dance and reference to the sun’s position. Ants do it through shaking displays and chemicals. This transmission behavior can be seen as a form of recruiting. Some ants, like early humans, practice a fission-fusion feeding strategy, that is, they spread out and regroup and information is transmitted (chemically) about big sources of food. Ravens scavenge with a single carcass claimed by bonding pairs though a single raven may recruit others to drive off a pair. These are all homologies of recruiting behavior regarding food sources.

He suggests that a group ancestral to homo erectus broke of from homo habilis by going from catchment scavenging (bone marrow) to territorial scavenging (dead megafauna). This would require evolutionary changes over time – bigger size, ability to withstand thirst, better throwing ability, and bigger size. He goes through a scenario where these pre-lingual humans scattered in foraging bands – where one locates a dead megafauna and gathers others to hurry and butcher it while fending off predators with their numbers and hurling sharp stones. When a dead animal was located there arose the problem of recruitment, how to gather the other bands together quickly in order to get at the food. So iconic language – like the sounds of the dead animal were likely first uttered with a desire to utter notions like “come now!”  “this way!” One possible source of evidence is the large number of so-called hand axes found together – he suggests these were not hand axes but the stones hurled at predators. He suggests it was the women who did the butchering – being protected furthest from the predators, the stone-throwing men being more expendable. So this recruitment is a form of cooperation that yields benefit that can only be derived by gathering sufficient numbers. This situation, he notes, would require non-kin cooperation, which would have been a new thing.

He donates a section to the alternative ideas of language development put forward by Noam Chomsky. He disagrees with Chomsky on the ultimate origins of language but agrees with him on many other linguistics issues and is not at all part of what he says is an existing anti-Chomsky faction. Chomsky, an expert in linguistics, had not mentioned language origins until he co-authored a paper in 2002. Here a compromise was made where the ‘faculty of language’ was divided into a broad faculty (BFL) and a narrow faculty (NFL). Hauser, one of the co-authors, believes language to have developed due to natural selection. The notion of recursion – “the capacity to embed one linguistic structure within another of the same kind – one phrase, clause, or sentence inside another” was part of FLN – that which is unique to humans and specifically dedicated to language. FLB could have developed from other biological needs. I don’t quite understand all these features but the bottom line is that Chomsky etal were saying that animals first had concepts that would not merge with other concepts. When concept merging appeared the brain was re-wired. Merging then was further developed and complex thought, planning, and language developed. The author disagrees with this sequence. He thinks that though the early humans may have had some categorizing abilities, proto-concepts of a sort, that actual language appeared before conceptualization (which is often defined as language-based thought). Of course, after a few words were learned by necessity, concepts could be further developed and lead to more words in a feedback system. This likely did not happen quickly – at first, although once it began to really happen it may taken off. Categories, he suggests, can trigger episodic memories in animals neurologically as a threat or potential food source is located but if the threat or food is not potentially present in the mind, in the here and now, then the neurons won’t fire. Concepts require defining something when it is not present. If there is no threat or no potential satisfaction then there is no biological need for the idea. The neurons are related to the threat or the satisfaction rather than to the thing that provides it. When they become related to the thing then the process would be conceptual. He gives an analogy of RAM (random access memory) and CAM (content addressable memory) with computers. CAM is more complex and more energy expensive – more like real concepts versus survival categorization. So he is saying that words allowed concepts as we know them to form neurologically. He compares online thinking and offline thinking. Online thinking refers again to the here and now and offline thinking refers to ideation of things not present. After words were developed then thought and language could co-evolve. After rudimentary language developed then all the things thought to have started language like – “instructing the young, competing socially, displaying sexually, making artifacts, gossiping, performing rituals …” would be free to be enhanced and further developed. The vast time required for the extensive re-wiring of the brain would have taken hundreds of thousands of years and during that time the human brain did gradually double in size though no major changes in human tools came about (from 2mya) for about a million years.

The recruitment signals that went beyond ACS had functional reference, had displacement, were learned, and contained protonouns (names for species), and possibly protoverbs (“come” “hurry”). In order for language to develop these signs would have had to uncouple from situations, from the here and now, and from survival fitness. Words for past and future would have had to develop and cooperation beyond that required for fitness would have had to develop before these uncouplings could take place. That is why he suggests that language did not develop right away from these recruitment signals even though they were the first break from ACS toward language. He thinks displacement was the single most influential factor in developing symbolical thinking. He suggests that a recruitment signal for say “mammoth” may have been imitated by the young and gradually the signal sound gets divorced from the immediacy of the situations where it arises and eventually a representation forms in the brain. Perhaps there were ritual re-enactments of the scavenging missions at some point and this would reify the symbols in the brains. Once symbolic thinking developed the territorial scavenging foraging strategy could be improved by noting and communicating signs suggesting possible dying megafauna. Next he thinks came the development of syntax – maybe a hundred thousand years ago as he suggests – the development of barbed weapons suggested that syntax was appearing conceptually. The barbed weapon requires a sequence of events to be learned with regard to the weapon interfacing with the animal. In light of this he thinks protolanguage was like a pidgin language with emerging syntax. Then it became possible to link concepts into coherent trains of thought. He thinks that the earliest protolanguage contained very few words with no sound overlap and that vocabulary building came much later and that the development of vocabulary selected for greater phonological complexity. Gradually, as is now well known, we developed language faculties with which we are born. He says predication preceded true syntax perhaps in the manner of sequencing words as in pidgin. Words were probably originally linked as “beads on a string” and later developed hierarchical orders which became universal as true language developed. He calls language development an auto-catalytic process – one that drives itself – due to a need for greater effectiveness and to convey more in a short time period. Hierarchical structured speech is faster than pidgin. This structure is what Chomsky calls Merge. Brevity and clarity are other factors that get enhanced with structured syntax. Needs to distinguish things of different types and to qualify things are the types of things that led to greater complexity.

In the last section he analyzes and criticizes the idea of recursion – phrases within phrases. Chomsky uses it to argue that language is cultural rather than biological but the author thinks that the origin of language is ultimately biological. This seems a bit strange or rather obvious to me as it seems that culture itself is ultimately biological so the biological origin seems much more likely to me. 

Anyway – this is an awesome book that really opens up some thought about what it really means to be human.

Orpheus and the Pursuit of Immortality Through Divinity

Book Review: Orpheus And The Pursuit of Immortality Through Divinity by Harold R. Willoughby (Kindle Edition date unknown circa 1930’s to 1960’s)

This is a short text that analyses the salvific doctrines of Orphism. The author notes that Orphism is a reform of the Rites of Dionysus. Orphism was probably established by 600 BC and is thought to be quite closely related to the doctrines of Pythagoreans. Orpheus, whether a man or mythical figure, was considered to be different than the mad and wine-drunk Dionysus. Orpheus was depicted as a sober musician who tamed wild men and beasts with his music. Despite these differences Orphics also sought immortality through the god Dionysus. Rather than uniting with the god through orgiastic drunkenness the approach apparently was wholly different, quite opposite. In Orphism, immortality was courted through one’s ascetic behavior and restraint.

The main sources of knowledge about the Orphic Mysteries are the classical writers Pindar, Plato, Aristophanes, Euripedes, and later Strabo and Plutarch – and Orphic tablets found in tombs in south Italy and Crete. These are thought to be instructions to the deceased for the next world. I am not sure if these tablets are similar or related to the so-called – Mystical Hymns of Orpheus – of the Neoplatonists. Southern Italy is thought to have been an area of Orphic brotherhoods and a place where famed philosophers such as Parmenides and Pythagoras lived. Clement of Alexandria’s ‘Exhortation to the Greeks’ also mentions some Orphic lore that is now lost.

Clement of Alexandria’s text mentions Dionysus Zagreus (the hunter), son of Zeus and Persephone. Destined to become the king of the gods after his father he was killed by jealous Titans who tore him to pieces and cooked and ate them. The heart was gathered by Athena, brought to Zeus whereby he swallowed it, and after mating with Semele, Dionysus was born – so Dionysus was Zagreus reborn. This was probably related to a similar eatrlier Cretan rite of eating raw flesh. In any case, the Orphic cult is based on the character of Dionysus Zagreus. After the Titans consumed him Zeus blasted them with thunderbolts and from the ash from that blasting, man was created. So man arose from two differing natures, one divine (Dionysus Zagreus) and the other base (Titans). This is the myth behind the Orphic notion that man is essentially a soul imprisoned in a body. The tablets note that:

“I am a child of the Earth and of Starry Heaven;
But my race is of Heaven.”

This notion of body/soul dualism is a key Orphic idea. Orphic discipline attempts to purify the stain that is the body through asceticism and specific purifying morality.

Also the Orphics believed in reincarnation, or a series of long and arduous reincarnations that would eventually purify the soul. The disciplines are meant to bypass this suffering. So this goal of removing oneself from the wheel of transmigration is not too dissimilar to Hindu/Buddhist/Jain notions of karma and rebirth. The concept of some sort of moral Justice was perhaps equated with divinity. According to Pindar, Plato, and Empedocles the soul had to endure three migration cycles of a thousand or ten thousand years each before being purified the slow way. Proclus suggested that the initiator was Orpheus, the mysteries were those of Dionysus and Kore, and the goal was release of the soul from transmigration. Persephone or Kore is referred to in the tablets as: “the Pure Queen of Them Below.” She is addressed in the initiations and lore with various affirmations. Upon passing purified to the land of death Below one addresses her joyfully with the following affirmation:

“I have flown out of the sorrowful weary Wheel;
I have passed with eager feet to the Circle desired.”

Orpheus is thought by some to have been a priest of Dionysus that reformed the Bacchic rites. Central to the initiation in both rites was the consuming of raw flesh, that of a sacrificed bull. This was eucharistic and thought to nourish the spark of divinity as Dionysus Zagreus that was in man from the ashes of the Titans. It needed nourishment for it was said to be weak. It was also in a sense a re-enactment of the tragedy that befell Dionysus Zagreus. They would daub themselves with white clay or gypsum during the initiation rites as the Titans had done to disguise themselves in the myth. The clay, gypsum, mud, or pitch was thought to have also been a spiritual cleansing.

After the initial feast of flesh the austerities began. There was now an abstention from all flesh and all animal foods. These were now considered unclean. Herodotus mentions the similarities of Orphism, Egyptian practices, and Pythagoreanism. He notes that they took baths and aspersions, avoided funerals and marriages, avoided all food that was dead or killed, and avoided beans as well. A corpse was seen as void of the Dionysian element, being only the tainted Titan element. The Orphics were said to favor clothes of pure white. It was assumed, even by old classical writers such as Pindar, that the ceremonial purity sought by Orphics had a positive effect on morality and that even knowing the lore of the Orphics could promote morality. Orphism banned slaughter, murder, and suicide and so in that sense also promoted peace. Willoughby notes that:

“There were certain postmortem rules of conduct to be observed as well. The Orphic tablets bring this out most clearly. They chart the geography of the next world for the initiate, acquaint him with the divine beings who have the determination of future weal or woe, prescribe certain ritual acts to be observed, and instruct him in formularies and confessions to be repeated under certain circumstances.”

One tablet mentions two wellsprings to the left and right of Hades. The one to the left, presumably the Well of Forgetfulness, was to be avoided. One is instructed to drink from the well on the right, the Well of Memory. One was to utter to the guardians of the Well of Memory, “I am a child of Earth and Starry Heaven.”

Other Orphic practices included ‘purgations,’ fasting, and regular recitations of prayers and confessions. So life became for them a process of return to a divine nature through austerity and generally favoring morality and self-control over bodily pleasures. Willoughby refers to this process as ‘regeneration’ and presumably examines this idea in his book “Pagan Regeneration. According to 18^th century Neo-platonist Thomas Taylor the works of Orpheus preceded those of Pythagoras and Plato and all are the same doctrines – although Plato was known to ridicule to Orphic notions. He refers to these doctrines as theologies and indeed the Hymns of Orpheus are hymns to many of the classical deities and anthropomorphized natural forces and qualities identified by the Greeks.

The author notes that Orphism was definitely influential in classical Greek times but perhaps was less so in Hellenistic times, although there are several indications that it was still around to some extent. The author notes a recently discovered Orpheum (presumably a meeting place of Orphics) in the ruins of Pompeii after the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE. Willoughby also suggests that it merged with other doctrines, religions, philosophies, and movements. So the Orphic notions probably became institutionalized into Greek culture to some extent in Hellenistic times. The Orphic Mysteries were said to remain popular at Eleusis and may have in some ways become incorporated into the Eleusinian Mysteries as translators of the Mystical Hymns of Orpheus seem to suggest. Indeed Orpheus is sometimes said to be the originator of the Mysteries. There seems to be some similarities as well between redemptive Orphic dualism and redemptive Gnostic dualism although the symbolism of light and dark seem to be pre-eminent in Gnosticism.

Accounts from Plutarch indicate that women and children could also attend certain Orphic rites. Since the soul of a moral man was thought to enter divinity upon death it has been said that these dead were deified. Tomb inscriptions seem to indicate that these ancestors were particularly venerated by the Orphics. One inscription even summarizes the Orphic doctrine:

“The body is the garment of the soul. Honor the God in me.”

Some syncretistic religions from Hellenistic Asia Minor and particularly Egypt possibly combined ideas from Orphism, Hermeticism, the Osiris cult, and local traditions. The Orphic regeneration ideas probably influenced early Christianity as well.

Not much is said in this little book about the mythology of Orpheus. He was said to be a son of the muse Calliope and a Thracian king. He is an archetypal musician, singer, and poet so should rank as a key character of bardic tradition and tribal memory. One of his stories is that of leading the maiden Eurydice from the Underworld though she dies before they return. There appear to be many varying versions of this story. Orpheus is sometimes given as the first being to reveal the mysteries of the gods to men. He is killed in various ways in the varying myths. One is that he was torn to pieces by Dionysian menaeads for failing to properly venerate his god on one occasion. His lyre was placed in the heavens as the well-known constellation Lyra. He is also associated with the swan and there was a story of him choosing to incarnate as a swan. For this he has also been associated with the constellation Cygnus and interestingly the first association of a cross with a religious figure is said to be an icon of Orpheus with a cross possibly representing the cross-shaped Cygnus constellation. There is also a story of the head of Orpheus being able to sing and speak oracles. This talking head has been compared to the much later head of Baphomet of the Templars and is similar as well to the talking head of the Celtic Bran.

Orphism can possibly be seen as one of the earliest forms of urban ‘organized’ religion that we know about through extensive writings. Plato describes the Orphics as vegetarian beggar priests who wander around doing prayers for people.

The Tantric Tradition

Book Review: The Tantric Tradition  by Agehananda Bharati  (Anchor/Doubleday 1965, 1970)

This is both a good serious academic survey and a spiritual insider's account of the Tantric tradition. It is a fairly thorough account with very good comparisons of the Hindu and Buddhist Tantric systems, though the author probably knows Hindu Tantra better since he is a member of a Hindu order of monks. This book was written before more became known about Tantric Buddhism as more Tibetan lamas came to exile in the West. Nonetheless there is great information here about both Hindu and Buddhist Tantra. The author analyses the best scholarship of the time and offers some of his own ideas as well.

 Bharati notes that philosophically, tantra in both Buddhism and Hinduism is no different than non-tantric Buddhism and Hinduism. Certainly tantric or Vajrayana Buddhism builds on Mahayana Buddhism and is indeed considered by those who practice it to be a subset of Mahayana. Non-tantric Saivites also share similar philosophical positions with tantric Saivites. The difference lies in the Sadhana, or contemplative practices. So the difference between tantric and non-tantric approaches is methodological. As some of my teachers have noted – tantra is a technology, a style of practice that bypasses and may lead to quick results.

 In comparing elements of Indian philosophy he notes that all are concerned with emancipation from a state of delusion and all postulate an underlying ‘absolute’ to the phenomenal universe. Here he notes the Vedantic brahman and the Mahayana sunya, or emptiness as being similar concepts. They are both concepts used to describe (often in exclusive terms) an absoluteness beyond concepts. Bharati makes an interesting suggestion that tantrism involves experiencing the inseparability of the absolute and phenomenal worlds through sadhana. In the Madyamika philosophy of the Mahayana this is the inseparability of samsara and nirvana. He thinks that there are differences between the Hindu and Buddhist approaches but many disagree. Indeed it was said in 10^th century India by the Bengali adept Atisha that the differences were so subtle as to be only detectible on higher philosophical levels. Bharati notes that:

“Hindu scholars, with no exception to my knowledge, believe in a virtual doctrinary identity of Advaita monism and Madyamika absolutism ….”

The “Advaita monism’ he mentions probably refers to the reformed “Advaita Vedanta” or non-dualism of the quasi-tantric Shankaracarya.

Methods and deities among Hindu and Buddhist tantrics overlap quite a bit and some famous practitioners are counted among both traditions. This is true of the founders of the Nath yogi ttradition such as Matsyendranath and Goraknath In some places and times such as medieval Kashmir it is hard to tell which deities were Hindu and which Buddhist as things were so thoroughly mixed. Hinduism and Buddhism usually differ on the Hindu emphasis on atma and the Buddhist emphasis on anatma. So self and non-self are basically exact opposites. Another complete reversal is the depiction of polarity. In Hindu tantra the Shakti is the active element while in Buddhist tantra the consort, or dakini is considered the passive element associated with emptiness/wisdom. Dare I say that I think there is a secretive element in these polar reversals and that perhaps all polarities are reversible. This accords with the notion of samanvaya, the reconciling of seeming contradictions on a higher philosophical level where they have no validity. Polarity and dualism are features of the phenomenal world and have no meaning in the ultimate beyond so their polarity is not ‘fixed’ even in the phenomenal world. I have been working with this idea for a while. Another Hindu-Buddhist difference is the doctrine of the three bodies of Buddha (trikaya) expounded first in the Mahayana. This does not occur in Hinduism but there are possible parallels such as in the Trika school of Kasmiri Saivism and the Vaisnava depiction of the threefold aspect of deity as ‘attraction’, ‘unrestrainability’, and ‘the purely mythological.’

Bharati includes a whole chapter on terminology and notes that terms may mean different things in the Hindu versions, the Indian Buddhist versions, and the Tibetan versions, especially regarding the so-called ‘twilight language’ – which is cryptic, esoteric, and symbolic. Terms may also have different meanings in different philosophical systems and even different meaning among the uneducated populace. Several of his explanations of the details of Buddhist terms come from the great scholar Herbert Guenther. Guenther did his utmost to try to convey the rich character of words and phrases in Tibetan and Sanskrit although with the many Tibetan speakers and translators and the many lamas who are fluent in English we get better results nowadays.

In a chapter comparing tantric literature of India and Tibet, the origins of the goddess Tara are discussed. Hindus consider her a wife of Siva and one of the ten mahavidyas (wisdom goddesses). Several scholars think she was a Buddhist goddess that the Hindus later adopted. ‘Mahacina’ Tara indicates that she was venerated beyond the Himalayas – in Tibet, Mongolia, and/or western China. Bharati thinks the Hindu Tara was a totally separate goddess – Tara meaning ‘savioress’ being a common epithet of Indian goddesses. The region of tantric influence spread from these areas north of the Himalayas westward towards Iran and southward into Cambodia and Indonesia. This has been determined by iconography and history. Unfortunately the geography given in Indian medieval history is often quite questionable. The author includes a long account from the Hindu Rudrayamala, an account which was mentioned in the Taratantra utilized by both Hindus and Buddhists. This account was written late in the 11^th century – after organized Buddhism had diminished in India. Here the Brahmin sage Vasistha is advised to seek out the goddess in the lands to the north in Mahacina where the Buddhists dwell. Here he finds the Buddha who explains to him the tantric methods to worship the goddess. Other earlier accounts of this episode appear in other tantras. In some the Buddha takes wine along with the others and rather orgiastic behavior is recounted. Tara is sometimes associated with the Blue Sarasvati, Nilasarasvati. There is discussion of a tantra of Mahacina that talks about the Mahacina-method in both the Mahacintantra and the Saktisangama where Siva instructs to practice this style of the Vajrayana Buddhists in a certain way. These texts have the most info about Tibetan and Vajrayana deities pertaining to Hindus.  The largest main compilation of Buddhist tantras in India is the Sadhanamala which describes many deities and sometimes their origins. A few deities such as the Goddess Ekajati (old one tooth) are thought to have come from Tibet or Nepal to India but the other 99% are thought to be Indian in origin. Ekajati is sometimes called blue Tara in Tibet. Siva as lord of Mt. Kailash is sometimes given as equivalent to Buddha but according to Bharati this is done by the Hindus only and the Buddhists do not concede to this. But many Hindu deities occur in Buddhist tantric versions and stories.

Pilgrimage is a topic that is decidedly associated with tantra. There was pilgrimage and circumambulation before tantra but it became more widespread as a tantric practice. After Siva destroyed Daksa’s sacrifice after his wife Sati immolated herself he wandered about mad with her burnt body. After the pieces of her body fell in various places in India these spots became power places where pilgrims traveled. The Buddhists had other power places. Mt Kailash is one of the pilgrimage places shared by Buddhists, Hindus, Jains, and Bonpos. The places of the goddess and the Buddhist pilgrimage sites are called pithas. The notion of the four pithas occurs in Buddhist and Hindu tantric works. The Hevajra Tantra circa 690 AD mentions these as 1) Jalandhara (East Punjab), 2) Oddiyana (Swat Valley of Pakistan), 3) Purnagiri (unknown current location), and 4) Kamarupa (Assam). Kamarupa is still a pilgrimage site today. The Buddhist Catuspithantantra describes the four pithas mystically as the shrine of the self, the shrine of the supreme, the shrine of yoga, and the secret esoteric shrine. The same places mentioned in the Hevajra Tantra are mentioned in the Kalika Purana. These are associated with Hindu and Vaisnava deities and also the four directions. It is quite likely as well that the four pithas represented parts of the body and in some tantras there is mention of activating them within and without through nyasa, or charging them through touching. Typically one touches the various body centers. Indeed the Indian Buddhist tantrikas often utilized a four chakra system that may correspond. The Caryapadas (Indian Buddhist Mahasiddhas from Bengal) used the twilight or intentional language intermixing geography and vajra body of wind, drops, channels, and wheels. The Yamuna and Ganges rivers referred to the right and left (solar and lunar) channels of the yogic body. Pradaksina, or clockwise circumambulation, is a very common practice that may be Vedic in origin but is practiced all over India and perhaps even more vigorously by indigenous tribal peoples. There are also more ascetic things done such as fasting while prostrating the whole pilgrimage trail from feet to hands. One such circuit done by Jains is said to take 30 hours. The three day circumambulation of Mt. Kailasa is undertaken by many pilgrims, some who also circumambulate the nearby lakes as well. Pilgrimage is a way of connecting to a sacred place and sharing energy with it in order to bring that sacredness into one’s life. Since tantra is seen in the Vajrayana as the working and transformation of energy this fits right in with the methodology.

Mantra is probably the most important tantric topic. In Tibet Tantrayana is also called ‘secret mantra’ and these words of power are often at the center of tantric practice. Mantra, though often cryptic, is not the same as the cryptic twilight language or intentional language employed by tantrikas. Dharani refers to long mnemonic formulas containing mantras or strings of mantras. In some sense any sacred utterances or recitations could be considered mantra. The Vedic hymns are called mantras. Mantra usually refers to syllables or words of power that one recites and uses as a focus for meditation. Often a mantra is formally introduced to the student through the teacher or guru in a formal ceremony called diksha or abhisheka (empowerment). There are bija mantras, so-called seed mantras usually of one syllable, deity mantras, mantras of emptiness, and heart mantras. I have also heard of and received once a mantra called an approach mantra which is a special mantra to approach the deity.

Most scholars consider that Buddhist tantra preceded Hindu tantra although when we hear or read about tantra it is often mostly Hindu tantra. The Vedic seed mantras seem to have been adopted by Buddhists at the beginning of tantrism. The author categorizes mantras into three purposes: propitiation (of a deity or power), acquisition (of something difficult to obtain or powers), and identification (introjection) – of the individual with the cosmic soul. There are also mantras for the purification of the elements (bhutasuddhi). Mantra-japa is the recitation of mantras aloud or silently usually counted with beads on a string. There is what is called pranajapa, or the continuous repetition of the mantra through one’s daily tasks. The Tibetans do practices called drupchens where mantras, usually of a specific deity, are practiced continuously day and night for a few days by groups of practitioners. One of the oldest Buddhist tantras, the Guyhasmaja Tantra is said by some Buddhists to have been composed by the great Mahayanist Asanga – which would make it even a few hundred years older than circa ~ 500-650 CE that is given. Elements of tantra have been noted in the Atharva-Veda, the youngest Veda that is full of ritual and magical formulas so some scholars see it as a precursor to the tantric tradition.

Bharati goes through the association of deities with seed mantras. Some seed mantras indicate the nature of a deity. HUM depicts a warrior mode, PHAT a fierce mode, other bijas depict various goddesses, love/desire, or maya. He notes the Buddhist mantra OM HUM PHAT being used for exorcism and to prepare the mind for ‘emptiness.’ The similar Hindu mantra AM HUNG PHAT is said to be used when chopping off the head of a sacrificial goat to Kali or Durga.

Bharati goes through various rules and conventions of mantra. Often certain mantras accompany certain ritual procedures. Sometimes one works with a personal deity form, or ista-devata (yidam in Tibetan). In Tibetan practices there are various offering mantras and mudras (gestures). OM AH HUNG is a common offering mantra in Tibetan practices, these seed syllables referring to body, speech, and mind and usually appearing on the forehead, throat, and heart respectively (although as I know from the Yungdrung Bon traditiuon the OM and AH are reversed in color and body position). Bharati lists this as an identification mantra. Many of the Hindu mantras have Buddhist parallels especially Saivite ones. Mantras of Visnu, Krsna, and Tamil deities usually do not have Buddhist versions. Hindu Sakti mantras to goddesses such as Sarasvati, the goddess of speech, usually begin with AIM as the seed mantra. Bharati offers many more examples.

The intentional language , or sandhabhasa, of the tantrikas is the next subject. Bharati mentions several explanation for it: 1) to camouflage instructions from the orthodoxy, 2) an esoteric language for initiates, 3) to entice and lure people away from orthodoxy (with sexual symboloism)- this is a rather paranoid view of modern orthodox anti-tantric Hindus, 4) as a mnemonic device (to remember instruction by analogy?), and 5) comedy – couching yogic instructions in absurdly inappropriate terminology. Eroticism, the yoga of the avadhuti, or central channel, and union with the consort, emptiness, are typical topics in the sandha language. The Dohas, or realization songs of the Indian Mahasiddhas and the Bengali text, Carya Gita, are utterly full of symbolic language. So full are they that it helps to have someone to interpret. Some of the basic terms are well known though and Bharati gives a few lists. The sandha term ‘bodhicitta’ which normally refers to the ‘mind of enlightenment’ now refers to the ‘virile semen’ generated from the union of prajna (wisdom) and upaya (skillful means/effort/method).

Initiation is very important in the tantric tradition for the ‘blessing energy’ is transferred ceremonially from guru to student. Initiation is diksha. Often the initiate formally receives a mantra in the ceremony and perhaps a sadhana to practice as well. According to Bharati the Sannyasi and Udasi orders of northern India and the Nath yogis of Nepal  mention three types of diksha: 1) yoga-diksa – initiation into a hatha or laya yoga practice, usually with no mantra given, 2) upayoga-diksa – for a particular secular purpose with a mantra given, 3) jnana-diksa – ‘initiation leading to intuitive knowledge.’

There is also a notion of Sambhavi-diksa – or initiation directly from Siva.

Bharati devotes a long section to ‘Polarity Symbolism’ with the notation that the gender symbolism is reversed in the Hindu (Saivite) and Buddhist versions. He makes some effort to determine why this is so without coming to a definite conclusion. The Shakti of Shiva is considered the active, dynamic, energetic partner. In the Vajrayana the consort or dakini is usually symbolic of wisdom or emptiness, considered the static or passive aspect, although this passivity may not be as important as Bharati and others have emphasized. The wisdom goddess in Buddhism likely comes from the Mother of Wisdom, Prajnaparmita. The name Shakti does not occur in Buddhism but as Bharati notes there are certain dakinis, often of the wrathful sort that are Shakti-like. So Bharati distinguishes two types of Buddhist tantric goddesses here. As I know from Buddhism there are deities related to the four activities of enlightened beings: pacifying, enriching, magnetizing, and subduing. These range from peaceful to wrathful. The wrathful dakinis do not really seem to be passive even when joined with male deities and I think perhaps that the active-passive duality of male-female here is less relevant. When depicted alone they are especially in fierce aspect. Bharati does note that the yab-yum or male-female conjoined forms as the female astride the vajra or lotus-postured male seem to be predominantly Tibetan in their common depictions. In the Hindu Sakti tradition the goddess is sometimes depicted dancing on the corpse of Siva – often said to denote that: “Siva without Sakti is a corpse.”

Vajrayana depictions sometimes show a Vajrayana deity dancing on a corpse of a Hindu deity. I know of an Indian Vajrayana story of a painting of a Buddhist deity dancing on a Hindu deity and the Hindu pandit re-paints it the other way around and it keeps magically reverting back. The Vajrayanists would explain that the Hindu deities represent “worldly gods” and so are able to be and need to be overcome. Buddhist ‘holier-than-thou’ attitude with regards to Hindus may have to do with Buddha’s declaration that the Samadhis, or yogic trances, he learned from the matty-haired ascetics (possibly Saivites) were ultimately impermanent states and so he went beyond these through his technique of clear insight (vipasyana). Of course, the Hindus would scoff at such statements and note Siva as the unsurpassable god, lord of yoga, and enjoyer of the ultimate state. But gender can also be changed among the gods. Siva as the androgynous Ardanarisvara is one example where Siva and Sakti are united in one form. Visnu appearing as the seductress Mohini is another. There are rare Tibetan yab-yum thankas where male and female positions are reversed. Another famed gender change came much later in Buddhist China as the male bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara morphed into the female Kwan Yin. Bharati goes on to offer several detailed possibilities as to how these polarities developed – one being the duality of the powerful Samkhya philosophy of ancient India that separated the world into matter (prakriti) and spirit (purusa). The Buddhist yab-yum is the union of compassion (upaya, skillful means, action, method) and wisdom (prajna, emptiness, insight).  I think one interesting aspect is that in the Buddhist system when one experiences the non-dual state, integrates it, and stabilizes it – there is said to be no difference between samsara and nirvana and so all polarities fade, being remnants of the relative world – yet as part of samsara they still appear, yet under deeper realization they can become flexible and even reversible – as I speculate. The union of the two realities (samsara and nirvana) is the yuganaddha, and results in the apratisthita-nirvana, the nirvana that is not fixed. Bharati discusses the Kalachakra Tantra a bit and suggests that this deity in yab-yum form with prajna as consort suggests a more overall passive deity-form though I am not sure I follow his argument. Kalachakra was a late Buddhist tantra that probably originated west of India in modern Pakistan/Afghanistan and has been associated by some with a movement to unite Buddhists and Hindus against Muslim incursions.

In discussing tantric sadhana Bharati notes the three types of disposition of aspirant to the tantric mysteries: 1) pasu or animal – the lowest and most base, 2) vira or hero – the middling and perhaps most common, and 3) the divya or divine disposition. The Tibetans usually refer to this as lesser, middling, and greater capacities. The famous five M’s of so-called left-handed tantra are now discussed. There is occur in both Hindu and Buddhist tantra but I should note that I have never heard or read anything that mentions the term vamamarg, or ‘left-handed tantra’ in Buddhist works. But it is sometimes referred to as viracara, or the practice of the hero and this is in most Tibetan tantras. The five M’s (makaras) are meat, fish, wine, parched grain, and sexual intercourse. These are antinomial in the sense that they were taboo to orthodox Vedic Brahmins. These are sometimes depicted and represented symbolically and sometimes actually. In Buddhist Tantra they are usually utilized in the so-called higher tantras classification  - Anuttarayogatantras. Other of these types of sacraments are mentioned including hemp, ginger, and the wife of another. Apparently, hemp was used as a preliminary to many tantric rites. Bharati thinks this was mainly an aid to overcome cultural inhibitions to what was to become a rite of taboo and sexuality. Bharati gives descriptions of both Hindu and Buddhist versions of these rites. In the Hindu one given from the Rudrayamala the sage Vasistha receives instruction from Siva in the form of Buddha. The Buddhist version is a tantra of the sow-goddess Vajravarahi (Vajrayogini).

Bharati thinks that the emphasis on withholding the semen in many Buddhist tantras and the notion of releasing it in some Hindu tantras has to do with the Vedic emphasis on sacrifice. Indeed the release of semen has been known to be symbolic of sacrifice and indeed sacrifice is the central element of old Vedic tradition. Yet there was an element of retaining the semen even in Vedic India, particularly among the Vratya brotherhoods who were groups of somewhat outcaste young males prone to cattle-raiding in a sort of coming of age rite. Some scholars think these societies evolved into the tradition of forest yogis and ascetics that later became the hermit holy men that taught Buddha. The loss of semen was regarded as the loss of magico-spiritual energy. In this light I am not sure I agree with Bharati on this point. Tantra was certainly not designed to be hedonistic, though perhaps on occasion it became that way as some texts mention looser orgies after the austere and meditative rites were performed. Sexuality in tantra is typically a form of yoga that often involves a reversal of the usual flow of sexual energy and even sometimes a reversal of functions – as there are practices where the male takes in fluid through the tip of the penis through yogic bhanda (locks). In Buddhist tantra the feminine energy transforms into the Great Bliss, or mahasukha, that transcends ordinary bliss and becomes the ‘pure pleasure’ untainted by worldliness.

There are several other topics discussed: the kalas, or segments, equated with various goddesses, the Sanskrit syllables, or matrikas (fierce mothers) also equated with goddesses. He talks about the modern Hindu Renaissance where old orthodox Hinduism of uneducated Brahmins has been replaced by intellectual Swamis educated in Western languages and philosophy. He suggests that old style Hindus were more ritualistic and less intellectual though quite well trained and learned. Among the modern Hindu reformers he notes Rammohan Roy, Dayananda, Vivekananda, Shivananda, Chinmayananda, and Krishna Manon. He also suggests that the polytheistic element was more prevalant in the past and the modernizers have favored a more monotheistic approach, perhaps to accord better with their Western education. He notes that most tantras are more concerned with mantra than any other topic. As a goal of tantric practice, Bharati favors the term ‘enstasy’ coined by Mircea Eliade to describe the goals of the contemplative traditions of India. Hindu terms such as samadhi and kaivalya can refer to the spiritually integrated state sought. Siddhi, or magical accomplishment or power is often given as a tantric goal. In the Mahasiddha tradition it is often the supreme siddhi as mahamudra siddhi that is the quintessential accomplishment. Bharati does not mention this at all even though it is a famed practice among siddhas and yogis in Buddhist tantric India and Tibet. In the Tibetan mahamudra lineages derived ultimately from the 84 Indian mahasiddhas – the technique of mahamudra is said to be a form of vipasyana, or non-conceptual insight based on previous development of one’s shamata, or calm abiding meditation. Interestingly, he notes that a yogic goal in Vajrayana is to immobilize mind, breath, and seminal fluid. These may be referred to in sandha-language as the three jewels (Buddha, dharma, sangha) or the three nectars. I once had a Dzogchen teaching where the teacher emphasized the three styles of immovability: immovability of body, sensations, and mind. This may be a parallel. Indeed in yoga there is stopping of the breath (kumbhaka), control of the sperm, and in mahamudra and dzogchen there is the spontaneous stopping of thought. He also does not mention the classification of tantras given in Tibetan texts: The four-fold classification given ion the Sama (new) tradition and the six-fold given in the Nyingma (old) ttadition.

This was a good book with much to ponder although I can think of many ways of approaching the topic that the author did not. This may have much to do with the time period. Since then there has been much delineation within the tradition, particularly among Tibetan lamas. The lamas note that Buddhist tantra, or Vajrayana, is a subdivision of the Mahayana, that traditionally it is said to be based in the so-called ‘third turning of the wheel of dharma’ which is concerned with Tathagatagarbha, or Buddha Nature which refers to the inherent capacity to awaken from delusion. This in the Vajrayana format there is the consonant supposition that one is already enlightened or liberated beneath the apparent stains of delusion. Thus one sees all appearance as the body of the deity, all sound as the sound of the mantra of the deity, and all mentation as the mind of the deity. Bharati did not mention much about Jain tantra or Vaisnava tantra (which probably came later). He does talk a bit about the Sahajayana. Sahaja is sometimes defined as ‘effortless naturalness’ and refers to a quasi-tantric movement mainly of Bengal where ‘spontaneity’ was a key feature. It is related to mahamudra and the mahasiddha tradition but was also taken up by the Vaisnavas. Apparently, the modern Bengali Bauls retain some of it as a compendium tradition of Vaisnava sahajayana, Buddhistic mahasiddha elements, and Islamic Sufi love pandits and musicians. Bharati noticed the interests of Western occultists in Tantra and was rather ambivalent about it. There are now (and have been in the past) Americanized and Western versions of tantra that vary but mostly emphasize the ‘sacred sexuality’ aspect. These are mostly non-traditional with perhaps some traditional elements added. These are Neo-tantra and seem to mostly refer to Hindu traditions.