History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c92.132
History of Dharmaśāstra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c92.132
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The Mahānirvāṇatantra and a few others endeavour to stem the tide of sexual immorality and promiscuity. For example, Rāmeśvara, the commentator of Paraśurāmakalpasūtra, says that one that has not conquered his senses has no *adhikāra* for Kaulamārga (p. 153). This is in direct conflict with what even the Mahānirvāṇatantra says that all men from brāhmaṇas to the untouchables have adhikāra for Kula practices. Modern apologists for Tāntrism emphasize that the instructions embodied in the Guhyasamāja, the directions for the mode of life to be led by followers of Vajrayāna, apply only to the Yogis who have attained some degree of yogic perfection. But the obvious reply is 'who is to decide that a particular person had attained the minimum spiritual level except the man himself and, supposing that all the directions were meant for Yogis, why was it necessary to say in a blatant manner and language that a Yogi practising Vajrayāna may engage in what common and less sophisticated people deem to be incest? This is not the place to reply to all apologists for ancient and medieval Tāntrik works. But a few must be dealt with because they are liable to create misunderstandings, if allowed to go uncriticized. In his Preface to 'Principles of Tantra' Part 2, Sir John Woodroffe states (p. IX.) that the use of flesh, fish and wine was common in the Vedic age and that the Mahābhārata and some Purāṇas like the Kālikā, Mārkaṇḍeya and Kūrma refer to consumption of wine, meat and fish.
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This looks like special pleading and is misleading. The question is: was *surā* offered to the gods in every day or periodic sacrifices as an offering in the Ṛgveda or any other Veda. In the Vedic age wine may have been known and even drunk, but what is material to recognize is that there is a difference made between Soma and *surā*. Vide Śat.¹⁷⁴⁹ Br. "Soma is truth, prosperity, light and *surā* is untruth, misery and darkness" (V. 1. 5. 28). While Soma is mentioned hundreds of times in the Ṛgveda, has the 9th maṇḍala of the Ṛgveda specially reserved for its praises and was offered to gods, the word *surā* occurs only six times in the Ṛgveda and it is nowhere expressly stated that it was offered to any god as a religious offering; on the contrary, in a hymn to Varuṇa, *surā* is put forward as leading to the commission of sin just as anger and gambling do (Ṛg. VII. 86. 6 'na sa svo dakṣo Varuṇa dhrutiḥ sā surā manyur-vibhīdako acittiḥ). In his zeal for the vindication of Tāntrism Arthur Avalon is injudicious enough to misinterpret simple words. In the Intro. to 'Principles of Tantra' p. VII he quotes Ṛg. I. 166. 7 "*arcantyarkam madirasya pītaye*" and translates "*worshipping the Sun before drinking madirā (wine)*." The word here is *madira* (and not '*madirā*'), it is an adjective and means "*exhilarating*".
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The word "*Madirā*" never occurs in the Ṛg while "*madira*" as an adjective, occurs at least sixteen times and qualifies Soma, Indu, Aṁśu, Rasa or Madhu, generally expressed (and rarely implied). There is no word for "*before*." That quarter means 'they (the worshippers or Maruts) worship (Indra) who is worthy of praise (and a friend of the Maruts) in order that he may come for drinking the exhilarating (Soma)'. The word madirā (for wine) hardly ever occurs in any genuine work of Vedic times. Its earliest occurrence is probably in the Mahābhārata. Reference is also made by modern apologists to the offering of surā in the Sautrāmaṇī *iṣṭi* in honour of Indra. But the circumstances are peculiar. Sautrāmaṇī is only one out of numerous sacrifices and the occasions for performing it were rare i. e. it was performed at the end of Rājasūya and also at the end of Agnicayana and when a priest who had drunk too much of soma vomited. The most important fact, however, is that the remnants of surā offered in Sautrāmaṇī were not drunk by the priests engaged in it but a brāhmaṇa had to be hired for drinking the remnants and if no brāhmaṇa could be secured then the remnants were to be poured over an ant-hill (vide H. of Dh. vol. II. p. 1226 for details). The Kāṭhakasaṁhitā¹⁷⁵⁰ contains an interesting passage "Therefore an elderly person and a youngster, the daughter-in-law and the father-in-law, drink liquor and remain babbling together; thoughtlessness is sin;
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therefore a brāhmaṇa does not drink surā with the thought that 'otherwise (if I drink it) I may be tainted by sin'; therefore this is for kṣatriya; one should say to a brāhmaṇa that surā, if drunk by a kṣatriya, does not harm the latter." These passages show that not only the priests did not drink surā even in Sautrāmaṇī but that it had become difficult to hire a brāhmaṇa for drinking it by the time of the Kāṭhaka-saṁhitā. The passage of the Vājasaneya Saṁhitā 19. 5 relied on at p. VII (of Intro. to 'Principles of Tantra' part II) also refers to Sautrāmaṇī and to no other sacrifice. The mantra is "Brahma kṣatram pavate teja indriyaṁ surayā somaḥ suta āsuto madāya" and means that "Soma when mixed with surā becomes a strong drink and leads to intoxication." The Chāndogya V. 10. 9 (q above p 1578 n. 943) counts the drinker of surā among the five grave sinners. Therefore, there is hardly any analogy between the offering of wine in Sautrāmaṇī and the teaching about offering wine to Devī as provided in the Tantras. Similarly, the reference to the Atharvaveda as containing magical rites does not help at all. Society had advanced far beyond that stage and Manu XI. 63 looked upon abhicāra (i. e. performance of a magic rite like Śyenayāga for killing a person) and mūlakarma (i e. bringing under one's control a person or a woman by herbs and mantras) as a sin, though a lesser one (an upapātaka). The reference to the Mahābhārata (Udyogaparva, 59. 5 ff) is again misleading.
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Wine was drunk by people in the Mahābhārata times, but not as part of a religious ritual as in the Tantras. Vide pp 964-966 of H. of Dh. vol. III for a note on 'intoxicating drinks.' The reference to Mārkaṇḍeya and other purāṇas is of no avail as evidence, since at least the present author holds that those parts of the Purāṇas were written and interpolated after Tāntrik rites had taken a firm hold on some sections of the Hindu society. The reference to sexual intercourse in the Mahāvrata¹⁷⁵¹ is most misleading. In the Tantras like the Kulārṇava and the Guhyasamāja it is the sādhaka himself who is to practise *maithuna* as one of the ways of securing marvellous powers and higher spiritual attainments. But in the Mahāvrata the sexual intercourse is by strangers to the sacrifice (and.not by the *yajamāna* nor by any of the priests), is a purely symbolical act and bears no analogy to a sādhaka himself engaging in maithuna as a religious rite to placate the Devī. Even a late reformist work like the Mahānirvāṇa (VIII. 174-175) expressly says that those of the five tattvas which a sādhaka can secure, such as flesh and others, should have recited over them the mantra 'ām, hrīm, krom, svāhā' a hundred times, that he should reflect that everything is a product of *brahma*, should close his eyes, should offer those to Kālī and should himself drink and eat them.
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As the Tāntrik prescriptions of the *makāras* for attainment of miraculous powers and of liberation had shocked people and had brought the tantras into great disrepute, later Hindu Tāntrik works like the Śaktisaṅgamatantra (between 1555-1607 A. D.) began to offer symbolic interpretations. They¹⁷⁵² say that the words ‘madya, mudrā, maithuna’ &c. are not used in the ordinary popular sense but in a special esoteric sense. For example, mudrā has several senses, viz. a mixture of jaggery and ginger, or of salt and oil-cake or garlic and tamarind fruit, or wheat and māṣa beans, that madya (wine) is not what is prepared from mādhavī (spring flower) but it springs from the joyful experience (or *rasa*) of Śakti, when effort is made to awaken the Kuṇḍalinī. It may be admitted that some Tāntrik works and writers divide men into three classes, paśu (the bestial ones), vīra (those that have made great progress on the path of spiritual discipline) and daiva (those who are godlike). As regards these three, the five makāras are assigned by some apologistic writers different meanings. D. N. Bose in his work ‘Tantras, their philosophy and occult secrets’ boldly asserts (p. 110) that the real significance of the five makāras has been deliberately perverted by vicious people and explains (p.
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111) that *madya* is the nectarine stream issuing from the cavity of the brain where the soul resides, matsya means suppression of vital airs, māṃsa means ‘vow of silence,’ ‘maithuna’ means ‘meditation on the acts of creation and destruction.’