History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c92.132.6

v7.c92.132.6

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.