An Introduction to Tantric Buddhism c3.2

c3.2

Whether Vedic or Non-Vedic in origin, Tāntricism, both Brahmanical and Buddhistic, represents a special aspect of the religious and cultural life of India. A thorough study of Tāntricism is, therefore, indispensable for a close acquaintance with the special quality of the Indian mind. For a long time it was customary to hold that Tāntricism is an off-shoot of Hinduism, or that it constitutes only a particular phase of Hindu Sādhanā; but researches in later Buddhism have now brought home that, so far as the extant literature is concerned, the stock of Tāntric literature is richer and more varied in the domain of Buddhism than in that of Hinduism. Much more, it is hoped, may be recovered or reconstructed from the Tibetan and Chinese sources. Thanks to the scholarly endeavour of the Oriental Institute, Baroda, which has published a number of important Buddhist Tāntric texts and made them available to the scholar and the general reader.