Malcolm wrote:Anders wrote:Crazywisdom wrote:Anyway as Sanderson points out, Vajrayana was only a skillful means to condition Shakta Shaivas to recognize fundamental Mahayana principles.
Wait, what? Can you expand on that?
Yes, Indian Buddhist texts clearly describe how the different tantra series were taught for the purpose of the conversion of different casts. Highest Yoga Tantra was taught in order to appeal to the lowest castes.
M
So tantra understands itself as being hinduist oriented upaya?
Ie, if in another world or time Tantra popped up alongside christianity, it would have looked radically different to appeal to these? How extensive is this? Do they understand it to be something uniquely Buddhist simply given hindu dressing, or something more quintessentially Hindu re-purposed and made possible for liberation?
What I mean is something along the lines of - Are you basically saying that Hindu beliefs and culture were the Raison D'etre of tantra and that without these there'd be no point to the arising of tantra (as opposed to Hindu culture more or less incidentally being the environment it was revealed in)?
Do you have some citations on this to get a feel for how the tantras understood themselves in this regard?