84 - Discourses on Tantra Volume One

Chapter 22 In the Glory of Shiva – Excerpt A (1)

From the study of history, it is known that the Rgveda was composed outside India, mainly in Central Asia and Russia. The Yajurveda was written mostly outside India; only a portion was written in India. And the Atharvaveda was composed in Afghanistan and India. Those three Vedas – Rk, Yaju and Atharva – long afterwards, say about 3500 years ago – were edited and divided into different branches by Maharśi Krśńadvaepáyana Vyása. The oldest compositions were named Rgveda, the intermediate portions were called Yajurveda, and the remaining portions were named Atharvaveda. The last-named Veda was named after the great sage, Atharva, the first author of this Veda. And by compiling the musical compositions of the three Vedas, yet another Veda - the Sámaveda, the fourth Veda – was created. Sáma in Sanskrit means “musical composition”. The Sámaveda itself is not a Veda.

Sadáshiva was born at a time when the age of the Rgveda was coming to an end and the Yajurvedic Age was about to begin. The people had not yet invented script. In the days of Shiva, the serious disadvantage was that, although the people were acquainted with the science of phonetics, that is, the intonations of the letters, they did not know how to write the letters. The Bráhmii and Kharośt́hi scripts were invented some time after Shiva. Thus we can generally say that the Vedas and Tantra exercised their mutual influence over each other, through the invention of script, only at the time of the Atharvaveda.

The external form that was given to Tantra by Shiva in His time underwent a slight transformation in subsequent periods. You may raise the question – well, when the goal is the same, when the path is also the same, then why this transformation? The only cause was: there was no written book in those days. All the compositions – both Vedas and Tantras – were handed down orally from one generation to another. As a result, there arose a difference of opinion among the teachers themselves – one teacher or muni [seer] would say one thing, and another muni would say something else.

Now although letters were invented during the age of the Atharvaveda, the Vedas could not be written down due to one obstacle – a peculiar superstition (better to call it a dogma) that the Vedas should not be written down. Maharśi Atharva’s followers – Aungirá, Aungirasa, Satyaváha, Vae-darbhi, etc., tried for the first time to get the Vedas written down in letters, but they were not courageous enough to do so because it was forbidden. (The very name of Vaedarbhi suggests that he was a resident of Vidarbha, and in India, particularly in the Vidarbha area, the Atharvaveda was partly written. Hence it is not proper to assume that the entire Veda was written outside India.) The Vedas were called shruti [ear] because they had to be mastered only by hearing: letters had not yet been invented. But once the script was invented, what could be the reason for not writing down the Vedas? The problem was the superstition, and the scholars did not dare to defy the superstition.

Now the Post-Shiva Tantra that gradually crystallized through the transformation of the original Shiva Tantra had two branches - the Gaod́iiya School and the Káshmiirii School. In East India, that is, Bengal, where the Gaod́iiya School of Tantra was popular, the Vedas had little influence. But in Kashmir, where the Káshmiira branch of Tantra was more dominant, there was the influence of both Tantra and the Vedas. During those days of ascendancy of the Káshmiira branch of Post-Shiva Tantra, the Káshmiira scholars first wrote the Vedas in contemporary Sáradá script; that is, the Vedas were written first in Sáradá script. Later came the age of Buddhism and Jainism; of course Post-Shiva Tantra was running parallel to them. Script had already been invented. The books on Jainism were mostly written in Prákrta, in a Bráhmii script which was a bit transformed; while the books on Buddhism were written in Mágadhii Prákrta, that is, in Páli, in the Bráhmii script of that time. But the Post-Shiva Tantra was written in Sanskrit; of course in Bráhmii script. So this all proves that the invention of scripts removed a great obstacle on the way. At this time there was a mutual exchange of ideas among Jain Tantra, Buddhist Tantra and Post-Shiva Tantra.