THE SNOW LION BUDDHIST NEWS & CATALOG

There are no records from the Buddha's time that suggest he gave teachings resembling developed Vajrayana. The tantras only began to appear in India toward the end of the seventh century—over a millennium after the Buddha's passing—and new ones continued to be composed until the twelfth century, and possibly later. It is clear from Tibetan records that when Buddhism was first disseminated in Tibet during the ninth and tenth centuries tantric texts and practices were well established in India and that many of the monastic universities that were centers for the transmission of the dharma were also centers of Vajrayana study and practice.

When the Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang (596-664) visited India between the years 629 and 645 C.E., he made no mention of tantric texts or practices in his writings. This is significant because he traveled all over Buddhist India and through Central Asia, and his reporting is notable for its scrupulousness. He went into great detail in describing the places he visited, the pilgrimage spots and shrines he saw, the numbers of monks he found in particular areas, and the types of practices in which they were engaged. He reported the existence of many people belonging to Hinayana or Mahayana sects, but there is no record of his ever encountering any type of Buddhism that resembles Vajrayana.

When another Chinese pilgrim named Wuxing traveled to India sometime around 680, he reported that Vajrayana had entered the monastic mainstream in the north Indian monastic centers, and he also indicated that this was a recent phenomenon. Tibetans did not begin translating tantric texts until the eighth century, and Chinese Buddhists began to import and translate them around the same time, and so it appears that the first tantras were probably composed somewhere around the end of the seventh century and that their appearance and acceptance in India probably happened rather quickly, over a period of several decades.

Tantric lineages commonly claim Indian luminaries like Nagarjuna (c. 150-250 C.E.) and Asanga (c. fourth century C.E.), but this was done retrospectively; there is no evidence to indicate that they were involved in tantric practices. Vajrayana was not a completely new system, however, and it incorporated elements of earlier Buddhist traditions, including doctrines and practices. For example, tantric texts presuppose the doctrine of emptiness, which is central to the Madhyamaka and Yogacara schools of Indian Buddhism, and places a high value on skill in means (the ability to adapt the dharma to different audiences), which is a core theme in a number of Mahayana sutras. The symbol of the vajra predates Buddhism, as does the use of mantras, symbolic diagrams, and fire rituals (sbyin sreg, homa), all of which are central to Vajrayana. Before the late seventh or early eighth centuries, however, there is no evidence of anything resembling the elaborate systems of doctrine and practice that characterized the developed Vajrayana, nor are there records of adherents proclaiming it as a separate vehicle.

Whatever their origins, it is clear that the production of the new tantric texts in India—and the claim that these had been taught during the time of Shakyamuni—generated both great interest and strong opposition. These reactions are also found in the writings of contemporary Western scholars. Some view tantra as a development that accords with the ideals and doctrines of Mahayana, while others consider it to be a new phenomenon that marks a major paradigm shift. Some early Western researchers— apparently shocked by the presence of sexual imagery and practices, as well as a plethora of demonic figures—characterized tantra as the final degeneration of Indian Buddhism, a corruption of the ideals and practices of the dharma of Shakyamuni.

These thoughts are not, however, shared by Tibetan scholars, who generally view tantra as the supreme of all Buddhist teachings and who consider tantric practices to be the shortest and most effective path to buddhahood. Tantric texts and practices are considered by Tibetans to be a part of Mahayana, since they emphasize both the path of the bodhisattva, which leads to the supreme goal of buddhahood, and the central importance of compassion, which is the primary motivating factor in the bodhisattva's pursuit of awakening. As David Snellgrove has noted, however, tantric texts were not accepted wholesale in Tibet, and in order for a work to be acknowledged as authoritative Tibetan scholars generally required validation in the form of a Sanskrit original.

Moreover, there was some opposition to the tantras during the early part of the first dissemination of Buddhism in Tibet, and two kings, Tri Songdétsen and Relbachen, forbade their translation into Tibetan. Later, in the eleventh century, the Official Edict catalogue of Yéshé Ö characterized such tantric practices as sexual union (sbyor ba) and "deliverance" (sgrol ba, which involved "liberating" beings from cyclic existence by killing them) as heretical and rejected tantras that contained descriptions of them. The famed translator Rinchen Sangpo (958-1055) made similar claims in his Refutation of Errors Regarding Secret Mantra. Such controversies continue today, and Tibetan exegetes tend to construe the more outrageous passages in tantric texts symbolically.