Tantra and Advaita Vedanta in the Writings of Bengali Shakta Pandits

Abstract

The writings of pandit Shivachandra Bhattacharyya Vidyarnava (1860–1913) were crucial to understandings of tantra in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Not only was he a vocal polemicist within so-called “orthodox,” Hindu revivalist circles, but his writings reached a worldwide readership through the English translation of his magnum opus, Tantratattva (1893). Originally written in Bengali, it was translated as Principles of Tantra (1914–1916) and became the foundation for both the emerging academic study of tantra and a wide variety of practitioners around the world. This places Shivachandra, who rejected English education and took a polemically “orthodox” stance, in an interesting place between the so-called vernacular sphere and colonial discourse. Crucially, Shivachandra was concerned to present tantra as the true but hidden (nigūṛh, gūṛha) core of sanātana dharma, which included insisting on its consistency with Advaita Vedanta. This argument was made through polemics against prominent contemporary interpretations of Advaita Vedanta, especially those of the Brahmo Samaj and the Arya Samaj. Shivachandra’s main references include Shaiva-Shakta poetry as well as the supposedly ancient (but quite recent) Mahānirvāṇa Tantra and key Shakta texts such as the Kulārṇava Tantra. Shivachandra’s writings from the years around 1900 will illustrate the negotiation of the relationship between tantra and Advaita Vedanta that shaped not only local but also global perceptions.