Tantric Puja: Transcendence through Sound and Form

Tantric Puja: Transcendence through Sound and Form

Brendan Bombaci

“Yoga is suppression with awareness; Tantra is indulgence with awareness.” – (Osho 1998:17)

Tantric puja is the ‘ordinary ritual’ form of Tantra, which otherwise also includes various sensual modes of transcendental meditation and religious devotion. This term originated in the ever-morphing geographical areas of India and Asia. Tantric puja involves two main elements of meditational utility, both of which are intensely focused upon; these are mantras (repeated chants or tones) and yantras (2D and 3D geometrical designs of deep symbolism). Generally, Tantra is considered a spiritually liberating, sacred realization of unity that exists between sound, form, and consciousness. From this, Tantric puja may be the kin to, if not the source of various standardized geometrical ratios in music, architecture, and visual/kinetic art compositions of the world today. Well known in the Western world are fundamental examples of mantras and yantras, like meditational chants such as “Om,” and distinctly Eastern, symmetrical designs known as mandalas. But, in its esoteric and magnified context, Tantric puja is so much more: it is the glorification of body and mind and the sensational recognition of cosmological creation and physics. This respect includes sonic and material geometries of nature’s forms, such as in the Fibonacci Sequence/Phi Ratio. Mantras and yantras are not merely for superficial pleasures; they do not exist for audio and visual background consumption, as much of the capitalistic Western world – which has arguably disassociated sacred meanings from symbols – has portrayed their purposes. Yoga postures, called asanas and mudras, like the human body itself, have been described as yantras given form by sound (subtle vibrating mental commands) and made audible (transmissive of thought and meaning) by form. Asanas are capable of tapping ‘the divine within,’ via modeled awareness. Unlike Yoga, however, Tantric puja (which will be called ‘Tantra’ from here forward) seeks not the way of the warrior, but the way of the senses.

There are a vast many ways to describe Tantra, and there is more than one culture to contend with on particular orthodoxy of the subject matter. On one hand, Tantra is a personal means to an end: the ultimate Altered State of Consciousness (ASC). To the Western world, perhaps more familiar with the idea of ‘trance,’ as an ASC, it may be said that “while trance is only one of many altered states that include dreams […] and states of spiritual concentration, trance states are particularly interesting because of their wide range of cultural meanings” (Barfield 1997:471, emphasis added). That is, individuals from different cultures experience trance states according to their enculturation – by their cognitive references to symbols, their conditioned responses, their cosmologies, their gender roles, and more ethnically defining traits. On the other hand, Tantra is a socially conservative ritualistic behavior like any other institution, even if it is marginalized or meek. It is, after all, a religious model which enforces ritualized symbolic associations. Asian Tantra and Indian Tantra are the official “camps,” and there is plenty to compare and contrast them by.

In Asian Tantra, Esoteric Buddhism (a.k.a. institutional esotericism, or ‘Mantrayana’) and Tantric Buddhism (a.k.a. siddha esotericism, or ‘Yogini Tantra’) have practically, historically, and politically separate leanings.

“Mantrayana differs from the Perfection Path (paramitayana) Mahayana Buddhism that historically preceded it in its emphasis on the ritual entering of a circle of divinities (a mandala) and on the recitation of sacred formulas (mantra) - the production of sounds whose wavelengths cause fundamental universal powers to resonate. […] Mandalas and mantras are also a part of Yogini Tantra […], but the texts and the practices differ, now incorporating union with a female partner and a belief in a highly developed interior yogic anatomy, one shared with Hindu Tantrism.” (Woodward 2004:330, emphases added)

For the elite Esoteric Buddhist monks living through the Nara and Heian periods in China, the attainment of Buddhahood, indeed their primary goal at the time, was accomplished by artistic and musical talents – including mandala craft and melodic spiritual chanting – as much as it was by scripture and meditation (Nettl 2008:150). This was for a charged practice of self-enlightenment that was followed by educational, but entertaining, public discourse. The ideological paradigm did not last forever, but it was adapted from others with which Chinese culture interacted, and it definitely continued in a similar manner, though mostly excluding music in practice, in other surrounding societies. Even now, followers of Buddhism from myriad geographical locations provide that apparent example when they convene at the Indian state of Bodhgaya, Bihar for the Kalachakra Initiation where they chant en masse, take turns meditatively creating the largest ephemeral sand mandala recorded, and spread their seeds of faith and wisdom amongst non-Buddhist locals and travelers alike.

Tantra in general might be said to fundamentally encompass much of the same formatting, but Indian Tantra has its own defining traits, language, and associated religion. Hindus do not generally consider themselves part of a religion (nor do they call ‘it’ Hinduism); their practices are subjectively considered a moral lifeway, called Sanatana Dharma. None the less, deities dutifully and functionally serve as mandates for the belief structures which empower and enchant all forms of Yoga, as well as Indian Tantra. Buddhism isn’t much of a different schema, in that it also deifies ethereal and/or enlightened beings (both the spiritual essence of Buddha as well as past Boddhisattvas) and idolizes their imagery, while simultaneously infusing its adherents with the notion that one can achieve Godhead status. Moreover, both of these modalities give great importance to sound and space.

“The principle behind this use of the yantra is basic to tantric perception. Each yantra makes visible the patterns of force that can be heard in the mantra sound syllables, and each yantra reciprocally encloses its own unique power-pattern. Together, yantra-mantra may be said to build form (by the act of configuration), to conserve form (the configuration itself), and finally to dissolve form (as the aspirant comprehends its inner meaning and soars beyond it).” [Khanna 1979: 6]

Relative more to Hindus than the Chinese or Southeast Asians is the language of Sanskrit. The alphabet for this language is called the Mantra Purusha, or ‘person of sound,’ which instantly produces telling imagery of how its speakers correlate physical waveforms and communication to a primally sentient, anthropomorphic being. “In this regard, the sixteen Sanskrit vowels make up the head of the Mantra Purusha; the five sets of five consonants, twenty five in all, make up the four limbs and the trunk,” and, “ The five semi-vowels and four “s” and “h” sounds make up the tissues, prana and mind” (Frawley 1999:275). Here we have an ancient form of artistically encoded physical science and a motif for the mythologized human yantra (being-symbol) as a creational force, all at once.

Yantras themselves can transcend language barriers. Through communication and educational training, people of the Western world have learned well enough within the last forty years how to understand and self-realize the various Eastern transcendental spiritual states and religions. The opposite is also true, regarding Eastern embrace of Western thought. As some population groups of the Eastern world have come to understand each others’ belief systems, they have even syncretized some of their aspects. Yet, even without polyglottal intermeshing, mandalas can portray universal ideas through their usage of symmetry and asymmetry, and distinguished patterning of flourished ‘ir/regular polygons,’ as well as both odd and even numbered design-element intervals. Mandalas and three-dimensional yantras can represent, respectively, physical objects and even maps; enlightenment can be found in the cognizance it takes to deduce those depths. Through linguistics, we’ve gathered a loose, but multilaterally agreed translation of ‘mandala’: “manda” means “essence” (or “pith”), and “la” means “seizing,”

“"So, mandala" conveys a sense of "seizing the essence" or "enclosing the essence." It does not seem a misreading to interpret "essence" here as what is real or sacred. And the sense of enclosure of space connects to the three-dimensional, structural forms of the phenomenon. The still extant practice of drawing a mandala within a mandala house in some cases reflects the same origination” (Albanese 1977:13).

Such reflection can be metonymically tied to many notions. The motions of the Heavenly bodies and nature’s own architectural compositions, of both inorganic and organic matter, are no exception. Cultures divided by vast distances and periods of time have arrived at similar conclusions regarding what is compositionally/mathematically/geometrically elegant.

There are practices in many cultures which mirror the critical component of Tantra’s disciplined tonal production (mantra) for the sake of religious devotion. The formal chanting of the Koran, for example, is done with two types of ‘sung’ verse: “Muttaral is the unembellished, subdued, syllabic, relatively simple style; Mujawwad is emotional, ornamented, melodically complicated” (Nettl 2008:65). Both styles exert heavy influences on the scales – maqam – of Middle Eastern music, similar to how Hindu Sanskrit was born of mantra, and how simplistic Buddhist music, like Shomyo, (Nettle 2008:150) was born of Tantric chant. Nettle also outlines “the music of the Zurkhaneh, a kind of traditional gymnasium where men exercise to the chanting of a specialized singer, or morshed, who accompanies himself on drum and bells, using the latter also to direct the participants to change exercises (2008:67). By the way that the Koran is addressed and spiritually envisioned by the act of chant, instruments, and bodily exertion, Zurkhaneh is akin to Tantric puja - if it was to be performed in a fraternal gathering rather than in a solitary, or heterosexually coupled setting. Closer to home, in the Hindu Brahmanic (elite/royal) cultural caste, the very sounds of the ancient Vedic hymns were “considered to be the necessary means for coercing the gods to provide for the needs of the people, and after many generations in a new land, the people feared that the archaic language and the pronunciation of the Vedas would be lost” (Nettl 2008:35). Thus, the raga was born. When musicologist Dr. Solveig Macintosh discovered, while researching khyal singing styles of North India, that “music and language were linked at very basic levels going back to ancient India,” she quickly “began to delve deeper into the roots of Vedic mantra recitation and the evolution of India’s oldest classical vocal form known as dhrupada” (Olson 2007:334). Again, we have an example of socially conservative politico-religious preservation in persuasively artistic means; the very tones in Middle Eastern and Indian ‘songs’ of today are as socially symbolic as any rich painting.

If a Tantrika, who mainly chants long, mono-vowel/consonant mantras, is able to emit overtones and create extra-low frequency binaural rhythms within his own vibrating chest and head, the average number of intoned cycles per second would most likely entrain his brainwaves (and therefore his level of consciousness), forcibly, to that very frequency. Psychologically – that is, neurophysiologically – this would be the one automatically unifying, effectual factor between individuals of differing cultures (Morris 2002:71). Concurrently,

“A common mistake is to view mantras in conceptual terms, splitting hairs over the meaning of the vocables. Mantras are not to be regarded as parts of speech, or elements of grammar. They are non-discursive symbols articulating the ineffable in terms of resonating wavicles [in quantum physics: ‘particle waves’] of sound vibrations. The concentrated symbol of the metric mantra and the compact whole of the yantra coincide to arouse appropriate psychic states in the sadhaka.” [Khanna 1979: 34-36, emphasis added]

This very statement implies that the vibratory mode – the timbre or oscillation – of the mantra is more important for transcendence than the spoken words themselves (with their deep symbolism and subjective interpretations). It may even be the case that the invention of mandalas coincided with the advent discovery of geometric modal phenomena on vibrated surfaces. This type of event, described by fluid dynamics, is commonly referred to as ‘cymatics.’

Cymatics is a term given to the symmetrically oriented, geometrical patterns which are created by the sympathetic resonance of a vibrated planar surface. These patterns can only be seen when such a vibrating surface has an excitable particulate material or fluid resting upon it; and, these materials thus come to life, in their efficient organic formation and collective movements around structured waveforms of sound. These patterns can be transformed, or deviated, depending upon differences in the amount and sizes of the particles or fluids which ‘catch’ in the planar modes (vibratory nodes and antinodes). Ernst Chladni (1787CE) was the original pioneer of a method dedicated to the exploration of these phenomena, but Leonardo Davinci (~1500) Galileo Galilei (1632), Robert Hooke (1680), and Margaret Watts-Hughes (1891), amongst many others (Cymascope 2010), may be the first in recorded European history to have documented observances of them. After these curious minds, in 1967, Hans Jenny took the science to new heights; and, it was he who first applied the Greek term Cymatics (or ‘wave’) to its designs and its study. This recurring, cross-cultural paradigm of learning and relearning nature’s role in musical harmonies (in relation to geometrical objects) may well root back to an Eastern manmade yantra – perhaps a mandala-decorated gong/s – which served, beautifully and metaphorically, as a standardized tuning mechanism at the same time. It is surely the case that heavy research has been put into the ornate ‘cube’ decorations of Scotland’s intriguing Rosslyn Chapel, by composers and musicians Tommy and Stuart Mitchell (a father-and-son team), which testifies to such an intuitive encryption of knowledge upon etched stone (Mitchell 2006:32). The decorations brilliantly encode the medieval Solfeggio concert pitch, and its note intervals (its scale). A similar sort of encryption is seen elsewhere, too – in Java and India, of course.

Depictions of Hindu creation myths such as the Ramayana are found upon the carved stone relief murals on the walls of Borobudur temple in Java. Within these multilayered visual stories are found musical instruments, depicted to illustrate the profound keystone importance of music. The suggestion from such museum-quality artistry is that the flutes, bells, drums, lute, and string instruments therein altogether represent the first Southeast Asian record of a musical ensemble, and that it may indeed be the origin of the contemporary gamelan itself (Wikipedia 2007). That this image is scrawled upon the framework for a much larger teaching tool – a physical Sri Yantra mandala of nine levels, representing universal abundance, as a stone temple – a resonance is felt regarding the Indian and Eastern myths (as well as modern quantum physics) of microcosms within macrocosms:

“The Barabadur Stupa like the yantra is conceived as a place of spiritual pilgrimage. In the stupa the journey starts at one of the four doorways, and continues through the lowest galleries, which illustrate in relief scenes from the Buddha legends representing the world of desire and illusion. As the pilgrim moves in a spiral to the upper terraces which open out to the sky, the Buddha images become more and more abstract – an change which represent the transition from the world of matter to the world of the spirit. It parallels the sadhaka’s journey from the material to the spiritual during meditation on the Sri Yantra. Movement from the lower, outermost levels to the centre, the summit/bindu, is to be translated from the world of matter to the world beyond thought.” [Khanna 1979: 148]

This sort of three-dimensional spiritual materialization is seen nearby in the East, and accurately dates to the same period of history, denoting a definite cultural ideology-exchange taking place.

Ellora is an archaeological World Heritage Site some thirty kilometers from the city of Aurangabad in the Indian state of Maharashtra. The manmade, labyrinthine Buddhist ‘caves’ there, which date from around 600-800CE, are in such close proximity to similar Hindu and Jain caves that historians and anthropologists alike cannot dissociate the cultures from their collective syncretism and harmony with one another during that time. Relatively, “In subsequent periods [to the mandala-making Harappan civilization of 3000BC] the Vedic altars (c. 2000 BC), pregnant with cosmic symbolism, were conspicuously abstract in design,” and “It was in tantrism (CE 700-1200, the tantric renaissance period) that the use of mystic symbols was fully revived” (Khanna 1979:10). These caves contain three-dimensional rock-cutout mandala reliefs and painted Buddhist imagery (which change in meaning as a pilgrim moves about them), but they have much more interesting contexts. “Instead of proceeding mentally through a two-dimensional mandala the worshipper at Ellora could walk through a set of three-dimensional mandalas, the caves themselves” (Malandra 1985:67). Borobudur and Ellora both can give us some further clues about the nature of unifying Eastern principles. “The Sri Yantra itself is essentially three-dimensional, like a terraced mountain, and both yantra and stupa represent the cosmological scheme of the mythical ‘world-mountain,’ Mount Meru,” (Khanna 1979:148) and moreover, “Meru rose up in a third dimension; in doing so, it pierced the heavens; in piercing the heavens, it transcended time as well as space; in transcending time it became […] a magical tool for the rupture of plane” (Mabbett 1983:66, emphasis added). This occult metaphor gives ordinary yantras, and mantras associated with them, supernatural qualities. Through meditation on them, the self-deifying spiritual pilgrim becomes the origin of lightning, sound, and the universe itself. There are many yantras within Eastern Tantra that appear significant enough in themselves, at first glance, but which extend deep into the ideological networks in which they reside.

In the right hand of Buddha, and of initiated monks, is the vajra/dorje (an “indestructible force”); in the left hand, the ghanta (a bell) – light and sound, respectively, materialized in geometric creations of the human mind. In Tantric Buddhism these symbols are polysemic in representation. The vajra is a representation of lightning and supremacy – of Vajrayana, the ‘Thunderbolt Way’ or ‘Diamond Way’ experienced in attaining Buddhahood – and of upaya, the male ability of professional rhetoric or “skill in means” (Gombrich 1997:17). The ghanta is a representation of the commanding vibration which clears all space, the female nature of prajna (wisdom) which is “the path of practice leading to the cessation of stress [or of ‘suffering,’ as is written in the Four Noble Truths],” otherwise known as “the faculty of discernment”(Bikkhu 1997: SN 48.10, emphasis added) . Indian polysemic symbolism is similar. Shiva’s trident (in the right hand) is an indestructible force, while the drum (in the left hand) is an instrumental means of spiritual bliss, and is also the source of cosmic creation. The serpents found in his presence portray fearlessness and control while simultaneously being icons of the Kundalini – the sensual force of creation in every person – which sleeps, coiled at the base of the spine. “The awakening of Kundalini in meditation causes her to rise up through the meru channel to the highest of the seven chakras or planes, where the union of Siva [the creative and destructive male force] and Sakti [the feminine creative force] finally takes place; this mediates the liberation of the worshiper from the bondage of samsara [the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth found in all Eastern religions]” (Mabbett 1983:78, emphasis added). In fact, there are thousands of such symbolic yantras within these cultures. Each serves as a reminder of personal place, and of relationships in nature, as much as they are aides for soul-searching, health, and liberation.

Obviously, meditation on any of these devices is not necessarily a simplification of thoughts and reduction or withdrawal from sensory experience. The usage of visual and auditory symbols, which are culturally unique in their mental effects (as Barfield notes regarding ‘trance’), also perpetuates technological advance; this occurs somewhat like the manner by which mandalas became ‘plan view maps’ for three dimensional temples and complexes. Technology itself, in this sense, can be considered a type of liberation.

“In Tibet, one finds prayer cylinders rotating on a vertical axle, powered by an anemometer-like horizontal wind turbine. Since in the shamanistic areas fluttering flags are a form of prayer, it has been assumed that wind-driven prayer cylinders are early, but unfortunately they have not been dated. The initial idea of salvation by the rotation of sacred writings, however, must have been Chinese rather than Tibetan. Perhaps as early as the sixth century, but certainly by A.D. 823, revolving book-cases, usually octagonal, were sometimes placed in Chinese Buddhist monasteries to store and facilitate reference to, the Tripitaka.” [White 1960:518]

White actually carried on this research to detail how forthcoming impellers, propellers, turbines, and rolling mills were inspired by these Eastern designs. In fine point, the Western world had been convinced that Henry Ford invented the functional differential gear, and that all mechanical engineering has him to thank for it, thereby – until recently. The Antikythera Mechanism, found underwater off the coast of Crete (the largest of the Greek Islands), is a shining example of why archaeology and history are important for the realm of cultural preservation and science (Freeth, et al. 2010). It uses differential gearing, and it was created between 600-300BCE. This complicated clockwork device, recreated an duplicated in labs throughout the world, smoothly details the movements of six planets and the Moon in reference to the Sun. It predicts all types of eclipses and even the bygone dates for the Grecian Olympic Games – all with astounding precision. This currently baffles academia, and spawns debates like no other find.

Tantric puja is fantastic in its own right, no matter how it continues to influence or how it’s been the subject of influence itself; yet, it is seemingly practiced by even those who are not familiar with it, let alone aware of it. Though the Silk Road was refined and officiated by royal mandate of the Han Dynasty, from around 206BCE-forward (Nettl 2008:90), there was surely intellectual trade between the Mediterranean region, India, and China, taking place before that time. These exchanges that took place between peoples along its meandering paths became admixtures of agglomerating ideologies, but they also caused the ignition of brand new social offshoots. It might be said of the Eastern world that there exist two branches of transcendental spiritual practice, based on dichotomous extremes: the warrior’s path, and the path of peace. Yoga and Tai Qi Quan – as modes of transcendental meditation – are performed to become a powerful, minimalist, and retained individual. Tantric puja, of both India and of Asia, is performed in order to become an inter-dependent, but deified person of sensorial, constructivist, and social sensibilities. Although practitioners of Tai Qi Quan – and the related styles of Qi Gong and Gong Fu – do not necessarily incorporate mantra into their rituals (even if they do emphasize the crucial nature of mental focus and of precise rhythmic breathing), they do certainly incorporate obvious yantras, in the forms of their ‘effects’ (materials and performances) and their compositionally ‘oriented’ temples, courtyards, and dojos within which they practice. Yogic masters, too, fit into a similar schema. These disciplines are all connected because they use yantras and mantras, whether or not they are Tantric puja specifically. Still, whether or not they are formally sanctioned or considered consensus reality, symbols and vibrations of all sorts are the foundations of culture everywhere. Like Tantric puja, these foundations just take a little insight, towards reverse-framework, in order to be realized.

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Tantric Puja: Transcendence through Sound and Form by Brendan M. Bombaci is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.