THE CULT OF VETĀLA AND TANTRIC FANTASY∗

Po-chi Huang

Vetāla: (A kind of spirit, ghost, ghoul, vampire, or zombie, residing in ৡ೒; or transliteration inڽa corpse. In Chinese: ದ՝೒, ದৡ೒, ದ (.๝ڍ᷇೒, ḛڍܲ ,Chinese characters: ḛॲᢅ, ಮࢧᢅ

New Intellectual Milieu and Tantra

Before investigating the cult of Vetāla as a Tantric ritual, we should explore the intellectual climate of medieval India. Tantrism, as the new Zeitgeist in medieval India, offers a glimpse on a new synthesis of religious thinking as well as a new definition of pouvoir. Tantrism shifted away from tapas (ascetic austerity) to śakti (Tantric power). Its emergence represents a remarkable religious transformation in India, also reflecting Pan-Asian intellectual concerns.1 From the perspective of its two main contributors-the Hindu and Buddhist Tantras,2 this Zeitgeist shows a dramatic reversal of early

∗ I would like to thank Dr. Lilian Handlin for her useful comments and editorial suggestions. 1 David White, “Tantra in Practice: Mapping a Tradition,” in David White ed., Tantra in Practice (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), p. 7: “Tantra has persisted and often thrived throughout Asian history since the middle of the first millennium of the common era. Its practitioners have lived in India, China, Japan, Tibet, Bhutan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Korea, and Mongolia as well as in the ‘Greater India’ of medieval Southeast Asia: Cambodia, Burma and Indonesia. No form of medieval Hinduism, Buddhism, of Jainism . . . has been without a Tantric component . . . In Hindu India, the Pañcarātra . . . GauḍīyaVaisnava,̣ Sahajiyā, Kāpālika, Śaiva Siddhānta, Siddha Kaula, Yoginī Kaula . . . Śrīvidyā . . . and Tamil Nāyan̠ār and Ālvār̠ traditions . . . have all been Tantric or heavily colored by Tantra.” 2 For Tantric Buddhism in Tibet and East Asia, see David L. Snellgrove, Indo-Tibetan Buddhism: Indian Buddhist and Their Tibetan Successors vol. 1 (Boston: Shambhala, 1987), and Michel Strickmann, Mantras et Mandarins: Le bouddhisme tantrique en Chine (Paris: Gallimard, 1996) respectively; for a general introduction to Hindu Tantrism, see Teun Goudriaan and Sanjukta Gupta, Hindu Tantric and Śākta Literature (Wies- baden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1984); for a concise survey of Śaivism, see A. Sanderson, “Śaivism and the Tantric Traditions,” in Stewart Sutherland, L. Houlden, P. Clarke and F. Hardy eds., The World’s Religions (Boston, Mass.: G. K. Hall, 1988), pp. 660–704. The relationship between Buddhist and Hindu (especially Śaiva) Tantras is an intriguing 212 po-chi huang

Śramaṇism. This new religious adventure combined two initially irreconcilable entities: asceticism and worldly enjoyment. A Tāntrika (Tantric practitioner) needed to overcome dualistic opposition to gain spiritual realization. But this union of two originally irreconcilable con- ditions for a higher quest was not unique to Tantrism—the paradox is found in Buddhist Mādhyamika philosophy too: The truth of the highest meaning takes its reality only through being projected onto the screen (samvṛti) of conventional truth. Recognition of the strictly contextual or pragmatic significance of the thoughts and objects that populate our mental and material world renders meaning- less any search for a transcendental ground behind these phenomena. But paradoxically, by stripping away the tendency to reify the screen of everyday affairs, this same recognition simultaneously lays bare the intrin- sic nature of all things, which is their “suchness” (tathatā), their quality of being just as they are in reciprocal dependence. What is immediately given in everyday experience is indeed all that there is, for the inherently interdependent nature of the components of this experience is the truth of the highest meaning; both the means to the goal (mārga; upāya) and the goal itself (nirvāṇa).3 I regard this paradoxical thinking as central to medieval India’s para- digmatic intellectual climate because this persuasion mode is shared by the Hindu side. The idea of beyond-dualism (parādvaya) articu- lated in Śvetāśvatara Upanisaḍ parallels medieval Buddhism.4 Indeed,

question. Sanderson suggests that Buddhist siddhi literature like Yoginī Tantras have drawn heavily from Śaiva Kāpālika scriptures. (A. Sanderson, “Vajrayāna: Origin and Function,” in Dhammakaya Foundation ed., Buddhism into the Year 2000: International Conference Proceedings (Bangkok and Los Angeles: Dhammakaya Foundation, 1994, pp. 87–102) One the other hand, Davidson argues: “Buddhist-Kāpālika connection is more complex than a simple process of religious imitation and textual appropria- tion . . . the influence was apparently mutual . . . Thus the influence was both sustained and reciprocal, even in those places where Buddhist and Kāpālika siddhas were in extreme antagonism.” (Ronald Davidson, Indian Esoteric Buddhism: A History of the Tantric Movement (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), p. 218.) Looking from the perspective of similar historical development, Strickmann contends: “Je suis convaincu que les āgama śivaïsme médiéval et les tantra du bouddhisme médiéval représentent simplement différentes versions, différentes rédactions d’une seule et même chose.” (Strickmann, Mantras et Mandarins: Le bouddhisme tantrique en Chine, p. 24.) This intricate problem remains to be untangled. 3 C. Huntington, The Emptiness of Emptiness: An Introduction to Early Indian Mādhyamika (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1989), pp. 39–40. 4 According to Lehren von Richard Hauschild ed., Die Śvetāśvatara-Upanisad;̣ eine kritische Ausgabe mit einer Übersetzung und einer Übersicht über ihre Lehren (Leipzig: Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft, 1927), p. 74, the date of Śvetāśvatara Upanisaḍ is around 100 B.C.E.–100 A.D.