It is remarkable that this barbarous and immoral worship, though looked at askance except in its own holy places, is by no means confined to the lower castes.  A series of apologies composed in excellent English (but sometimes anonymous) attest the sympathy of the educated.  So far as theology and metaphysics are concerned, these defences are plausible.  The Sakti is identified with Prakriti or with the Maya of the Advaita philosophy and defined as the energy, coexistent with Brahman, which creates the world.  But attempts to palliate the ceremonial, such as the argument that it is a consecration and limitation of the appetites because they may be gratified only in the service of the goddess, are not convincing.  Nor do the Saktas, when able to profess their faith openly, deny the nature of their rites or the importance attached to them.  An oft-quoted tantric verse represents Siva as saying Maithunena mahayogi mama tulyo na samsayah.  And for practical purposes that is the gist of Saktist teaching.

The temples of Kamakhya leave a disagreeable impression—­an impression of dark evil haunts of lust and bloodshed, akin to madness and unrelieved by any grace or vigour of art.  For there is no attempt in them to represent the terrible or voluptuous aspects of Hinduism, such as find expression in sculpture elsewhere.  All the buildings, and especially the modern temple of Kali, which was in process of construction when I saw the place, testify to the atrophy and paralysis produced by erotic forms of religion in the artistic and intellectual spheres, a phenomenon which finds another sad illustration in quite different theological surroundings among the Vallabhacarya sect at Gokul near Muttra.

It would be a poor service to India to palliate the evils and extravagances of Saktism, but still it must be made clear that it is not a mere survival of barbaric practices.  The writers of the Tantras are good Hindus and declare that their object is to teach liberation and union with the Supreme Spirit.  The ecstasies induced by tantric rites produce this here in a preliminary form to be made perfect in the liberated soul.  This is not the craze of a few hysterical devotees, but the faith of millions among whom many are well educated.  In some aspects Saktism is similar to the erotic Vishnuite sects, but there is little real analogy in their ways of thinking.  For the essence of Vishnuism is passionate devotion and self-surrender to a deity and this idea is not prominent in the Tantras.  The strange inconsistencies of Saktism are of the kind which are characteristic of Hinduism as a whole, but the contrasts are more violent and the monstrosities more conspicuous than elsewhere; wild legends and metaphysics are mixed together, and the peace that passes all understanding is to be obtained by orgies and offerings of blood.

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 680:  See also chap.  XXIV. as to Saktism and Tantrism in Buddhism.  Copious materials for the study of Saktism and Tantrism are being made available in the series of tantric texts edited in Sanskrit and Tibetan, and in some cases translated by the author who uses the pseudonym A. Avalon.]