(“substitute”) Anything that may be utilized appropriately as a replacement in the framework of tantra, a hidden, ritually oriented religious activity.
The most renowned of these ceremonies, the Five Forbidden
Things (panchamakara), includes breaking societal taboos against drinking
alcohol, eating nonvegetarian cuisine, and engaging in illegal sex.
The ceremonial usage of typically banned objects must be
seen in the perspective of tantric practice as a whole.
The ultimate oneness of everything that exists is one of the
most widespread tantric conceptions.
From this viewpoint, adepts believe that the whole cosmos is
one principle—often described as the action of a certain deity—and hence reject
all dualistic conceptions.
By sacralizing many things that are normally banned, the
"Five Forbidden Things" offers a ceremonial manner of dissolving the
dualism of holy and forbidden.
These five items are utilized in "left hand"
(vamachara) tantra in their original form, and in "right hand"
(dakshinachara) tantra through replacement.
Substitution permits the adept to execute the rite while
avoiding the embarrassment that comes with breaching certain social boundaries.
Although tantric scriptures allow for replacement in this
ceremony, they are generally quite detailed about what kinds of objects are
suitable substitutions, which is a hallmark of ritual systems with tight
definitions.
Swami Agehananda Bharati's The Tantric Tradition was
published in 1975, while Douglas Renfrew Brooks' The Secret of the Three Cities
was published in 1990.
