The Source of the Tantras
Tantra practice requires conviction in the authenticity of the tantras, correct understanding of their procedures and theory, and certainty of their validity as methods leading to enlightenment. According to the Tibetan tradition, Shakyamuni Buddha himself is the source of the tantras. Many scholars, however, both Western and Buddhist, have disputed this point. By Western scientific standards, however, none of the texts ascribed to Buddha – neither the sutras nor the tantras – can pass the test for authenticity. The question is whether this is crucial to tantra practitioners or other criteria are more relevant to them.
The Tibetans explain that Shakyamuni Buddha taught three vehicles or pathways of practice that lead to the highest spiritual goals. The modest vehicle, Hinayana (Skt. Hīnayāna), leads to liberation, while the vast vehicle, Mahayana (Skt. Mahāyāna), leads to enlightenment. Although Hinayana is a pejorative term appearing only in Mahayana texts, we shall use it here without negative connotation as the widely accepted general term for the eighteen pre-Mahayana Buddhist schools. Tantrayana (Skt. Tantrayāna), the tantra vehicle – also called Vajrayana (Skt. Vajrayāna), the diamond-strong vehicle – is a subdivision of Mahayana. Hinayana transmits only sutras, while Mahayana transmits both sutras and tantras.
No one recorded Buddha's discourses or instructive dialogues when he held them two and a half thousand years ago, since Indian custom at the time limited the use of writing to business and military affairs. The year after Buddha passed away, however, five hundred of his followers gathered in a council at which three of his main disciples recounted different portions of his words. Subsequently, different groups of monks took responsibility to memorize and periodically to recite specific sections of them. The responsibility passed from one generation of disciples to the next. These words became the Hinayana sutras. Their claim to authenticity rests exclusively on faith that the three original disciples had perfect recall and that those at the council who corroborated their accounts all remembered the same words. These two provisions are impossible to establish scientifically.
Even if the original transmission were free of corruption, many outstanding disciples in subsequent generations lacked flawless memories. Within a hundred years after Buddha passed away, disagreements arose over many of the Hinayana sutras. Eventually, eighteen schools emerged, each with its own version of what Buddha said. The schools even disagreed as to how many of Buddha's discourses and dialogues were recited at the first council. According to some versions, several of Buddha's disciples were unable to attend and orally transmitted exclusively to their own students the teachings that they recalled. The most outstanding examples are the texts concerning special topics of knowledge (Skt. abhidharma). For many years, subsequent generations recited them outside the officially sanctioned meetings and only later councils added them to the Hinayana collection.
The first written scriptures appeared four centuries after Buddha, in the middle of the first century BCE. They were the Hinayana sutras from the Theravada (Skt. Theravāda) school, the line of elders. Gradually, the sutras from the other seventeen Hinayana schools also emerged in written form. Although the Theravada version was the first to appear in writing and although Theravada is the only Hinayana school that survives intact today, these two facts are inconclusive to prove that the Theravada sutras are the authentic words of Buddha.
The Theravada sutras are in the Pali language, while the other seventeen versions are in assorted Indian languages such as Sanskrit and the local dialect of Magadha, the region where Buddha lived. It cannot be established, however, that Shakyamuni taught in only one or all of these Indian tongues. Thus, no version of the Hinayana sutras can claim authenticity on the grounds of language.
Moreover, Buddha advised his disciples to transmit his teachings in whatever forms would be intelligible. He did not wish his followers to freeze his words into a sacred archaic language like that of the ancient Indian scriptures, the Vedas. Consistent with this guideline, different portions of Buddha's Hinayana teachings first appeared in writing in divers Indian languages and in dissimilar styles of composition and grammar to suit the times. The Mahayana sutras and tantras also exhibit a wide diversity of style and language. From a traditional Buddhist viewpoint, diversity of language proves authenticity rather than refutes it.
According to the Tibetan tradition, before Buddha's teachings were put into writing, disciples recited the Hinayana sutras openly at large monastic gatherings, the Mahayana sutras in small private groups, and the tantras in extreme secrecy. The Mahayana sutras first surfaced in the early second century CE, and the tantras began to emerge perhaps as soon as a century later, although any precise dating is impossible. As noted above, according to several Hinayana traditions, private circles orally transmitted even some of the most famous Hinayana texts before the major monastic assemblies accepted them into the corpus of what they openly recited. Therefore, the absence of a text from the first council's agenda does not disprove its authenticity.
Moreover, the participants of the tantra recitation sessions swore vows of secrecy not to reveal the tantras to the uninitiated. Therefore, it is not surprising that personal accounts of the tantra meetings have not appeared. Thus, it is difficult to prove or disprove the prewritten transmission of the tantras and the occurrence of the secret meetings. Moreover, even if one accepts a prewritten oral transmission of the tantras, it is impossible to establish how and when such transmission began, as is the case with the Hinayana scriptures missing from the first council.
As the Indian master Shantideva argued in Engaging in Bodhisattva Behavior (Skt. Bodhicaryavatara) any line of reasoning presented to prove or discredit the authenticity of the Mahayana texts applies equally to the Hinayana scriptures. Therefore, the authenticity of the tantras must rely on criteria other than linguistic factors and the date of initial redaction.