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FifthDalai Lama was, rightly or wrongly, supposed to have been trained in this technique and that the story of his miraculous urination was a symbolic presentation of seminal re-absorption.
    The origins of Tantricism are shrouded in uncertainty. The name itself is derived from the
Tantras
, literary works expounding various systems of esoteric Buddhism and Hinduism. These treaties deal with almost every aspect of esoteric religio-magical thought; there are
Tantras
dealing with astrology, with the construction of the mystic diagrams known as mandalas, with the preparation of ritualistic ingredients, etc. etc. 1 In spite of the heterogeneous nature of their contents the form of the
Tantras
usually follows a rigid literary convention. They almost always begin with a conversation between two deities; one asks the other a question, the other refuses to answer, the first again begs to be told the answer to his or her question. Eventually the enquiring deity gets its way and the
Tantra
assumes the form of an answer to the question that has been asked—before this, however, there is usually a good deal of oriental flim-flam, with the god saying that the information he is about to give has never before been divulged, that it is only being given now because of the veneration and admiration with which he regards the questioner, and so on.
    Scholars have been, still are, and probably always will be, divided on the question of whether Hindu Tantricism grew out of Buddhist Tantricism or
vice versa
. The older view, now held by only a minority of scholars, was that Buddhism had come into contact with Tantricism or some similar cult and that from a blending of philosophical and theological concepts derived from the former and sexo-yogic techniques derived from the latter had come into existence Vajrayana Buddhism—the oldest school of Tantric Buddhism—which although it was eventually extinguished in its Indian motherland, successfully survived in Tibet. The more modern, and now generally accepted theory is that all Hindu schools using sexual polarity symbolism were originally derived from Buddhism. 2
    In any real sense the problem is insoluble. Perhaps, as has beensuggested by Sh. Dasgupta, neither Buddhist nor Hindu Tantricism grew out of the other—although there seems little doubt that the oldest Buddhist
Tantras
are chronologically earlier than the oldest surviving Hindu
Tantras
—but that both grew out of a religious, sexo-yogic cult of ancient India, this cult manifesting as Tantric Buddhism when in contact with Buddhist philosophy, and as Saiva and Shakta Tantricism when associated with the religious speculations of the Saivas and Shaktas.
    The philosophy of all schools of Tantricism sees both the universe, the macrocosm, and man himself, the microcosm, as being made up of two opposing aspects—male and female, static and dynamic, negative and positive 3 —and holds that the existence of these opposites in a state of duality is the source of all sorrow, pain, change, and suffering. The object of all religious endeavour should be, so it is believed, liberation from this duality and a return to a state in which the two opposing principles are united in a state of absolute non-duality.
    Hindu Tantricism has called the male, that is to say the negative, passive, principle,
Shiva
, and the female, dynamic principle
Shakti
. In the human body (which, as in western occultism, is regarded a microcosm, a universe in miniature) the two principles are regarded as being particularly associated with two of the chakras—the centres of psycho-spiritual force which are of such importance in the esoteric physiology of Yoga.
Shiva
is regarded as dwelling in the Sahasrara chakra, the “thousand-petalled lotus” supposedly situated at the crown of the head, while
Shakti
is associated with the Muladhara chakra which is believed to lie over the perineum and the base of the spine. Liberation from duality can only be achieved, so it is believed by