ABSTRACT
The rigorous investigation of Indian Tantrism in general, and Indian Tantric Buddhism in particular, is still in its infancy. One of the more compelling areas in need of scrutiny is the issue of secrecy: what were the origins, dynamics, semantic fields, and specific idioms of secrecy in the early period of the esoteric movement and how did this change over time? I cannot suggest that I have solved many of the difficult issues embedded in this problem, but I have begun the examination of esoteric Buddhist literature in hope of exploring a few of the major questions relating to secrecy. This paper will propose that secrecy in Tantric Buddhism had much to do with the sectarian friction of India’s early medieval period (sixth to twelfth century CE), exacerbated by the society’s militarization. Tantric systems were both built on Mah4y4nist mythologies and differentiated from them; the tantras ritualized the mythological episodes through the transmission from master to disciple and simultaneously imposed restrictions on the dissemination of Buddhist doctrine in a manner not previously witnessed.1 The primary domains of secrecy were meditative ideology and ritual performance rather than philosophical or doctrinal development, even while the tantras made significant contributions to the latter. Consequently, secrecy became both a rubric for the unfoldment of new ritual or meditative horizons and a strategy for the restriction of these revelations to Buddhists, especially those initiated into the fold.
