ABSTRACT
There are several reasons for discussing literary history of the Buddhist Tantras in general, while taking main evidence from the Guhyasamaja cycle. This chapter argues that an Explanatory Tantra of the Guhyasamaja called Vajramala was composed in the fifth century a.d., and the basic tantra Guhyasamaia probably in the fourth century a.d. In the eighth century tantrism entered a new phase with the emergence of the Siddhas or tantric masters and the beginning of tantric rationalization, that is, the enterprise of commentary by the tantric pandits, who tried to explain all sorts of obscure points in those “revealed texts”. In the early Gupta period there was a vast amount of collecting and rewriting of old legends, as well as the composition of formal treatises, political, philosophical, and so on—required by the new age which had turned to written-down religious texts beginning to compete with the memorized tradition.
