Vedic Light and Tantric Energy Yogas
By David Frawley 

Tantra and Veda: One Tradition 

A number of writers and teachers, particularly in Western academia, have tried to divide the two great traditions of India of Veda and Tantra as different or even contrary.  Some Yoga teachers have uncritically taken up this view as well. They see the Vedic tradition as Aryan and patriarchal and the Tantric tradition as non-Aryan and matriarchal. They identify the Vedic tradition with invading Aryans and the Tantric tradition with indigenous Dravidians. They see the Tantric as worshipping the Mother Goddess and the Vedic as rejecting her. They imply that Vedic and Tantric ideas and practices are very different.

Now that the Aryan Invasion theory is severely in question, and the Sarasvati River of Vedic fame, discovered as the main homeland of civilization in ancient India, we should reexamine these views. In my own more than thirty years of studying Vedic and Tantric texts in the original Sanskrit, I have also found remarkable connections between the two traditions.

Vedic and Tantric traditions are one, though with different orientations. The Vedic tradition is an earlier form of the Tantric, which itself is a later development of Vedic practices.  Tantric teachings abound in the use of Vedic mantras and the mysticism of the Sanskrit alphabet. They use Vedic fire altars and practices and honor Vedic deities at an inner level. Inner Tantric Yoga reflects the four main Vedic deities of Agni, Soma, Vayu and Surya (the forces of fire, moon, wind and sun).

The easiest correlation to bear in mind between the Vedic and the Tantric is that whereas the Vedas emphasize the Jyotirmaya Purusha, ‘the Being or Person made of light', the Tantras emphasize the Shaktimaya Devi, ‘the Goddess made of energy'. Yet light and energy as consciousness and force are one. The Purusha of light is one with its energy or Shakti. So the two traditions cannot be separated either. We could call the Vedic Yoga a ‘Vedic Light Yoga' and the Tantric Yoga a ‘Tantric Energy Yoga'. The two are not only related historically but are complementary in their mantras and practices.

The Vedic view emphasizes the Shiva principle, though often under the abstract forms of Brahman, Purusha and Atman, and in the form of different Vedic deities (like Agni and Soma) which reflect the cosmic masculine energy and light form identified with Shiva. Yet the Vedas also recognize the Shakti principle as Vak or the power of the Divine Word, which is said to be the Veda-Mata or ‘Mother of the Vedas'. The Goddess pervades the Vedas, not so much as a particular deity but as the Vedic mantra itself, though many feminine deities also exist and each Vedic God has his corresponding Goddess!

The Tantric view emphasizes the Shakti principle as the great Goddess but recognizes the light principle with Shiva as ‘Prakasha' or pure illumination. Tantric Yoga also aims at the realization of Atman and Brahman, defined both as the light and energy of consciousness, Chid-jyoti and Chit-Shakti.