level.
Literally, "panchatattva" means "five elements". These elements are related to the five "substances used", which in turn are related to the five "great elements". Coitus with a woman ("maituna") here corresponds to ether; wine or similar intoxicating drink ("madya") - air; meat ("mamsa") - fire; fish ("matsya") - water; finally, certain grains ("mudra") are associated with the earth.[one5] Since the names of all five substances begin with the letter "m", the secret tantric ritual is also called the "five" m (panchamakara) ritual.
Depending on the level at which the ritual is performed, it can have a different meaning. Thus, the administration of "panchatattva", corresponding to the deepening The Path of the Right Hand is aimed at the sacralization of natural functions related to nutrition and sex. The underlying idea here is that the ritual should not be some kind of ceremony that artificially rises above the real existence. On the contrary, it must influence this reality itself, penetrating even its most concrete forms. All the senseless and spontaneous actions of the pashu, the animal man, conditioned by desires and needs (“guna tamas”),[one6] are lived by the vir, with his liberated and developed soul, as a ritual and a sacrifice, as events not just of human, but of cosmic significance. However, all this does not have a specifically tantric character. In fact, the sacralization and ritualization of life is a characteristic of the Hindu civilization as a whole, as, indeed, of any other traditional civilization (here we leave aside some emphatically ascetic forms). The phrase "Eat and drink to the glory of God" is possible even in Christianity, not to mention the pre-Christian West, which knew the practice of consecrating bread. Until relatively late times, Roman sacred meals, “epulei”, retained their religious and symbolic significance, reflecting the ancient concept of the connection between the world of people and the world of gods.[one7]
Difficulties in understanding Tantrism arise when, following the question of the ritual use of food, we come into contact with the question of women and intoxicants. The religion that has triumphed in the West, with its predominant sexophobia complex, regards the sacralization of the sexual act as something exclusive, impure and unacceptable. However, this approach may well be considered as anomalous, if we take into account that the sacralization of sex, considering it as a purely sacred phenomenon, was characteristic of many traditional civilizations. Without any doubt, it is attested in India. Already in the Vedas we find the idea of ​​raising the sexual act to the level of hieros gamos (hierogamy), sacred marriage and religious act. Understood in such terms, the sexual act may even have a spiritual, redemptive power.[oneeight] The Upanishads affirm it as a sacrificial act (the woman and her sexual organ are here the fire to which the sacrifice is made) and give formulas for the cosmic ritualization of intercourse—conscious, not dirty or lustful—when a man connects with a woman as "Heaven" with "Earth".[one9]
The tradition of drinking sacred drinks and ritual libations is also the oldest and is found in many civilizations. One may recall the role played in the Vedic period by "soma" - an intoxicating drink extracted from asclepia acida and equated with the "drink of immortality." It is true that in the use of drinks of this kind, as we shall show below, there was a difference between the level of ritual practice and the initiatory and operational level, at which a special use of their effects was envisaged.
So, as far as the first level of the so-called tantric "secret ritual" is concerned, here it does not represent anything alarming. But the tantric ritual even in this case has a shade of abnormality for the Hindu himself, since India is a predominantly vegetarian country, and the use of intoxicating drinks is strictly limited there. At the same time, in the West, cooking delicious food based on meat with wine or other alcohol is considered quite normal.
Let's move on to the second level of "panchatattva", where the ritual already has an operational significance to a certain extent and where subtle elements come into play. On the one hand, here is given the image of a seed thrown into a crack in the rock, which cannot germinate and develop.[twenty] In this sense, "vira" uses the five substances of panchatattva to absorb and transform the forces latent in them. On the other hand, the vira practicing panchatattva uses the connection of the five substances with the five "great elements", as well as with the five "vayus" or "pranadis" - the currents of vital breath.[2one] Obviously, "prana" belongs to the level of subtle, and not material or organic, forces. However, every action on the organic level also corresponds to a special subtle force. In particular, when the body takes a certain substance, one or another flow of breath is activated to a certain extent, and there is something like an instantaneous flash of the corresponding subtle energies of consciousness in the general dark mass of the organic subconscious. Anyone who, thanks to the previous exercises, which we have touched upon above,22 already has a certain degree of subtle sensitivity sufficient to fix such a flash, will be able to realize contacts with the forces or "great elements" corresponding to the five substances. Such experiences are simplified when they take place in states in which, with the help of a special exaltation, the masses of subtle energies hidden in the body are transferred to an unstable state.
In general, the ratios are given in the following terms:[23]
one) ether corresponds to copulation with a woman and breathing "prana" as an inhaling, absorbing force, which, as a subtle "solar" stream, descends from the nostrils to the level of the heart;
2) air - to intoxicating drinks and "apana" breath, a stream descending from the heart down, the action of which is opposite to the integrative impulse and promotes separation;
3) fire - to the meat and breath of "saman", the flow of organic assimilation, which has the effect of changing and merging with the body;
four) water - to fish and "udana" breath, "fluid" action of excretion;
5) finally, the earth - to flour food and "vyana" breathing, a fixing and compacting flow, felt as a subtle feeling of "weight" of the whole organism.
Thus, the use of panchatattva at this level already presupposes the ability to sense and discern the effects and subtle modifications caused by the five substances. According to those who use such practices, the perception of copulation with a woman corresponds to the feeling of breaking and separation, and the perception of intoxicating drinks corresponds to feelings of expansion and volatility, refinement experienced in a state of dispersion, decomposition; nutrition, in general, is characterized by a feeling of having a wound, rotting. Moreover, we are talking about negative feelings that should be transformed into active states.
It is quite obvious that in the ascetic and purely initiatic realm not only sexual abstinence is recommended, but the consumption of meat and intoxicating drinks is considered unfavorable for spiritual development. But it all depends on orientation. We have already noted that the Left Hand Path has the concept of turning the negative into the positive. In the normal case, the use of women and intoxicants from a spiritual and even psychic point of view, leads to negative, corrupting results. When in all this there is a pure and completely abstract force, the virya potency,[2four] even the most corrupting and negative states can contribute to liberation and even exit into the transcendental sphere, parallel to the diminishing of the residual elements of "tamas". We will return to this topic below.
A slightly different way is to consider the use of animal food and the rejection of the vegetarian regimen. When meat is not recommended from a spiritual point of view, the danger of a kind of “infection” is implied, since the assimilation of such food by the human body equally implies the assimilation of subtle and mental elements of the sub-human and animal plane. Overcoming such a danger is possible only if there is a refined sensitivity capable of noticing these infections, and an inner "fire" strong enough to transform and absorb them. In this case, the impregnation of the additional energy of the lower animal and the elemental substrate in man makes it possible to absorb the maxima of life force, to subordinate it to what is higher, which corresponds to the image of a seed thrown into a crack in the rock, and the general tantric principle of transmuting poisons into vital juices, "in the veins and arteries." Perhaps it was for these reasons that it was argued that the ritual use of intoxicating drinks during panchatattva restores youth to those who are old, that intellectual energy and inner strength increase from meat in the same way as productive power from fish.[25]
It goes without saying that the 'panchatattva' ritual should be regarded as a secret ritual, open only to the 'vir', and inaccessible to the profane and the 'pasha', especially with regard to the two 'tattvas', intoxicants and women. This is also characteristic of the corresponding Buddhist and Vaishnavism rituals.
As for alcoholic beverages, we have already noticed that their use in a sacred capacity is an ancient and many times attested phenomenon. In particular, we recalled the role played by "soma" (equivalent to the Iranian "haoma") in the Hindu Vedic tradition. Soma was seen as the "drink of immortality", amrita. This term is etymologically identical to the Greek "ambrosia" (the literal meaning of both is "non-death"). In fact, it is also about non-material, "heavenly catfish".[26] With the degradation of humanity, starting from a certain period, "the