TANTRA AND AUTHENTICITY

I was eighteen when I went up to university to read for a degree in Philosophy and Psychology, and in the preceding months I had made my way through a preparatory reading list. Insensitive to the strengths of logical positivism and behaviourism, I found the suggested books disappointingly dry and pragmatic in the light of my interest in Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Freud, and Jung, and the first lectures confirmed my disillusion. I lasted perhaps two weeks at what was then known as ‘PPP’ (I had paid no attention at all to the prospect of the third ‘P’, which was physiology) before I requested a transfer to Oriental Studies. After a brief chat with my college ‘Moral Tutor’, who advised me cheerfully not to ‘go native’, I went to the Oriental Institute for another short interview. Academic life was relatively informal and relaxed in those days, and I was admitted without difficulty to the degree course in Sanskrit and Pali. As I recall, only two other students had enrolled that year, so I imagine that the authorities were happy enough to swell their number, if only by one. In retrospect, this was somewhat surprising. Other than a keen interest in Buddhism and Hinduism, I was poorly equipped to deal with the rigours of a degree that focussed on the intricacies of classical languages that were unknown to me.

It was not long before a brown paper package arrived from John Sandoe’s bookshop in Chelsea, which enclosed a postcard from a family friend, a very cosmopolitan Italian. He had heard, he said, that I was now reading Oriental Studies, and he was sending two books that he thought I might enjoy. The first was a Chinese esoteric text, ‘The Secret of the Golden Flower’, with a long introduction by Carl Jung; the other was ‘Tantra Art’ by Ajit Mookerjee. It was one of those oddly memorable presents that is never forgotten, and both publications were to become significant, perhaps especially the book on Tantra, which is substantial and full of compelling illustrations. I have been fascinated by Tantric art ever since. I liked the cosmic and metaphysical diagrams, the pictures of chakras, and the colourful gods; in short, I was drawn to a deeply seductive and unfamiliar form of spirituality.

Just before Christmas last year another unexpected gift arrived in the post. It was a beautifully produced catalogue of an exhibition of Indian Tantric and Jain art at Joost van den Bergh’s gallery in London, and it gave me occasion to reflect on why my interest in the subject has lasted for half a century, and how it led to the acquisition of a number of Tantric and other sketches, drawings, manuscripts, and bronzes, some of them quite similar to those in Joost van den Bergh’s show. Mine are not all of high quality, which raised another question. Although I would probably buy fine examples if I had the means to do so, I find myself content with what I have - so why isn’t the difference more important?

It has much to do with their blend of exoticism and authenticity. I like the artefacts if they’re worn or repaired, even if they’re fragments, and I’m not especially concerned if I don’t know exactly what their symbolism means. In other words, my interest is neither that of a scholar nor of a connoisseur. I appreciate their original usefulness and enjoy knowing that they served specific purposes that were related to strange metaphysical views of life. In that light, modern copies - and particularly fakes - have little appeal. Before I learnt where to acquire older work inexpensively, I occasionally bought more recent pieces, but something about them bothered me, and I eventually concluded that this was because I suspected that the maker’s motives, if not his or her techniques, had almost certainly changed. In time, after I had already accumulated some experience and a number of interesting old Tantric and ritual drawings, I was caught out when I purchased one or two fake Tantric diagrams, which had been drawn and painted on old paper. It was then that I realised quite clearly that what was most important to me was authenticity of belief.

Romanticism and much of Modernism bestowed great significance on what was considered to be authentic and pure, but today, when doubt and scepticism are culturally dominant, the ‘authentic’ has become a hybrid that often embodies clashing or contradictory qualities. This is not unwelcome, if only because old-fashioned 'authenticity’ was usually coloured with essentialism, nostalgia, idealism, or exotic ‘otherness’, but in these ‘post-truth’ days lies and fakes are often cynically flaunted, which is even less tolerable. One constant remains, however. With regard to matters of financial value, the question of authenticity or genuineness is predictably fundamental. Walter Benjamin’s ‘aura’, art’s approximation to a magical or supernatural force, may have diminished in the ‘Age of Mechanical Reproduction’, but the market has ensured that it hasn’t disappeared.    

I was probably drawn to Indian culture - and to Romantic notions of authenticity -  predominantly because of the countercultural spirit of the 1960s, which is when I first began to learn about them. I found it inspiring that there seemed to be an abundance of unorthodox ideas, structures, and strategies that offered liberation or fulfilment; Tantra and many other such paths were among them. Today, in my maturity and in a world of increasing anxiety and homogeneity, that promise has gone. The loss makes it even more alluring, but it has to be admitted that Tantra’s exoticism, as evocative in its associations as good joss-sticks or incense, undoubtedly accounts for much of its charm. I now wonder, with unwelcome doubt, if I would feel the same way about Tantric and other ritual artefacts if they were the fruits of my own inherited culture, or if a taste for such things suddenly became widespread and mainstream. Perhaps only formal quality and excellence would keep my interest alive, and I'd turn into a serious collector or true aesthete.


https://www.britishmuseum.org/exhibitions/tantra-enlightenment-revolution
https://www.joostvandenbergh.com/perfect-presence