from the glossary of Art of Tantra:
Tantra - a text embodying Tantrik tradition, many Hindu examples being in the form of a dialogue between the ultimate Divine Couple, Siva and Sakti. (Siva: the most important High God of Hinduism, Sakti: 'power', the great Goddess as supreme power)
Mantra - a Sanskrit syllable or group of syllables, used to concentrate cosmic and psychic energies
Yantra - a diagrammatic symbol for a field of energy
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Here are the most relevant quoted sections I found from Art of Tantra today
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page 64
Related to mantra is 'yantra', a word for which there is not even the remotest parallel in English. The function of yantra in the sphere of the visible is analogous to that of mantra in the sphere of sound.
As mantra is a nucleus of sound by means of which cosmic and bodily forces are concentrated into ritual, so yantra is nucleus of the visible and knowable, a linked diagram of lines by means of which visualized energies are concentrated.
Mantra and yantra complement each other, and are used in conjunction. A yantra may look at first sight like an abstract design. But what we may call its 'abstraction' is not the effect of its indicating an abstract concept for a mental class-relationship, but of its concentrating concrete, formulated energy. Its 'patternness', like the stylized syllable of mantra, is the essential element of its force; its spareness is not the result of generality, but of condensation of energy and content. IT PROVIDES THE FOCAL FRAMEWORK FOR ACTS OF MEDITATIVE VISUALIZATION.
All Tantra art thus has in it a special element of yantra. It provides the relatively 'gross' forms which point forwards and evoke the 'subtle' forms of mental imagery, and cannot be mistaken for anything but what they are.
To use yantra thus involves a continuous meditative dialectic in which content and concentration drive each other to a higher pitch of intensity. This is one of the ways in which the psyco-cosmic mechanism is worked.
AND IT IS ALSO ONE OF THE ASPECTS OF TANTRA ART WHICH APPEALS MOST TO PEOPLE WHO HAVE BECOME DISILLUSIONED WITH VAPID CONCEPTUALISM OF MUCH MODERN ART. Tantra knows, and has long used, reductive methods and optical effects. But it has used them synthetically, to concentrate an emotive and psychic content, not analytically, to refine abstractions whose only meaning is their relation to other abstractions.
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page 69
definitions from Glossary in Art of Tantra :
Devata - Tantrik divine principles (cf. Deva)
Deva - a divine figure; the root (div) means 'shrine'
Sadhaka - one who performs acts of ritual, worship and meditation
Puja - practical worship-cum-ritual
Subtle body - the structure of channels and knots parallel to but not identical with the human body through which the latter is imbued with its sense of reality
Diagrammatic yantras are usually centered on a single point, the point upon which meditative concentration can gradually gather and fix itself. 'One-pointedness' of concentration is a necessary achievement of any sadhaka before he can even begin to make any progress. But the yantras illustrated here are also icons, subtle bodies of devatas, bodies from which the gross physical resemblances have been eliminated in favour of the higher, more inclusive imagery of linked energies. When the mantra-utterances of power inscribed on it are correctly recited the yantra itself becomes infused with the actual presence of devata; its own physical nature lost; the devata, so to speak, floats up to the surface of the physical object and expands within the mind of the sadhaka as a dense complex identity, the presence of which alters his whole nature.
Such yantras may be used alone on single occasions or in series during prolonged meditative rites. They may be used to invoke the subtle bodies of devatas to receive puja, as an intermediate step between using the gross representational images of male and female and using purely internal images. In practice, only extremely advanced sadhakas can grasp the true forms implicit in yantra and mantra. For this reason most ordinary Westerners will not be able to grasp them intellectually; even in India the true nature of yantra is normally kept as a secret which can only be indicated verbally between sadhakas, and is never written down. Perhaps the most subtle yantras of all are those which provide only a blank space on to which the meditaor has to project his own familiar yantra.
**this last underlined statement reminds me of something I read yesterday in We Make Money Not Art blog that I re-post here: Once is Nothing, made of 'physically absent' artworks. Once is Nothing
is based on a previous show, 'Individual Systems' part of the 2003
edition of the Venice Biennale . Devoid of any art piece, the room is
nevertheless supposed to be 'full of memories and history.' The
exhibition is a pertinent comment on the impossibility to replicate
exactly one exhibition and on the pointless demand for innovation that
characterizes most art biennials.
Once is Nothing
Brussels Biennial 1
19.10.2008-04.01.2009
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page 70
There are, however, certain things which can be explained. First is the obvious fact that it takes a great deal of time and effort to build up the content of the imagery stored in any yantra-mantra complex. The realities referred to in condensed patterns of sight and sound can become readily available to the mind only after long practice. To simplify, it is, in a way like learning an extraordinary complicated alphabet and vocabulary at once. Then again when a yantra is to be used on any given occasion it takes extreme concentration over a long period of time to build up the presence of the devata by means of the mantra-schemes which are its subtle anatomy. The subtle devata present in the sadhaka's body may be persuaded by a long yogic process to emerge in subtle form from his nostril, and take up residence in the yantra.
Second, the general pattern followed by most, if not all, yantras tends to be constant. Around the perimeters a square pattern of re-entrant 'gates'. This represents the 'enclosure' within which the meditating self is shut (what Jung called the 'tenemos'); the successive 'sheaths' or stages of inwardness, the multiple outer petals or triangles being occupied by 'grosser' forms of energy, which are absorbed and further concentrated in the less multiplied inner circuits. The centre is the point where all the original radiating energies are finally focused, usually in a single mantra such as 'Om' or "Klim'. The mantra-identities in all the basic circuits may also be represented in anthropomorphic shape, as devatas. In the great Sri Yantra, the most important of all Tantrik yantras, each of the outer triangles is occupied by the devatas, which represent the subdivided energy-self of the Goddess.
Images from Art of Tantra
