Thirty_Years_of_Buddhist_studies,Conze

26 Thirty Years of Buddhist Studies
of the rheumatic joints foretelling their eventual mobility.
Nevertheless, a great deal of suffering and waste of time could
be avoided if we knew how to dispel these disorders. In the heyday
of the dharma, people took these troubles in their stride,
and dealt with them just anyhow. One thousand years after the
Buddha's Nirvana, when social conditions became increasingly
adverse to the spiritual life, they began to constitute a real
problem, and the Tantra was evolved to cope with them by
special methods which allowed the practitioner to regain his
innate radiance and calm.
This is not the place for showing the abundance of psychological
knowledge hidden away in the cryptic language of the
Tantric writings. Two extremely elementary examples must
suffice to show its presence. The Oedipus Complex, a potent
source of a constant sense of guilt, far too often dismissed as
Freud's invention, is clearly described as a normal pre-conceptual
experience by the Tibetan Book of the Dead (p. 179),
which here only reproduces the older tradition of the Abhidharmakosa.
Secondly, a beginner who wishes to direct his
energies into really fruitful channels must first of all determine
the type he belongs to. I Only then can he decide which one of
the numerous methods of salvation to pursue. In this connection
he should take notice of such things as the equivalence of
Prajnaparamita with Akshobhya and the hate-family, and
that of Amitabha, whose paradise is described in the Sukhdvatwyuha,
with the greed-family. »;
What I am trying to say is that, in order to disclose to us
people of the twentieth century the living meaning of the
Tantra, a scholar must not only know Sanskrit and Tibetan,
but also be familiar with modern psychology and one or other
of the occult arts. G. Tucci has made some useful remarks
about the relation of the Tantra to the psychology of the
Unconscious, 2 and it is H. V. Guenther's merit to have perceived
the task, 3 although wilfulness has so far prevented him from
saying much of lasting value. Likewise, though many readers
will not believe it, it is obvious that no one can do justice to the
occult side of the Tantra without knowing at least one of the
1 See my Buddhist Scriptures, 1959, pp. 116—21.
2 In Ms book on The Theory and practice of the Mandala, 1961,
3 Yuganaddha, the Taniric view of life. 1952.