Az út másik széle – tantrikus szexualitás nyomai a páli kánonban
The Other Edge of the Path – Traces of Tantric Sexuality in the Pali Canon

Summary/Abstract: According to the foundational text of Buddhism, the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, one who has gone forth from the household life must avoid the two edges of the religious path. One of these two extremes is asceticism; the other one is usually identified with worldly desires. Since the Buddha speaks to monks, the other extreme cannot be the worldly life of laymen: it must refer to a religious practice that uses sexual desire. Although this phenomenon is a characteristic of mature Tantrism, there is good reason to suppose it had been present in India much earlier. In the Theravāda textual corpus there are sexual/tantric elements elsewhere, such as the harem scenes in the Vinaya story of Yasa’s conversion and in the biography of the Buddha preserved in the Jātaka Commentary. Especially interesting is the Vinaya story of the company of thirty handsome friends making love to their wives in the forest. These may be the earliest written records of Indian Tantrism or at least that of a religious sexual practice within the scope of early Buddhist tradition.

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