Nothing Outside the Mandala: The Radical Emergence of Tantra in India

Over a thousand years ago in India, spiritual life was defined by boundaries of caste, purity, and status.

The Brahmin orthodoxy emphasized social hierarchy and separation and purity laws dictated who could touch, eat, or enter the sacred. Women, outcastes, and those who worked with “impure” substances–the working class of tanners, butchers, farmers–were pushed to the margins of society and barred from direct access to the holy.

Even within Buddhism, the highest teachings were largely reserved for monks who renounced family and ordinary livelihood. Lay people could make offerings, listen to public teachings, and accumulate merit, but the promise of liberation seemed out of reach for ordinary life.

Yet the very principle of buddhanature, that awakening is already present in every being, was beginning to test those boundaries. If everyone shares the same awakened ground, then no caste, no gender, no role could truly exclude someone from the path.

It is against this backdrop that tantra emerged between the 6th and 10th centuries. Not as one more set of rules, but as a radical opening of the veil: nothing is excluded from the path of liberation. 

Radical Inclusivity

Tantra opened the door to the path to everyone. 

Kings and artisans, women and outcastes, wandering yogis and householders could all take up its practice. The so-called “left-hand” methods of tantra–meat, alcohol, sexuality, charnel grounds–weren’t just acts of rebellion against Brahmin purity rules. They were a statement: if the nature of mind is empty and pure by nature, then no substance, no experience, no person is outside the mandala of awakened mind.

The point of tantra was never indulgence. The point was transformation. What looks like poison–desire, anger, confusion–can be turned into medicine when seen in the light of awareness.

This inclusivity applied not only to who, but also to where. Charnel grounds, the edges of society, brothels, forests, the places most avoided or feared, all became fertile ground for realization. The message was simple: Dharma can be practiced and brought to fruition anywhere.

The lives of the 84 Mahasiddhas made this inclusivity visible. Among them were blacksmiths, cowherds, prostitutes, and princes. Their stories showed that awakening wasn’t confined to monasteries or the Brahmin class. It could erupt in the middle of ordinary daily life.

Tilopa brought his practice to fruition while being a sesame seed laborer, showing that realization can dawn even in the midst of ordinary labor. Saraha, once a respected Brahmin scholar, left behind his position to live with an arrowsmith woman, practicing the path and discovering awakening through songs of direct experience. Niguma, one of the great women siddhas, transmitted profound yogas that still shape the tantric path today, her life demonstrating that gender was no barrier to realization.

Each of these stories points to the same truth: the ground of awakening is not elsewhere. It is always present, waiting to be recognized.

Harnessing Rather than Rejecting

This is the genius of tantra: nothing is cast out. Bliss becomes a method on the path, anger is transmuted into clarity, the taboo and unconventional becomes a doorway. Poison turns to medicine.

The radical edge of tantra wasn’t to create a spectacle of shock and awe. It was the recognition that awareness itself is already pure. Practices that broke through boundaries weren’t about creating scandals. They were about cutting through clinging to concepts of purity and impurity alike.

This spirit of inclusivity and flexibility is why tantra could spread beyond India. Just as it absorbed caste and taboo in its birthplace, it would later absorb the local gods and rituals of Tibet. Its adaptability was written into its DNA.

At its core, tantra in India wasn’t about exotic acts or esoteric symbolism. It was about recognizing buddhanature everywhere, in everyone, and in everything. 

That recognition is what made tantra so radical then and what keeps it alive now, whenever we dare to see the potential for awakening in the very life we are living.