The period of renaissance saw a huge impact on the religion of the country. It was commonly believed that prophecy is a dangerous occupation in a land of vast attainment and incalculable potentialities. In India, translations of works on the Tantra Shastra and religious works are placed among the precious things. There are reprehensible practices connected with Tantric observance; but its honesty compels the recognition of the fact that every practice is supposed to be encouraged by Tantra with a view to the attainment of occult powers or spiritual illumination with no other motive than self-gratification. Tantra, on the contrary, throws its circumference around the whole circle of human activity by linking every phase of conduct with religion. It includes worship with flesh-foods because it recognises that this is inherent in certain stages of human development, and because it believes that they are more certain to be transcended through being associated with the religious idea than through being left alone, or in an antagonistic relationship to religion. It is the recognition of spiritual distinctions that marks the Tantra as a scripture that will appeal more and more to the future and exercise growing renascent influence. With the passage of time, science has passed inwards from the physical to the psychical, and it draws religion with it in due time, and leave those systems outside that have not a psychological basis to their faith and practice. The renaissance period popularised the practices based on knowledge of and relation with the relative world. |