Tantra Means Loom

Lesson 57 established the lineage and its door, dīkṣā. This lesson takes the traditions in which that door is not an entrance requirement but the whole architecture — and finds that the popular English understanding of them is almost inverted.

Tantra is glossed by Monier-Williams as: a loom (Pāṇini's commentator); the warp, cited to Ṛgveda 10.71.9, the Atharvaveda, the Taittirīya and Śatapatha Brāhmaṇas; then the leading or essential part, the characteristic feature, the system or framework; then doctrine, rule, theory, a scientific work; and fifth, a class of works teaching mystical formularies.