III. The Power of the Impure: Sacrificial Violence and Sexual Transgression

Transgression opens onto a scintillating and constantly affirmed world....without the serpentine 'no' that bites into fruits and lodges contradictions at their core. It is the solar inversion of the satanic denial. It was originally linked to the divine...it opens the pace where the divine functions.

Foucault, "A Preface to Transgression"⁴⁷

After its key role as a source of Śākta iconography, the Bṛhat-Tantrasāra is also among the most important sources for the codification of Śākta ritual practice, above all the esoteric Kaula rites (kulācāra). As elaborated by Kṛṣṇānanda, Śākta Tantra is a heavily ritualistic tradition, which clearly requires and re-asserts the authority of brāhmaṇs as the qualified ritual experts (see figs. 4-5). In this sense, Tantra actually continues the Vedic tradition of brāhmaṇic privilege and ritual expertise, and, like the Vedic tradition, gives a central place to such brāhmaṇic rituals as animal sacrifice (bali, yajña). As we will see, however, it also profoundly transforms this same Vedic paradigm in many profound ways.

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