Tantra seen as "black magic" or a kind of "Kama Sutra"?
As European scholars began to take a significant interest in Indian culture at the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th century, Christian missionaries also found out about the tantric practices. They shocked their Western audiences with sensational reports of sexual tantric exercises, portraying them as the shady occult perversions of primitive, underdeveloped groups and even more academically minded researchers in the West picked up on these characterisations as “black magic”. The perception of tantric practices was distorted further as Sir Richard Francis Burton translated the “Kama Sutra” into English, an ancient court textbook that was used as a guide to sexual and marital affairs. As a consequence, the Western public came to see tantra as being synonymous with the guidance in the Kama Sutra – particularly with its detailed descriptions of various physical positions for sexual intercourse.
Tantra as a decadent, corrupted version of vedic teachings?
Tantra’s bad reputation changed somewhat at the beginning of the 20th century thanks to the efforts of the British Orientalist Sir John Woodroffe (“Arthur Avalon”). He performed tantric practices himself and in his writings he described tantra as a purer, honourable tradition. His descriptions correspond to the scholarly, symbolistic interpretation of tantric teachings. So tantra became a rational, ethical school that arose from the analysis of the vedic scriptures, which were also regarded in the West as works of an advanced civilisation. Sir John Woodroffe’s portrayal of tantra is a reflection of the reformed interpretation of tantra which Indian scholars themselves developed in response to accusations from Christian Westerners and also from other Indians, who regarded tantra as a decadent, corrupted version of vedic teachings.