ABC
Religious texts
Religious schools and traditions
Heavenly beings and deities
Legendary and historical figures
Legendary and real places
Symbols and art
Doctrines and rituals
- Awakening
- Community
- Compassion
- Craving
- Dependent origination
- Dharma
- Eightfold Path
- Emptiness
- Five Precepts
- Four Noble Truths
- Happiness
- Heavens and hells
- Impermanence
- Karma
- Koan
- Kung fu
- Meditation
- Merit
- Mindfulness
- Nirvana
- Non-self
- Om (mani padme hum)
- Parinirvana
- Pilgrimage sites
- Prajnaparamita
- Puja
- Pure lands
- Realms of existence
- Rebirth
- Recitation
- Renunciation
- Ritual
- Self
- Suffering
- Tales of rebirth
- Three Jewels
- Three-body doctrine
- Universal ruler
- Vesak
- Ye-dhamma formula
- Yoga
Tantra
Religious schools and traditions
Tantra, or Tantrism, is a religious current within Buddhism and Hinduism. The Sanskrit word tantra is normally translated as ‘weave’, with the meaning of ‘continuum’. The first tantric currents evolved in the sixth century in north-east India; among other things, they encompassed esoteric doctrines and rituals that promised a path to salvation beyond the orthodox Hindu or Buddhist schools. In the context of Buddhism, tantric practices occur principally within the Vajrayana school.