The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (2433 page)

c
ra) which interprets the five Ms (
pañca-m
k
ra
) symbolically, and the left-hand path (v
m
c
ra) which interprets them literally. Some lefthand sects such as the
aiva K
p
likas and the
Aghoris
live in charnel grounds and are said to have consumed the flesh of corpses and scatological substances in order to achieve perfection and power (siddhi).
Though the development of Tantrism reached its peak about 1000 CE, it has never died out and has exerted considerable influence on modern religious movements such as the
Ananda Marga
and Bhagavan Sri
Rajneesh
movement.
For Buddhist tantrism, see also
VAJRAY
NA
.

 
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(Arab., ‘remove’). The insistence in Muslim theology on the way in which the attributes of God are not to be identified with the being of God. While it must be possible to have some idea of God (since otherwise he would be unknowable), the ideas and epithets are approximate and limited. Thus if he is called ‘merciful’, it is somewhat like what is recognized as merciful among human beings, but ‘removed from’ an exact and literal identification. Cf.
ANALOGY
; see also
TASHB
H
;
TA’W
L
; and see
bil
kaif
in
All
h
.