"...the Sanskrit word tantra has appeared since Vedic times, with an enormous diversity of meanings; it has been used to denote everything from a warp or a loom to “the chief potion or essence of a thing” (Mahabharta.13.48.6). Probably derived from the root tan, “to weave or stretch”, tantra is most often used to refer to a particular kind of text which is “woven” of the extended threads of many words. Yet, as Padoux points out, such texts may or may not contain materials that we today think of as “Tantric”."