The bulky ancient Indian text Mañjuśriyamūlakalpa (a.k.a. Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa) belongs to the earliest specimen of Buddhist Tantric works in the narrower sense of the word. Alexis Sanderson, who holds the position that the pan-Indian movement of Tantrism originated in Śaiva circles, has already pointed to passages of the Mañjuśriyamūlakalpa that try to justify obvious influences from that direction. Another section of this work, viz. the three chapters dealing with Yamāntaka (i.e. the‘Slayer of Yama[, the god of death]’), contains rituals which are either extremely aggressive in nature or are performed for the sake of obtaining sensual and sexual gratification. The present talk will deal with the question to what extent the authors and compilers of the text tried to harmonize such teachings with earlier and more orthodox standards of Buddhist ethics and spirituality and to what extent they were successful in doing so.