Kāpālika

Sham S. Misri

 

The Kāpālika tradition was a non-Puranic, tantric form of Shaivism in India, whose members wrote the Bhairava Tantras, including the subdivision called the Kuala Tantras. These groups are generally known as Kāpālika, the "skull-men," so called because, they carried a skull-topped staff (khatvanga) and skull as a begging bowl. Unlike the respectable Brahmin householder of the Shaiva Siddhanta, the Kāpālika ascetic imitated his ferocious deity, and covered himself in the ashes from the cremation ground. They try to please their gods with the impure substances of blood, meat, alcohol, and sexual fluids from intercourse unconstrained by caste restrictions. The Kāpālika thus flaunted impurity rules and went against Vedic ruling.  The aim was power through reminding or suggesting deities, especially goddesses.

The Kapalikas may also have been related to the Kalamukhas ("black faces") of medieval South India (Lorenzen 1972). Moreover, certain Shaivite cults associated with the goddess, are known to practice or have practiced ritual cannibalism, and to center their secretive rituals around an object known as a kapparai (Tamil "skull-bowl," derived from the Sanskrit kapala), a prayerful device garlanded with flowers and sometimes adorned with faces, which is understood to represent the begging-bowl of Shiva (Meyer 1986).

The Kapalikas and Kalamukhas are extinct Savite sects. The Sanskrit word most often used for Kapalikas, Kalamukhas and Pāsupata sects are darsana, Samaya, and Mata. The basic meaning of these words is doctrine or policy. Each had its own priesthood.

The Kapalas declare:  He, who knows the essence of the six signs (mudrika-satka), who is proficient in the highest Mudra, and who meditates on self as seated on the vulva, attains paradise or nirvana. They define the six signs (Mudra) as kanthika (necklace), the rucaka (another neck ornament), the Kundala (ear rings), the sikhamani (crest-jewel), ashes and sacred thread. A person bearing these badges is not born again in this world.

Yamunacarya makes an important addition that they have two secondary signs - The skull (Kapala) and the club (Khatvanga). Most Savite ascetics smear their bodies with ashes and wear sacred threads, but the skull and Khatvanga are mostly peculiar to Kapalikas. A female Kapalikas bears the name Kapal Kundala.

Large ear rings made of rhinoceros horn or other material are a distinguished feature of tantric ascetics. The Kan phata Yognis (Kan= ear; phata= split). Their ear rings are of two basic types- a flat one called darsana and a round one called Kundala. Both are known as mudras.

Pāsupata- Kalamukhas saint, also commonly displays large ear rings.

The meditation on the self as seated in the vulva is reminiscent of the Buddhist tantric maxims: Buddha-hood resides in the woman’s vulva.

 The Kapalikas carry khatvanga, or a trident (Tresula). Eating from a skull bowl and worshipping the gods with a pot of wine are items especially associated with the Kapalikas, not Kalamukhas. Kapalikas ascetics wander with a skull begging bowl and drink liquor freely for mundane as well as ritual purposes. They also wear the ashes of the dead, though no source claims that they eat them

The lion cloth, the antelope skin, as well as the ashes and Rudraksas are standard equipment for most savite ascetics.