Kapalika and Kalamukha

The Kāpālikas and Kālāmukhas were small Tantric sects scattered throughout medieval India known for their extreme practices. These groups are often connected with meat-eating, intoxication, ritual orgies, and in some cases cannibalism. Members of each group typically existed outside of the caste system and society at large, making their living as wandering mendicants, clad only in animal skins and bearing a "skull bowl" which they used to collect alms. The Kalamukhas may have also assembled in monastic orders. Although no actual texts produced by the groups are extant, the Kapalikas and Kalamukhas are mentioned in the works of many medieval Hindu thinkers, who generally condemn their practices.

Kapalikas

Origins

It appears that the Kapalikas originated in South India or the Deccan, parts normally replete with followers of Shiva, in the fifth or sixth century AD when the corpus of tantric literature was just beginning to develop. The Kapalikas were distributed throughout most of the Deccan plateau as early as the eighth century. They were most commonly found in Kanci, Mysore, western and central Maharashtra, Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh. Later sources record their presence in Gujarat, Bundelkhand, and the Vindhya Hills. The Kapalikas seem to have died out by the fourteenth century, having perhaps been absorbed by other tantric orders, though some old wives tails claim that Kapalikas still inhabit the jungles of northern Bengal and parts of Assam.

A mythological origin is given for the Kapalikas in the Goraksa-siddhanta-samgraha, which tells of an occassion upon which the 24 avatars of Vishnu became intoxicated with wine. Varaha and Narasimha, among other powerful avatars began destroying the earth, frightening its inhabitants. Krishna was filled with adulterous emotions, while Parasurama destroyed a number of Kshatriyas. Natha, meanwhile, became angered by the actions of the gods and assumed the form of 24 Kapalikas in order to take on the avatars. Each Kapalika cut off the head of one avatar, stripped it of its flesh and carried the skull around with them from that point on. With their pride dispelled, the heads of the avatars were returned. This myth probably speaks to the tension between Tantric schools and the Brahmanic orthodoxy.

Sources

The Kapalikas left no texts of their own, and so the major source of information about them comes from philosophical and dramatic writings produced by others which include Kapalika characters. Often they appear as comical villains, maverick ascetics, or less severely as philosophical opponents of the author. One of the foremost sources of information on the Kapalikas appears in biographies of Shankara, the famous Advaitan philosopher, most importantly the Samkara-vijaya. Here, Shankara's encounters with various Kapalikas allow for the elaboration of his own teachings, which exist in contrast to the supposedly hedonistic values of the skull-bearers. In one such meeting, Ugra Bhairava, an apparent Kapalika, explains to Shankara that he is on a quest to sacrifice the head of a sage or a king in order to please Shiva. Ugra Bhairava also alludes to the benefits of self-sacrifice. This willingness to kill sage struck Shankara as a threat to monism.

The foremost dramatic writings which include Kapalikas as important characters are the Mattavilasa by Pallava king Mahendravarman, the Malati-Madhava by Bhavabhuti, the Candakausika by Ksemisvara and the Prabodhacandrodaya by Krsnamisra, among others. Each of these writers express disgust with the hedonism and sadism of the Kapalikas. The Kapalika lifestyle also finds its way into poetry, most notably a number of Bengali songs (caryapadas) composed by a Buddhist saint Kanhapada of the Sahajayana school, who identifies himself as a Kapali, perhaps in the symbolic sense.

Thou art the Dombi and I am the Kapali without aversions...for thee have I put on a garland of bones. The Dombi destroys the lake and eats up the lotus stalk. I shall kill thee, and take thy life.

In particularly obscene song he describes the apparent rape and murder of a dombi (or a woman of low caste), which is in reality a description of an internal yogic process and an external tantric ritual under the guise of this ribald poem. Here the obtuse language culminating in the murder of the woman at the end of the song refers to the mastery of such bodily fetters as breath, semen and thought. Here the Kapalin is used as the symbol of the perfect Yogin because by symbolically transcending murder, he has realized the identity of opposites such as good and evil.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Lorenzen, David. The Kāpālikas and Kālāmukhas: Two Lost Saivite Sects. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 1972. ISBN 81-208-0708-1