Charnel ground
A charnel ground (Sanskrit: श्मशान; IAST:
In a religious sense, it is also a very important location for
India
Throughout
Himalayan 'sky burial'
In the
Sutrayana and Early Buddhism
In the
'Cemetery contemplations', as described in
...have as their objects a corpse one or two or three days old, swollen up, blue-black in colour, full of corruption; a corpse eaten by crows, etc.; a framework of bones; flesh hanging from it, bespattered with blood, held together by the sinews; without flesh and blood, but still held together by the sinews; bones scattered in all direction; bleached and resembling shells; heaped together after the lapse of years; weathered and crumbled to dust.
At the end of each of these contemplations there follows the conclusion: "This body of mine also has this nature, has this destiny, cannot escape it."
Similar are the 10 objects of loathsomeness (asubha q.v.).
— [5]
Polysemy and metaphor
On the face of it or alternatively the cosmetic level, the charnel ground is simply a locality often chthonic where bodies are disposed of, either by cremation or burial.[1] Though the charnel ground is to be understood as a polysemy and metaphor it must be emphasized that holy people as part of their sadhana and natural spiritual evolution grappling with death, impermanence and transition did historically in India, China and Tibet as well as in other localities, frequent charnel grounds, crematoriums and cemeteries and were often feared and despised by people who did not understand their 'proclivities' (Sanskrit: anusaya).
From a deeper structural significance and getting to the substantive bones of the Vajrayana spiritual point of view however, the charnel ground is full of profound
- attachment (Sanskrit: Upādāna; Tibetan: len pa) to this body and life
- craving (Sanskrit: Tṛṣṇā; Tibetan: sred pa) for a body and life in the future
- fear of death (Sanskrit: abhiniveśa)
- aversion (Sanskrit: dveṣa; Wylie: zhe sdang) to the decay of 'impermanence' (Sanskrit: anitya).[1]
It is worth noting that 'attachment', 'craving', 'fear' and 'aversion' above cited in bold font are somewhat standardized and hence less-rich lexical choices for the semantic field represented by the four of the 'Five Poisons' (Sanskrit: pancha klesha) they denote.
Prior to spiritual realization, charnel grounds are to be understood as terrifying places, full of 'roaming spirits' (Sanskrit:
Simmer-Brown (2001: p. 127) conveys how the 'charnel ground' experience may present itself in the modern Western mindstream situations of emotional intensity, protracted peak performance, marginalization and extreme desperation:
In contemporary Western society, the charnel ground might be a prison, a homeless shelter, the welfare roll, or a factory assembly line. The key to its successful support of practice is its desperate, hopeless, or terrifying quality. For that matter, there are environments that appear prosperous and privileged to others but are charnel grounds for their inhabitants – Hollywood, Madison Avenue, Wall Street, Washington, D.C. These are worlds in which extreme competitiveness, speed, and power rule, and the actors in their dramas experience intense emotion, ambition, and fear. The intensity of their dynamics makes all of these situations ripe for the Vajrayana practice of the charnel ground.
— [6]
Denizens and pastimes of the charnel ground
- Shiva as Bhairava
- 'Outcastes' (Sanskrit: Varnashrama Dharma of the status quo.
Dancing
Tibetan representations of Ganesha show ambivalent or richly different depictions of him.[7] In one Tibetan form he is shown being trodden under foot by Mahākala, a popular Tibetan deity.[7][8] Other depictions show him as the Destroyer of Obstacles, sometimes dancing.[9] This play of Ganesha as both the "creator and remover of obstacles" as per his epithet as well in the two Vajrayana iconographic depictions of him as that which consumes (Maha Rakta) and that which is consumed (danced upon by Vignantaka) is key to the reciprocity rites of the charnel ground.
Ganapati, Maha Rakta (Tibetan: tsog gi dag po, mar chen. English: The Great Red Lord of Hosts or
"...beside a lapis lazuli rock mountain is a red lotus with eight petals, in the middle a blue rat expelling various jewels, [mounted on his rat 'steed' (Sanskrit:
This form of Ganapati belongs to a set of three powerful deities known as the 'mar chen kor sum' or the Three Great Red Deities included in a larger set called 'The Thirteen Golden Dharmas' of
In depictions of the six-armed protector
The Tibetan Ganesha appears, besides bronzes, in the resplendent Thangka paintings alongside the Buddha. In "Ganesh, studies of an Asian God," edited by Robert L. BROWN, State University of New York Press, 1992, pp. 241–242, he wrote that in the Tibetan Ka'gyur tradition, it is said that the Buddha had taught the "Ganapati Hridaya Mantra" (or "Aryaganapatimantra") to disciple
The
Aghora
...Lord Dattatreya, an antinomian form of Shiva closely associated with the
cremation ground, who appeared to Baba Kina Ram atop Girnar Mountain in Gujarat. Considered to be the adi guru (ancient spiritual teacher) and founding deity of Aghor, Lord Dattatreya offered his own flesh to the young ascetic as prasād (a kind of blessing), conferring upon him the power of clairvoyance and establishing a guru-disciple relationship between them.— [12]
Barrett (2008: p. 161) discusses the sadhana of the 'Aghora' (Sanskrit; Devanagari: अघोर)[13] in both its left and right-handed proclivites and identifies it as principally cutting through attachments and aversion and foregrounding primordiality, a view uncultured, undomesticated:
The gurus and disciples of Aghor believe their state to be primordial and universal. They believe that all human beings are natural-born Aghori. Hari Baba has said on several occasions that human babies of all societies are without discrimination, that they will play as much in their own filth as with the toys around them. Children become progressively discriminating as they grow older and learn the culturally specific attachments and aversions of their parents. Children become increasingly aware of their mortality as they bump their heads and fall to the ground. They come to fear their mortality and then palliate this fear by finding ways to deny it altogether. In this sense, Aghor sādhanā is a process of unlearning deeply internalized cultural models. When this sādhanā takes the form of shmashān sādhanā, the Aghori faces death as a very young child, simultaneously meditating on the totality of life at its two extremes. This ideal example serves as a prototype for other Aghor practices, both left and right, in ritual and in daily life.
— [14]
- Vetala (Sanskrit)
- Shaivites
- Practitioners of Anuyoga. The Anuyoga class of tantras of the Nyingmapa is understood as the "Mother Tantras" of the Sarma Schools, this class of literature is also known as "Yogini Tantras" and there is a voluminous Shaivite or Shakta Tantra by the same name, Yoginitantra.
- In the dance of reciprocity that is the beauty and cruelty of the Mystery of living and dying, the rite of Ganachakra is celebrated, indeed all forms participate in the Ganachakra, there is nothing in the Three Worlds (Triloka) that is not a charnel ground...
Beer (2003: p. 102) relates how the symbolism of the
The form of the Buddhist khatvanga derived from the emblematic staff of the early Indian Shaivite yogins, known as kapalikas or 'skull-bearers'. The kapalikas were originally miscreants who had been sentenced to a twelve-year term of penance for the crime of inadvertently killing a Brahmin. The penitent was prescribed to dwell in a forest hut, at a desolate crossroads, in a charnel ground, or under a tree; to live by begging; to practice austerities; and to wear a loin-cloth of hemp, dog, or donkey-skin. They also had to carry the emblems of a human skull as an alms-bowl, and the skull of the Brahmin they had slain mounted upon a wooden staff as a banner. These Hindu kapalika ascetics soon evolved into an extreme outcaste sect of the 'left-hand' tantric path (Skt. vamamarg) of shakti or goddess worship. The early Buddhist tantric yogins and yoginis adopted the same goddess or dakini attributes of the kapalikas. These attributes consisted of; bone ornaments, an animal skin loincloth, marks of human ash, a skull-cup, damaru, flaying knife, thighbone trumpet, and the skull-topped tantric staff or khatvanga.
— [15]
Sadhana
Sadhana in the charnel ground within the Dharmic Traditions may be traced to ancient depictions of the chthonic
The charnel ground is not merely the hermitage; it can also be discovered or revealed in completely terrifying mundane environments where practitioners find themselves desperate and depressed, where conventional worldly aspirations have become devastated by grim reality. This is demonstrated in the sacred biographies of the great siddhas of the Vajrayāna tradition. Tilopa attained realization as a grinder of sesame seeds and a procurer for a prominent prostitute. Sarvabhakṣa was an extremely obese glutton, Gorakṣa was a cowherd in remote climes, Taṅtepa was addicted to gambling, and Kumbharipa was a destitute potter. These circumstances were charnel grounds because they were despised in Indian society and the siddhas were viewed as failures, marginal and defiled.
— [6]
Poetry, song, and literature
Dyczkowski (1988: p. 26) relates how
"My charming ornaments are made from garlands of human skulls." says the Kāpālika, "I dwell in the cremation ground and eat my food from a human skull. I view the world alternately as separate from God (
surā) from the skull of a Brahmin. At that time the god Mahābhairava should be worshipped with offerings of awe-inspiring human sacrifices from whose severed throats blood flows in currents."[17]
In Vajrayana poetry, literature and song, particularly that of the '
The
Gray (undated: c. 2009) provides an excellent survey of chthonic charnel ground accoutrement motif such as skull imagery in the textual tradition of the Yogini tantras.[21]
Baital Pachisi
- Baital Pachisi
- Somadeva
Beyond social convention
In the charnel grounds of Vajrayana, there are no
In his Manual on the practice of the
"Right now, our minds are very fickle. Sometimes you like a certain place, and it inspires, and yet with that same place, if you stay too long, it bores you. […] As you practice more and more, one day this kind of habit, this fickle mind will just go. Then you will search for the bindu interpretation of the right place, and according to the classic tantric texts, that is usually what they call the “eight great charnel grounds”. So then, you have to go to a cemetery, especially to one of the eight cemeteries. There, under a tree, in the charnel ground, wearing a tiger skin skirt, holding a
In the life in which a
Vajrayana iconography
The charnel ground, cremation ground and cemetery is evident as a specific region within wrathful Indo-Tibetan
The third concentric ring [from the circumference] is optional, in that it is only used in mandalas representing the reality of deities of fierce power. It represents the charnel grounds wherein bodies are cut up and offered to birds of prey as a "sky burial." This ring signifies the cutting away of the bones and flesh of illusion on the way to the primordial ground at the mandala's center. In some mandalas, it is positioned outside of the Mountain of Fire ring.
— [2]
The region of the charnel grounds in many wrathful mandala often hold eight specific charnel grounds where certain key events take place in the life of Padmasambhava.[23]
The Vajrayana yidam Citipati is said to be the Lord of Charnel Grounds.[24]
Blood is thematic in Charnel Ground iconography where it may be understood as
The tradition and custom of the 'sky burial' (Tibetan: jhator) afforded Traditional Tibetan medicine and thangka iconography such as the 'Tree of physiology' with a particular insight into the interior workings of the human body. Pieces of the human skeleton were employed in ritual tools such as the skullcup, thigh-bone trumpet, etc.
The 'symbolic bone ornaments' (Skt: aṣṭhiamudrā; Tib: rus pa'i rgyan phyag rgya) are also known as "
The important Varnamala (or 'garland of bija phonemes' in twilight language is iconographically represented by a 'garland of severed heads or skulls' (Sanskrit: Mundamala).
Padmasambhava
Beer (1999: pp. 277–278) relates how
The sting of the scorpion's whip-like tail transfixes and poisons its prey, and in this respect it is identified with the wrathful activity of the ritual dagger or kīla. Padmasambhava's biography relates how he received the siddhi of the kīla transmission at the great charnel ground of Rajgriha from a gigantic scorpion with nine heads, eighteen pincers and twenty-seven eyes. This scorpion reveals the kīla texts from a triangular stone box hidden beneath a rock in the cemetery. As Padmasambhava reads this terma text spontaneous understanding arises, and the heads, pincers, and eyes of the scorpion are 'revealed' as different vehicles or yanas of spiritual attainment. Here, at Rajgriha, Padmasambhava is given the title of 'the scorpion guru', and in one of his eight forms as Guru Dragpo or Pema Drago ('wrathful lotus'), he is depicted with a scorpion in his left hand. As an emblem of the wrathful kīla transmission the image of the scorpion took on a strong symbolic meaning in the early development of the Nyingma or 'ancient school' of Tibetan Buddhism...".
— [26]
Eight great charnel grounds
The 'Eight Great Charnel Grounds (Sanskrit: aṣṭamahāśmāśāna; Tibetan: དུར་ཁྲོད་ཆེན་པོ་བརྒྱད, Wylie: dur khrod chen po brgyad)[27]
'The Most Fierce'
'The Most Fierce' (Tibetan: གཏུམ་དྲག, Wylie: gtum drag)[28]
'Dense Thicket'
'Dense Thicket' (Tibetan: ཚང་ཚིང་འཁྲིགས་པ, Wylie: tshang tshing 'khrigs pa)[28]
'Dense Blaze'
'Dense Blaze' (Tibetan: འབར་འཁྲིགས་པ, Wylie: 'bar 'khrigs pa)[28]
'Endowed with Skeletons'
'Endowed with Skeletons' (Tibetan: ཀེང་རུས་ཅན, Wylie: keng rus can)[28]
'Cool Forest'
'Cool Forest' or 'Cool Grove' (Sanskrit: Śītavana; Devanagari: शीतवन; Tibetan: བསིལ་བུ་ཚལ, Wylie: bsil bu tshal)[28]
'Black Darkness'
'Black Darkness' (Tibetan: མུན་པ་ནག་པོ, Wylie: mun pa nag po)[28]
'Resonant with "Kilikili"'
'Resonant with "Kilikili"' (Tibetan: ཀི་ལི་ཀི་ལིར་སྒྲ་སྒྲོག་པ, Wylie: ki li ki lir sgra sgrog pa)[28]
'Wild Cries of "Ha-ha"'
'Wild Cries of "Ha-ha"' (Tibetan: ཧ་ཧ་རྒོད་པ, Wylie: ha ha rgod pa)[28]
Charnel ground relics
The sculptors displayed great devotion, so first of all the master gave them the vase empowerment of the glorious Yangdak Heruka. They prepared a mixture which combined relics from the Tathagata's remains; the flesh of one who had been born as a brahman seven times; earth, stone, water, and wood from the eight charnel grounds; a variety of precious gems; and sacramental medicine refined by the awareness-holders of India and Tibet.
— [31]
See also
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h Rigpa Shedra (July 2009). "Charnel ground". Retrieved 2009-12-19.
- ^ , p. 141
- ^ In these suttas, the Buddha instructs monks to stay in the forest in order to aid their meditation practice DN 2,DN 11,DN 12,DN 16, MN 4,MN 10, MN 27,MN 39,MN 60,MN 66,MN 101, MN 105, MN 107, MN 125, AN 4.259, AN 5.75, AN 5.76, AN 5.114, AN 10.60, Sn 1.12, Sn 3.11, SN 11.3, SN 22.80, This list is not exhaustive as there are many more related suttas.
- OCLC 1479270.
- ^ Nyanatiloka (1980). "Buddhist Dictionary: Manual of Buddhist Terms and Doctrines". Kandy, Sri Lanka: Buddhist Publication Society. Retrieved 2009-12-24.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-57062-920-4(paperback), p. 127
- ^ a b Nagar, p. 185.
- ^ Getty, p. 42
- ^ Nagar, pp. 185–186.
- ^ A Gift of Dharma to Kublai Khan By Chogyal Phagpa, Seventh Patriarch of Sakya. Ngorchen Konchog Lhundup, Ngor chos 'byung, folia 323?328. Translated by Jared Rhoton, 1976)
- ^ "Ganesha Sutra". Archived from the original on 2011-07-08.
- ISBN 978-0-520-25218-9.
- ^ "'Aghora' in Monier Williams Sanskrit-English Dictionary". Retrieved 2010-02-09.
- ISBN 978-0-520-25218-9. Retrieved 2010-02-22.
- ISBN 978-1-932476-03-3.
- ISBN 0-86171-087-8, p. 535 Index of Technical Terms
- ^ ISBN 978-0-88706-494-4. Retrieved 2010-02-04.
- ^ Tsogyal, Yeshe (composed); Nyang Ral Nyima Oser (revealed); Erik Pema Kunsang (translated); Marcia Binder Schmidt (edited) (1999). The Lotus-Born: The Life Story of Padmasambhava (Paperback). With foreword by HH Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche. Shambhala: South Asia Editions, p. 292
- ^ Rigpa Shedra (July 2009). "Shitavana". Retrieved 2009-10-03.
- ^ Gray, David B. (n.d.). "Skull Imagery and Skull Magic in the Yogini Tantras". Santa Clara University. Archived from the original on 2012-11-02. Retrieved 2010-02-02.
- ^ Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, from Longchen Nyingtik Practice Manual (page 66).
- ISBN 978-1-57062-920-4(paperback), p. 124
- ^ "Citipati". Retrieved 2024-03-15.
- ^ Kongtrul 2005, p. 493.
- , pp. 277–278
- ^ Rigpa Shedra (July 2009). "Eight great charnel grounds". Retrieved 2009-12-21.
- ^ ISBN 0-86171-087-8, p. 157 Enumerations
- ^ Rigpa Shedra Wiki (September 2008). "Yangdak Heruka". Retrieved 2009-12-22.
- ^ The presence of light: divine radiance and religious experience
- ISBN 0-86171-087-8, p. v626 History
Bibliography
- Nagar, Shanti Lal. The Cult of Vinayaka. (Intellectual Publishing House: New Delhi, 1992). ISBN 8170760439. Chapter 17: "The Travels Abroad".
- ISBN 1-55939-210-X.
- Gold, Peter (1994). Navajo and Tibetan Sacred Wisdom: The Circle of the Spirit (Paperback). Inner Traditions. , p. 141
- Getty, Alice. Gaņeśa: A Monograph on the Elephant-Faced God. (Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1936). 1992 reprint edition, ISBN 81-215-0377-X. Individual chapters are devoted to individual countries and regions of the world.
- McDermott, Rachel F.; Jeffrey J. Kripal (2003). Encountering Kālī: in the margins, at the center, in the West. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-23239-6.
- Tsuda, Shinichi (1978). 'The cult of śmaśana, the realities of Tantra'. In Goudriaan, Teun (ed.)(1978). The Sanskrit Tradition and Tantrism. Leiden: E.J. Brill, pp. 96–108.