Maithuna

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"Mithuna" redirects here. For the genus of moth, see Mithuna (moth). For the month, see Mithuna (month).
Loving Couple, Maithuna, Eastern Ganga dynasty, 13th century Orissa, India

Maithuna (

nonduality between human and divine,[3] as well as worldly enjoyment (kama) and spiritual liberation (moksha).[4] Maithuna is a popular icon in ancient Hindu art, portrayed as a couple engaged in physical loving.[5]

Concept

Maithuna entails male-female couples and their union in the physical, sexual sense as synonymous with

Yogananda consider this to be a purely mental and symbolic act, without actual intercourse.[6]

Yet it is possible to experience a form of maithuna not solely just through the physical union. The act can exist on a metaphysical plane with sexual energy penetration, in which the shakti and shakta transfer energy through their

subtle bodies as well. It is when this transfer of energy occurs that the couple, incarnated as goddess and god via diminished egos, confronts ultimate reality and experiences bliss through sexual union of the subtle bodies.[3]

History

Maithuna at Khajuraho
Maithuna, Lakshmana Temple, Khajuraho
Main article: Tantra § History

Maithuna intercourse has been traditionally interpreted to be performed with

semen retention by the male practitioner,[3] although other writers consider it optional, possibly relegated only to late Tantra.[8] Early maithuna might have insisted on generating sexual fluids (maithunam dravyam, or solely maithuna by metonymy) in order to be ritually ingested, in a similar way to the other four edible Panchamakara.[1][2] The shedding of semen is also compared to water-offering (tarpana).[1]

Ascetics of the Shaivite school of Mantramarga, in order to gain supernatural power, reenacted the penance of Shiva after cutting off one of Brahma's heads (Bhikshatana). They worshipped Shiva with impure substances like alcohol, blood and sexual fluids generated in orgiastic rites with their consorts.[9] As part of tantric inversion of social regulations, sexual yoga often recommends the usage of consorts from the most taboo groups available, such as close relatives or people from the lowest sections of society. They must be young and beautiful, as well as initiates in tantra.[10]

Jayanta Bhatta, the 9th-century scholar of the Nyaya school of Hindu philosophy and who commented on Tantra literature, stated that the Tantric ideas and spiritual practices are mostly well placed, but it also has "immoral teachings" such as by the so-called "Nilambara" sect where its practitioners "wear simply one blue garment, and then as a group engage in unconstrained public sex" on festivals. He wrote that this practice is unnecessary and it threatens fundamental values of society.[11]

Later sources like

Toḍala tantra places maithuna as the last of its pañcamakāra or "set of 5 M-words", namely madya (wine), māṃsa (meat), matsya (fish), mudrā (grain), and maithuna.[1]

Around the 12th century, practices seemed to turn towards the absorption of sexual fluids into the body of the practitioner, like that of

Jagannatha temple of Puri, as described by Frédérique Apffel-Marglin.[1]

Douglas Renfrew Brooks states that the antinomian elements such as the use of intoxicating substances and sex were not

animistic, but were adopted in some Kaula traditions to challenge the Tantric devotee to break down the "distinctions between the ultimate reality of Brahman and the mundane physical and mundane world". By combining erotic and ascetic techniques, states Brooks, the Tantric broke down all social and internal assumptions, became Shiva-like.[12] In Kashmir Shaivism, states David Gray, the antinomian transgressive ideas were internalized, for meditation and reflection, and as a means to "realize a transcendent subjectivity".[13]

References

  1. ^
    ISBN 978-0-226-02783-8
    .
  2. ^
    ISBN 978-1135189785
    .
  3. ^
    ISBN 978-0691017648.[page needed
    ]
  4. OCLC 762156601.[page needed
    ]
  5. ISBN 978-0734763969
    .
  6. ^
    ISBN 0-671-22448-4
    .
  7. ISBN 0-88356-015-1
    .
  8. ISBN 978-0820425146
    .
  9. ^ English 2013, p. 40.
  10. ^ English 2013, p. 41.
  11. ^ Flood 2006, pp. 48–49.
  12. ^ Brooks 1990, pp. 69–71.
  13. ^ Gray 2016, p. 11.

Works cited

External links

Media related to Mithuna at Wikimedia Commons

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