Charnel ground

However, proper "charnel grounds" can still be found in India, especially near large rivers banks and areas where abandoned people (without family) are cremated or simply left to decompose.

These areas are often frequented by the Aghorī, a Hindu monastic order derived from the Kāpālika sect, that follows similar meditation techniques, as those thought by the 84 Mahasiddhas.

[2] In the Pali Canon discourses, Gautama Buddha frequently instructs his disciples to seek out a secluded dwelling (in a forest, under the shade of a tree, mountain, glen, hillside cave, charnel ground, jungle grove, in the open, or on a heap of straw).

[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).

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.

The intensity of their dynamics makes all of these situations ripe for the Vajrayana practice of the charnel ground.Tibetan representations of Ganesha show ambivalent or richly different depictions of him.

English: The Great Red Lord of Hosts or Ganas) is a Tantric Buddhist form of Ganapati (Ganesha) related to the Chakrasamvara Cycle of Tantras.

Wearing various silks as a lower garment and adorned with a variety of jewel ornaments, the left foot is extended in a dancing manner, standing in the middle of the bright rays of red flickering light."

Dattatreya the avadhuta, to whom has been attributed the esteemed nondual medieval song, the Avadhuta Gita, was a sometime denizen of the charnel ground and a founding deity of the Aghor tradition according to Barrett (2008: p. 33): ...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.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.

This ideal example serves as a prototype for other Aghor practices, both left and right, in ritual and in daily life.Beer (2003: p. 102) relates how the symbolism of the khatvanga that entered esoteric Buddhism (particularly from Padmasambhava) was a direct borrowing from the Shaivite Kapalikas who frequented places of austerity such as charnel grounds and cross roads etcetera as a form of 'left-handed path' (Sanskrit: vamamarga) 'spiritual practice' (Sanskrit: sadhana): The form of the Buddhist khatvanga derived from the emblematic staff of the early Indian Shaivite yogins, known as kapalikas or 'skull-bearers'.

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.

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.Sadhana in the charnel ground within the Dharmic Traditions may be traced to ancient depictions of the chthonic Shiva and his chimeric son Ganapati (Ganesha) who was decapitated and returned to life with the head of an elephant.

11th–12th century) yoked adversity to till the soil of the path and accomplish the fruit, the 'ground' (Sanskrit: āśraya; Wylie: gzhi)[16] of realization – worthy case-studies for those with spiritual proclivity: 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.

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.Dyczkowski (1988: p. 26) holds Hāla's Prakrit literature poem the Gāthāsaptaśati (third to fifth century CE) to be one of the first extant literary references to a Kapalika where in the poem the Kapalika, who is a female, anoints and besmears her body with the crematory ash from the funeral pyre of her recently deceased lover.

I view the world alternately as separate from God (Īśvara) and one with Him, through the eyes that are made clear with the ointment of yoga... We (Kāpālikas) offer oblations of human flesh mixed with brains, entrails and marrow.

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 'songs of realization', charnel grounds are often described as containing "rivers of blood", "poisonous waterfalls", and depicted as localities containing dangerous wild beasts.

The two truths doctrine though iterates this view and when perceived differently, charnel grounds are peaceful places of beatific solitude and this chthonic symbolism and the twilight language and iconography accrues a rich polysemy.

Songbirds, tame lions and tigers, and the vast open vault of the sky, fruit and flowers are often used in Vajrayana iconography and poetry and Beer (1999)[18] explains their symbolism and how they are understood in the tradition in fine detail.

[20] 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.

As the anthropologist Gold (1994: p. 141) relates in his comparative study drawn from his professional fieldwork into the symbolic universals of the sacred circles and sand-paintings of the Navajo and Tibetan peoples, parses the sacred precinct and motif of the charnel ground as a locality in the symbolic grammar of the Indo-Tibetan 'fierce yidam' or 'wrathful deity' (Sanskrit: heruka) sand mandala: 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.

[24] Blood is thematic in Charnel Ground iconography where it may be understood as lifeblood, a symbol of viscous 'compassion' (Sanskrit: karuna) of 'sacrifice' (Sanskrit:yajna), and attendant with the symbolism of blood, bones ground our shared humanity and solidarity in the wider Mandala of life and the ancient lineage of 'ancestors' from which all sentient beings are of lineal descent.

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.

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.

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.