Kapala
The Sanskrit word, in turn, was derived from Proto Indo-Aryan *kapā́las, and descended from Proto-Indo-European *káp-ōl- (cup, bowl), from *kap- (to seize, to hold).
Among the rituals using kapalas are higher tantric meditation to achieve a transcendental state of mind within the shortest possible time; libation to gods and deities to win their favor.
The Kāpālikas were an extinct sect of Shaivite ascetics devoted to the Hindu god Shiva dating back to the 8th century CE, which traditionally carried a skull-topped trident (khatvanga) and an empty skull as a begging bowl.
[1][2] In Tibetan monasteries a kapala is used symbolically to hold bread or dough cakes, torma, and wine instead of blood and flesh as offerings to wrathful deities, such as the ferocious Dharmapāla ("defender of the faith").
[7] As wisdom transforms all duhkha into emptiness (sunyata), a yogi who has accomplished the siddhi of non-discriminatory awareness has broken through all illusions of duality, of purity and impurity (all constructed realities), and most importantly, nirvana and samsara.
[9] In this way, the image of the dakini who not only drinks but takes pleasure and delight from consuming the blood in the kapala is a powerful symbol of a yogi who has perfected the paramita of prajna, and who dwells in the reality of non-dualism.
The charnel ground, often referred to as "sky burial" by Western sources, is an area demarcated specifically in Tibet, defined by the Tibetan word Jhator (literal meaning is ’giving alms to the birds’), a way of exposing the corpse to nature, where human bodies are disposed as it were or in a chopped (chopped after the rituals) condition in the open ground as a ritual that has great religious meaning of the ascent of the mind to be reincarnated into another circle of life.
