Chapter Three: The Madhura Disposition in India's Inner (Esoteric) Religious Disciplines
—have reached the highest state. As Shiva says in the Bhāva-cūḍāmaṇi, they retain not the slightest sense of difference between mud and sandalwood, son and enemy, cremation ground and home, or gold and grass.1
In the end, this practice too becomes like the innate discipline of the Akulavīra Tantra.2
Innate practice in the Kapalika doctrine
Jalandharnath and Kanhupa, or Kanapa—Krishnapada—are equally honoured saints in Buddhist and Nath traditions. Kanhupa called himself a Kapalika and described his guru as a disciple of Jalandharapada. In his couplets, Krishnapada calls the summit of Mount Meru, in the form of the skeletal staff, the dwelling of great bliss. The Mekhalā-ṭīkā names this Mount Meru “Jalandhara.” It was probably written by Mekhala Yogini, a disciple of Krishnapada. The name itself reveals Krishnapada's deep devotion to Jalandharapada.
It is pointless to ask whether the Kapalika doctrine so highly honoured by Jalandharapada and Krishnapada was the Shaiva Kapalika path or Buddhist Vajrayana. In those days the Tantric paths were extremely close. Bhavabhuti's play Mālatī-Mādhava tells of a Buddhist nun named Saudamini who went to Sri Parvata to learn Kapalika practice; that practice was certainly Shaiva. Sri Parvata was then a renowned Tantric centre where Buddhist, Shaiva, and Shakta disciplines flourished beside one another. In both Kādambarī and Harṣacarita, Banabhatta describes Sri Parvata as a centre of Shakta Tantra.
A commentary on the Caryācaryā-viniścaya cites a verse of Dombipada explaining the Kapalika. The practitioner's body is Vajradhara; every woman in the world is the woman of the skull; and the “I am That” self within the living being is the form of the Blessed Heruka, not separate from us. Sri and the lotus, the subtle objects grasped through the senses and the gross objects beginning with earth, and Madana who burns them are the three jewels. Meditating continually upon them in their proper dignity with a mind beyond every ordinary conception, the lord of yogis attains perfection.3 The woman in the form of the skull-woman—
Footnotes
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Kardame candane mitre putre śatrau tathā priye / śmaśāne bhavane devi tathā vai kāñcane tṛṇe / bhedo yasya na leśo 'pi sa kaulaḥ parikīrtitaḥ //—“O Goddess, one in whom there is not the least distinction between mud and sandalwood, friend, son, enemy and beloved, cremation ground and dwelling, gold and grass, is celebrated as a Kaula.” ↩
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See Nātha Sampradāya, p. 4. ↩
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Pandit Haraprasad Shastri's cited reading begins: Prāṇī vajra-dharaḥ kapāla-vanitā-tulyo jagat-strī-janaḥ / so 'haṃ heruka-mūrtir eṣa bhagavān yo naḥ prabhinno 'ṅgapi ca //—“The living being is Vajradhara; the women of the world are equivalent to the woman of the skull. The Blessed One in the form of Heruka is the ‘I am That’ within us, not separate even in one limb.” The verse continues on the following scan. ↩