Chapter Three: The Madhura Disposition in India's Inner (Esoteric) Religious Disciplines

A woman's presence was held absolutely necessary. In Mālatī-Mādhava, the Kapalika Aghoraghanta practised yoga with his disciple Kapalakundala. Taken together, the evidence suggests that a woman's assistance was necessary in both Shaiva and Buddhist Kapalika practice.¹

Mālatī-Mādhava makes four things clear about the Kapalika doctrine known to Bhavabhuti: (1) like later Naths, it believed in channels and centres; (2) it affirmed the identity of Shiva and the living being; (3) it held that only by stilling the mind's movement through yoga does one realise the Shiva-self established as absolute freedom; and (4) it believed in the effective power of Shiva united with Shakti.

The true meaning of the “five nectars” in Mālatī-Mādhava is semen, blood, fat, marrow, and urine. Drawing these upward is said to make the body diamond-like and yield the attainments beginning with minuteness. The method occurs among Vajrayana practitioners and Kaula Tantrics as well. Vajroli practice in the Nath path should be understood as a broken remnant of this discipline.

Like other Tantrics, the Kapalikas seem to have believed that Supreme Shiva is to be known, while his Shakti and Shiva united with her—the manifest Shiva with attributes—are to be worshipped. With this in view, the Devī-bhāgavata says that Shiva deprived of Kundalini, Shakti, becomes like a corpse, inactive: Śivo 'pi śavatāṃ yāti kuṇḍalinyā vivarjitaḥ. Shankaracharya expresses the same idea in the Saundarya-laharī: Shiva can act only when united with Shakti; otherwise he cannot even stir.²

Tantrics hold that Supreme Shiva has neither form nor qualities, so no defining account of his nature can be given. All objects in the world differ from him, and one can say only “not this, not this.” Shiva without attributes, Supreme Shiva, can only be known; he is not an object of worship.

Amaroli and the related seals are perfected only after meditative absorption has been perfected. When the inner mind takes on an uninterrupted current shaped like the object of meditation—when it assumes the form of Brahman—and the vital wind enters suṣumṇā, the mind becomes even. Only then are Amaroli, Vajroli, and Sahajoli properly accomplished. They are not attained by anyone who has not mastered breath and mind.³