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

—an object of worship. Shiva is only to be known; Shakti is worshipped. Under the pretext of worshipping her, Bhavabhuti gives a powerfully vigorous description of Shakti's play and cosmic dance. Because he glorifies the “Lord of Shakti” surrounded by powers, it is reasonable to infer that the Kapalikas too regarded Supreme Shiva as knowable but inactive and stainless.¹

Commentaries upon Mālatī-Mādhava and the Karpūra-mañjarī mention the adherents of the Soma doctrine. They called “Rudra accompanied by Uma” Soma, and worshipped the paired form of Hara and Parvati. Both Vajrayana and Shaiva Kapalika practice acknowledged the greatness of a pleasure-based yogic discipline. Here, harmony was understood to arise through the union of the gross bodies of woman and man. The harmony of the sahaja doctrine thus appeared in these disciplines as bodily union.

It would nevertheless be a mistake to suppose that gross union was the true form of this practice. Bodily union served to draw up and elevate the Five Sacred Things, through which the body became diamond-like and the mind motionless.

Innate bliss or great bliss in Vajrayana and Kapalika doctrine

In Vajrayana, a later branch of Mahayana Buddhism, the greatest happiness is called innate bliss. It is also called great bliss. A time came when Sahajayana and Vajrayana practitioners understood emptiness not negatively, but positively and substantially. To convey this, they used expressions such as sovereign bliss, innate bliss, and great bliss.

They recognised four kinds of bliss: first bliss, supreme bliss, cessation-bliss, and innate bliss. Innate bliss is the highest. It is sovereign bliss and great bliss. No words can explain it; it can be known only through experience. Sensory awareness disappears within it, the sense of self or “I” vanishes, and one abides as the Absolute alone.²