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© Victor & Victoria Trimondi
The Shadow of the Dalai Lama – Part I – 3. The tantric female
sacrifice
3. THE TANTRIC FEMALE SACRIFICE
Until now we have only examined the tantric scheme
very broadly and abstractly. But we now wish to show concretely how the
“transformation of erotic love into power” is carried out. We thus return
to the starting point, the love-play between yogi and yogini,
god and goddess, and first examine the various feminine typologies which
the tantric master uses in his rituals. Vajrayana distinguishes three
types of woman in all:
- The “real woman” (karma mudra). She is a real
human partner. According to tantric doctrine she belongs to the “realm
of desire”.
- The “imaginary woman” or “spirit woman” (inana mudra).
She is summonsed by the yogi’s meditative imagination and only exists
there or in his fantasy. The inana mudra is placed in the “realm of forms”.
- The “inner woman” (maha mudra). She is the woman
internalized via the tantric praxis, with no existence independent of
the yogi. She is not even credited with the reality of an imagined form, therefore she counts as a figure from the
“formless realm”.
All three types of woman are termed mudra. This
word originally meant ‘seal’, ‘stamp’, or ‘letter of the alphabet’. It
further indicated certain magical hand gestures and body postures, with
which the yogi conducted, controlled and “sealed” the divine energies. This
semantic richness has led to all manner of speculation. For example, we
read that the tantric master “stamps” the phenomena of the world with
happiness, and that as his companion helps him do this, she is known as mudra
(‘stamp’). More concretely, the Maha Siddha Naropa refers to
the fact that a tantric partner, in contrast to a normal woman, assists the
guru in blocking his ejaculation during the sexual act, and as it were
“seals” this, which is of major importance for the performance of the
ritual. For this reason she is known as mudra, ‘seal’ (Naropa, 1994, p. 81). But the actual meaning probably
lies in the following: in Vajrayana the feminine itself is “sealed”, that is,
spellbound via a magic act, so that it is available to the tantric master
in its entirety.
The karma mudra: the real woman
What then are the external criteria which a karma mudra,
a real woman, needs to meet in order to serve a guru as wisdom consort? The
Hevajra Tantra,
for example, describes her in the following words: “She is neither too
tall, nor too short, neither quite black nor quite white, but dark like a
lotus leaf. Her breath is sweet, and her sweat has a pleasant smell like
that of musk. Her pudenda
gives forth a scent from moment to moment like different kinds of
lotuses or like sweet aloe wood. She is calm and resolute, pleasant in
speech and altogether delightful” (Snellgrove,
1959, p. 116). At another juncture the same tantra
recommends that the guru “take a consort who has a beautiful face, is
wide-eyed, is endowed with grace and youth, is dark, courageous, of good
family and originates from the female and male fluids” (Farrow and Menon, 1992, p. 217). Gedün Chöpel, a famous tantric from the 20th century, draws a
distinction between the various regions from which the women come. Girls
from Kham province, for example, have soft flesh,
lovers from Dzang are well-versed in the erotic
techniques, “Kashmiri girls” are to be valued for their smile, and so on (Chöpel, 1992, p. 45).
Sometimes it is also required of the karma mudra
that as well as being attractive she also possess
specialized erotic skills. For example, the Kalachakra Tantra
recommends training in the sophisticated Indian sexual techniques of the Kama Sutra. In this famous handbook
on the intensification of sexual lust, the reader can inform him- or
herself about the most daring positions, the use of aphrodisiacs, the
anatomical advantages various women possess, the seduction of young girls,
dealings with courtesans, and much more. The sole intention of the Kama Sutra, however, is to sexualize
life as a whole. In contrast to the tantras there
are no religious and power-political intentions to be found behind this
work. It thus has no intrinsic value for the tantric yogi. The latter uses
it purely as a source of inspiration, to stimulate his desires which he
then brings under conscious control.
Youth is a further requirement which the mudra has to
meet. The Maha Siddha Saraha distinguishes five different wisdom consorts on
the basis of age: the eight-year-old virgin (kumari); the twelve-year-old salika; the
sixteen-year-old siddha,
who already bleeds monthly; the twenty-year-old balika, and the twenty-five-year-old bhadrakapalini, who he
describes as the “burned fat of prajna” (Wayman, 1973, p. 196). The “modern” tantric already
mentioned, Lama Gedün Chöpel,
explicitly warns that children can become injured during the sexual act: “Forcingly doing it with a young girl produces severe
pains and wounds her genitalia. ... If it is not the time and if copulating
would be dangerous for her, churn about between her thighs, and it [the
female seed] will come out” (Chöpel, 1992, p.
135). In addition he recommends feeding a twelve-year-old honey and sweets
before ritual sexual intercourse (Chöpel, 1992,
p. 177).
When the king and later Maha Siddha, Dombipa,
one day noticed the beautiful daughter of a traveling singer before his
palace, he selected her as his wisdom consort and bought her from her
father for an enormous sum in gold. She was “an
innocent virgin, untainted by the sordid world about her. She was utterly
charming, with a fair complexion and classical features. She had all the
qualities of a padmini,
a lotus child, the rarest and most desirable of all girls” (Dowman, 1985, pp. 53–54). What became of the
“lotus child” after the ritual is not recorded.
“In the rite of ‘virgin-worship’ (kumari-puja)”,
writes Benjamin Walker, “a girl is selected and trained for initiation, and
innocent of her impending fate is brought before the altar and worshipped
in the nude, and then deflowered by a guru or chela”
(Walker, 1982, p. 72). It was not just the Hindu tantrics
who practiced rituals with a kumari, but also the Tibetans, in any case the Grand
Abbot of the Sakyapa Sect, even though he was
married.
On a numerological basis twelve- or sixteen-year-old
girls are preferred. Only when none can be found does Tsongkhapa
recommend the use of a twenty-year-old. There is also a table of
correspondences between the various ages and the elements and senses: an
11-year-old represents the air, a 12-year-old fire, a 13-year-old water, a
14-year-old earth, a15-year-old sound, a 16-year-old the sense of touch, a
17-year-old taste, an 18-year-old shape or form, and a 20-year-old the
sense of smell (Naropa, 1994, p. 189).
The rituals should not be performed with women
older than this, as they absorb the “occult forces” of the guru. The
dangers associated with older mudras are a topic discussed at length. A famous tantric
commentator describes 21- to 30-year-olds as “goddesses of wrath” and gives
them the following names: The Blackest, the Fattest, the Greedy, the Most
Arrogant, the Stringent, the Flashing, the Grudging, the Iron Chain, and
the Terrible Eye. 31- to 38-year-olds are considered to be manifestations
of malignant spirits and 39- to 46-year-olds as “unlimited manifestations
of the demons”. They are called Dog Snout, Sucking Gob, Jackal Face, Tiger
Gullet, Garuda Mug, Owl Features, Vulture’s Beak, Pecking Crow (Naropa, 1994, p. 189). These women, according to the
text, shriek and scold, menace and curse. In order to get the yogi
completely off balance, one of these terrible figures calls out to him in
the Kalachakra Tantra,
“Human beast, you are to be crushed today”. Then she gnashes her teeth and
hisses, “Today I must devour your flesh”, and with trembling tongue she
continues, “From your body I will make the drink of blood” (Grünwedel, Kalacakra III,
p. 191). That some radical tantras view it as
especially productive to copulate with such female “monsters” is a topic to
which we shall later return.
How does the yogi find a real, human mudra?
Normally, she is delivered by his pupil. This is also true for the Kalachakra Tantra.
“If one gives the enlightened teacher the prajna [mudra] as a gift,” proclaims Naropa, “the yoga is bliss” (Grünwedel,
1933, p. 117). If a 12- or 16-year-old girl cannot be found, a 20-year-old
will suffice, advises another text, and continues, “One should offer his
sister, daughter or wife to the ‘guru’”, then the more valuable the mudra is to
the pupil, the more she serves as a gift for his master (Wayman, 1977, p. 320).
Further, magic spells are taught with which to
summons a partner. The Hevajra Tantra recommends the following mantra: “Om Hri —
may she come into my power — savaha!” (Snellgrove, 1959, p. 54). Once the yogi has repeated
this saying ten thousand times the mudra will appear before him in flesh and blood and
obeys his wishes.
The Kalachakra Tantra urges the yogi to render the mudra pliant
with intoxicating liquor: “Wine is essential for the wisdom consort [prajna]. ...
Any mudra at all, even those who are still
not willing, can be procured with drink” (Grünwedel,
Kalacakra III, p. 147). It is only a small
step from this to the use of direct force. There are also texts, which
advise “that if a woman refuses sexual union she must be forced to do so”
(Bhattacharyya, 1982, p. 125).
Whether or not a karma mudra needs special training
before the ritual is something which receves
varying answers in the texts and commentaries. In general, she should be
familiar with the tantric doctrine. Tsongkhapa
advises that she take and keep a vow of silence. He expressly warns against
intercourse with unworthy partners: “If a woman lacks ... superlative qualities, that is an inferior lotus. Do not stay with
that one, because she is full of negative qualities. Make an offering and
show some respect, but don’t practice (with her)” (quoted in Shaw, 1994, p.
169). In the Hevajra Tantra a
one-month preparation time is required, then “the girl [is] freed of all
false ideas and received as though she were a boon” (Snellgrove,
1987, vol. 1, p. 261).
But what happens to the “boon” once the ritual is
over? “The karma mudra
... has a purely pragmatic and instrumental significance and is
superfluous at the finish” writes the Italian Tibetologist
Raniero Gnoli in the
introduction to a Kalachakra
commentary (Naropa, 1994, p. 82). After the
sexual act she is “of no more use to the tantrik
than husk of a shelled peanut”, says Benjamin Walker (Walker, 1982, pp.
72–73). She has done her duty, transferred her feminine energy to the yogi,
and now succumbs to the disdain which Buddhism holds for all “normal” women
as symbols of the “supreme illusion” (maha maya). There is no mention of an
initiation of the female partner in the codified Buddhist tantra texts.
The karma mudra
and the West
Since the general public demands that a Tibetan
lama lead the life of a celibate monk, he must keep his sexual practices
secret. For this reason, documents about and verbal accounts of clerical
erotic love are extremely rare. It is true that the sexual magic rites are
freely and openly discussed in the tantra texts,
but who does what with whom and where are all “top
secret”. Only the immediate followers are informed, the English
author June Campbell reports.
And she has the authority to make such a claim.
Campbell had been working for many years as translator and personal
assistant for the highest ranking Kagyüpa guru,
His Holiness Kalu Rinpoche
(1905–1989), when the old man (he was then approaching his eighties) one
day asked her to become his mudra. She was completely surprised by this request and
could not begin to imagine such a thing, but then, she reluctantly
submitted to the wishes of her master. As she eventually managed to escape
the tantric magic circle, the previously uninformed public is indebted to
her for a number of competent commentaries upon the sexual cabinet politics
of modern Lamaism and the psychology of the karma mudra.
What then, according to Campbell, are the reasons which motivate
Western women to enter into a tantric relationship, and then afterwards
keep their experiences with the masters to themselves? First of all, their
great respect and deep reverence for the lama, who as a “living Buddha”
begins and ritually conducts the liaison. Then, the karma mudra, even when she is not
publicly acknowledged, enjoys a high status within the small circle of the
informed and, temporarily, the rank of a dakini, i.e., a tantric
goddess. Her intimate relationship with a “holy man” further gives her the
feeling that she is herself holy, or at least the opportunity to collect
good karma for herself.
Of course, the mudra must swear a strict vow of absolute silence regarding her
relations with the tantric master. Should she break it, then according to
the tantric penal code she may expect major difficulties, insanity, death
and on top of this millennia of hellish torments. In order to intimidate
her, Kalu Rinpoche is
alleged to have told his mudra, June
Campbell, that in an earlier life he killed a woman with a mantra because
she disobeyed him and gossiped about intimacies. “The imposition of secrecy
... in the Tibetan system”, Campbell
writes, “when it occurred solely as a means to protect status
, and where it was reinforced by threats, was a powerful weapon in
keeping women from achieving any kind of integrity in themselves. ... So
whilst the lineage system [the gurus’ chain of initiation] viewed these
[sexual] activities as promoting the enlightenment state of the lineage
holders, the fate of one of the two main protagonists, the female consort,
remained unrecognized, unspoken and unnamed” (June Campbell, 1996, p. 103).
June Campbell also first risked speaking openly about her experiences,
which she found repressive and degrading, after Kalu
Rinpoche had died.
In her book, this author laments not just the
subsequent namelessness of and disregard for the karma mudra despite the guru praising
her as a “goddess” for as long as the ritual lasted, but also discusses the
traumatic state of “used up” women, who, once their master has “drunk”
their gynergy,
are traded in for a “fresh” mudra. She also makes reference to the naiveté of
Western husbands, who send their spouses to a guru in good faith, so that
they can complete their spiritual development. (June Campbell, 1996, p.
107). During her relationship with Kalu Rinpoche he was also practicing with another woman who
was not yet twenty years old. The girl died suddenly,
of a heart attack it was said. We will return to this death, which fits the
logic of the tantric pattern, at a later stage. The fears which such events
awakened in her, reports Campbell, completely cut her off from the outside
world and left her totally delivered up to the domination of her guru.
This masculine arrogance becomes particularly
obvious in a statement by the young lama, Dzongsar
Khyentse Rinpoche, who
announced the following in response to Campbell’s commotion stirring book: “If
Western women begin sexual relationships with Tibetan lamas, then the
consequence for a number of them is frustration, because their culturally
conditioned expectations are not met. If they hope to find an agreeable and
equal lover in a Rinpoche, they could not be
making a bigger mistake. Certain Rinpoches, who
are revered as great teachers, would literally make the worst partners of
all — seen from the point of view of the ego. If one approaches such a
great master expecting to be acknowledged, and wishing for a relationship
in which one shares, satisfies one another, etc., then one is making a bad
choice — not just from the ego’s point of view, but also in a completely
normal, worldly sense. They probably won’t bring them flowers or invite
them to candlelight dinners” (Esotera, 12/97, p. 45; retranslation). It speaks for
such a quotation that it is honest, since it quite plainly acknowledges the
spiritual inferiority of women (who represent the ego, desire and banality)
when confronted with the superhuman spiritual authority of the male gurus.
The tantric master Khyentse Rinpoche
knows exactly what he is talking about, when he continues with the
following sentence: “Whilst in the West one understands equality to mean
that two aspects find a common denominator, in Vajrayana Buddhism equality
lies completely outside of twoness or duality.
Where duality is retained, there can be no equality” (Esotera, 12/97, p. 46;
retranslation). That is, in other words: the woman as equal and autonomous
partner must be eliminated and has to surrender her energies to the
master’s completion (beyond duality).
“Sexual abuse” of Western women by Tibetan lamas
has meanwhile become something of a constant topic in the Buddhist scene
and has also triggered heated discussion on the Internet. “Sexual abuse” of
Western women by Tibetan lamas has meanwhile become something of a constant
topic in the Buddhist scene and has also triggered heated discussion on the
Internet. See: www.trimondi.de/EN/links.htm#SEXABUSE
Even the official office of the Fourteenth Dalai
Lama has had to respond to the increasingly common allegations: “What some
of these students have experienced is terrible and most unfortunate”,
announced Tenzin Tethon,
a secretary to His Holiness, and admitted that for a number of years there
had already been reports of such incidents (Lattin,
Newsgroup 2). Naturally, Tenzin Tethon made no mention of the fact that the sexual
exploitation of women for spiritual purposes forms the heart of the tantric
mystery.
But there are more and more examples where women
are beginning to defend themselves. Thus, in 1992 the well-known bestseller
author and commentator on the Tibetan
Book of the Dead, Sogyal Rinpoche,
had to face the Supreme Court of Santa Cruz, alleged to have “used his
position as an interpreter of Tibetan Buddhism to take sexual and other
advantage of female students over a period of many years” (Tricycle 1996, vol. 5 no. 4, p. 87).
The plaintiff was seeking 10 million dollars. It was claimed Sogyal Rinpoche had assured
his numerous partners that it would be extremely salutary and spiritually
rewarding to sleep with him. Another mudra, Victoria Barlow from New York City,
described in an interview with Free
Press how she, at the age of 21, was summoned into Sogyal
Rinpoche’s room during a meditative retreats: “I
went to an apartment to see a highly esteemed lama and discuss religion. He
opened the door without a shirt on and with a beer in his hand”. When they
were sitting on the sofa, the Tibetan “lunged at me with sloppy kisses and
groping. I thought [then] I should take it as the deepest compliment that
he was interested and basically surrender to him”. Today, Barlow says that
she is “disgusted by the way the Tibetans have manipulated the reverence
westerners have for the Buddhist path” (Lattin,
Newsgroup 2). The case mentioned above was, however, settled out of court;
the result, according to Sogyal’s followers, of
their master’s deep meditation.
It would normally be correct to dismiss such “sex
stories” as superfluous gossip and disregard them. In the occult logic of Vajrayana, however, they need to be seen as
strategically placed ritual practices designed to bring the guru power and
influence. Perhaps they additionally have something to do with the Buddhist
conquest of the West, which is symbolized by various mudras. Such conjectures may
sound rather bizarre, but in Tantrism we are
confronted with a different logic to that to which we are accustomed. Here,
sexual events are not uncommonly globalized and capable of influencing all
of humankind. We shall return to this point.
But at least such examples show that Tibet’s
“celibate” monks “practice” with real women — a fact about which the
Tibetan clergy including the Fourteenth Dalai Lama have deceived the West
until now. Because more and more “wisdom consorts” are breaking their oath
to secrecy, it is only now that the conditions are being created for a
public discussion of the tantric rituals as such. The criticism to date has
not gone beyond a moral-feminist discourse and in no case known to us (with
the exception of some of June Campbell’s statements) has it extended to the
occult exploitative mechanism of Vajrayana.
On the other hand, the fact that the sexual needs
of the lamas can no longer be covered up, has, in a type of advance
strategy, led to a situation in which their “spiritual” work with karma mudras
is presentable as something to be taken for granted, and which is not
inherently shocking. “Many Rinpoches”, one
Christopher Fynn has written on the Internet,
“including Jattral Rinpoche,
Dzongsar Khyentse, Dilgo Khyentse and Ongen Tulku have consorts —
which everyone knew about” (Fynn, Newsgroup 4).
And the Dalai Lama, himself the Highest Master of
the sexual magic rites, raises the moral finger: “In recent years, teachers
from Asia and the West have been involved
in scandals about sexual misbehavior towards male and female pupils, the
abuse of alcohol and drugs, and the misuse of money and power. This
behavior has caused great damage to the Buddhist community and individual
people. Pupils of both sexes should be encouraged to confront teachers with
unethical aspects of their behavior in an appropriate manner” (Esotera,
12/97, p. 45; retranslation). What should be made of such requests by His
Holiness, which are also silent about the sexist
mechanisms of Tantrism is a topic which we
explore in detail in the second part of our study.
Following these up-to-date “revelations” about
Western karma mudras,
let us return to our presentation of the tantric scenario as described
in the traditional texts.
The inana mudra: the woman of
imagination
In contrast to the real karma mudra, the inana mudra is a purely spiritual figure, who appears as a
goddess, the wisdom consort of various Buddhas,
or as a “dakini”. She is the product of the
imagination. But we must keep in mind that the inana mudra may never be a random fantasy
of the guru, rather, her external appearance, the color of her hair, her
clothing, her jewelry and the symbols which surround her, are all codified.
Thus, in his imagination the tantric copies an image which is already
recorded in the Buddhist pantheon. In this regard the cult of inana mudra
worship has much in common with Christian mysticism surrounding Sophia and
Mary and has therefore often been compared with, for example, the mater gloriosa
at the end of Goethe’s Faust,
where the reformed alchemist rapturously cries:
Highest mistress of the world!
Let me in the azure
Tent of Heaven, in light unfurled
Hear thy Mystery measure!
Justify sweet thoughts that move
Breast of man to meet thee!
And with holy bliss of love
Bear him up to greet thee!
(Faust
II, 11997–12004)
Here, “the German poet Goethe … unsuspectingly
voices expresses the Buddhist awareness of the Jñānamudrā
[inana mudra]” notes Herbert Guenther, who has
attempted in a number of writings to interpret the tantras
from the viewpoint of a European philosopher (Guenther, 1976, p. 74).
It should however be noted that such Western
sublimations of the feminine only correspond to a degree with the
imaginings of Indian and Tibetan tantrics. There,
it is not just noble and ethereal virgins who are conjured up in the yogis’
imaginations, but also sensuous “dakinis”
trembling with lust, who not uncommonly appear as figures of horror,
goddesses with bowls made of skulls and cleavers in their hands.
But whatever sort of a woman the adept imagines,
in all events he will unite sexually with this spiritual being during the
ritual. The white and refined “Sophias” from the
realm of the imagination are not exempted from the ritual sexual act.
“Among the last phases of the tantrik’s
progress”, Benjamin Walker tells us, “is sexual
union on the astral plane, when he invokes elemental spirits, fiendesses and the spirits of the dead, and has
intercourse with them” (Walker, 1982, p. 74).
Since the yogi produces his wisdom companion
through the imaginative power of his spirit, he can rightly consider
himself her spiritual father. The inana mudra is composed of the substance of his own
thoughts. She thus does not consist of matter, but — and this is very
important — she nonetheless appears outside of her imagination-father and
initially encounters him as an autonomous subject. He thus experiences her
as a being who admittedly has him alone to thank for her being, but who
nevertheless has a life of her own, like a child, separated from its mother
once it is born.
In all, the tantras
distinguish two “types of birth” for imagined female partners: firstly, the
“women produced by spells”; secondly, the “field-born yoginis”.
In both cases we are dealing with so-called “feminine energy fields” or
feminine archetypes which the tantric master can through his imaginative
powers render visible for him as “illusory bodies”. This usually takes
place via a deep meditation in which the yogi visualizes the inana mudra
with his “spiritual eye” (Wayman, 1973, pp.
193–195).
As a master of unbounded imagination, the yogi is
seldom content with a single inana mudra, and instead creates several female beings
from out of his spirit, either one after another or simultaneously. The Kalachakra Tantra
describes how the imagined “goddesses” spring from various parts of his
body, from out of his head, his forehead, his neck, his heart and his
navel. He can conjure up the most diverse entities in the form of women,
such as elements, planets, energies, forces and emotions — compassion for
example: “as the incarnation of this arises in his heart a golden glowing
woman wearing a white robe. ... Then this woman steps ... out of his heart,
spreads herself out to the heaven of the gods like a cloud and lets down a
rain of nourishment as an antidote for all bodily suffering” (Gäng, 1988, p. 44).
Karma mudra vs. inana mudra
In the tantric literature we find an endless
discussion about whether the magical sexual act with a karma mudra of flesh and blood must
be valued more highly than that with an imagined inana mudra. For example, Herbert Guenther
devotes a number of pages to this debate in his existentialist study of Vajrayana.
Although he also reports in detail about the “pro-woman” intentions of the tantras, he comes to the surprising conclusion that we
have in the karma mudra
a woman “who yields pleasure containing the seed of frustration”, whilst
the inana mudra is
“a woman who yields a purer, though unstable, pleasure” (Guenther, 1976, p.
57).
As a product of the PURE SPIRIT, he classes the inana mudra
above a living woman. She “is a creation of one’s own mind. She is of the
nature of the Great Mother or other goddesses and comprises all that has
been previously experienced” (Guenther, 1976, p. 72, quoting Naropa). But she too finally goes the way of all life
and “therefore also, even love, Jñānamudrā
[inana mudra],
gives us merely a fleeting sense of bliss, although this feeling is of a higher,
and hence more positive, order than the Karmamūdra
[karma mudra]
who makes us ‘sad’…” (Guenther, 1976, p. 75).
On the other hand there are very weighty arguments
for the greater importance of a real woman (karma mudra) in the tantric rite of initiation.
Then the purpose of the ritual with her is the final transcending of the
real external world of appearance (maya) and the creation of a universe which functions
solely according to the will and imagination of the tantric master. His
first task is therefore to recognize the illusory character of reality as a
whole. This is naturally represented more graphically, tangibly, and
factually by a woman of flesh and blood than by a fictive construction of
the own spirit, which the inana mudra is. She appears from the outset as the
product of an illusion.
A karma mudra thus presents an exceptionally difficult
challenge to the spiritual abilities of the adept, since the real human woman must also be
recognized as an illusion (maya)! This means, in the final instance, nothing less
than that the yogi no longer grants the entire physical world, which in
Indian tradition concentrates itself in the form of a woman, an independent
existence, and that as a consequence he recognizes matter as a conceit of
his own consciousness. He thereby frees himself from all restrictions
imposed by the laws of nature. Such a radical dissolution of reality is
believed to accelerate several times the initiation process which otherwise
takes numerous incarnations.
Especially if “enlightenment” and liberation from
the constraints of reality is to be achieved in a single lifetime, it is
necessary in the opinion of many tantra
commentators to practice with a human mudra. In the Cakrasamvara Tantra we
read for example, that “the secret path without a consort will not grant
perfection to beings” (quoted by Shaw, 1994, p. 142). Tsongkhapa,
founder of the Tibetan Gelugpa sect is of the
same opinion: “A female companion is the basis of the accomplishment of
liberation” (quoted by Shaw, 1994, p. 146). Imagined women are only
recommendable for less qualified individuals, or may serve at the beginning
of the ritual path as a preliminary exercise, reports Miranda Shaw, who
makes reference to modern Gelugpa Masters like
Lama Yeshe, Geshe Kelsang Gyatso and Geshe Dhargyey (Shaw, 1994,
pp. 146, 244, notes 26, 27, 29).
A further reason for the use of a karma mudra
can be seen in the fact that for his magical transformations the yogi needs
a secretion which the woman expresses during the sexual act and which is
referred to as “female seed” in the texts. It is considered a bodily
concentrate of gynergy.
This coveted vaginal fluid will later be the subject of a detailed
discussion.
The maha mudra: the inner woman
During the tantric ritual the karma mudra must therefore be
recognized by the yogi as an illusion. This is of course also true of the inana mudra,
since the tantric master as an autonomous being has to transcend both forms
of the feminine, the real and the imagined. We have already learned from
Herbert Guenther that the “spirit woman” is also of fleeting character and
prone to transitoriness. The yogi may not
attribute her with an “inherent existence”. At the beginning of every
tantric ritual both mudras
still appear outside of him; the karma
mudra before his “real” eyes, the inana mudra
before his “spiritual” eyes.
But does this illusory character of the two types
of woman mean that they are dissolved into nothing by the tantric master?
As far as their external and autonomous existence is concerned, this is
indeed the yogi’s conception. He does not accord even the real woman any
further inherent existence. When, after the tantric ritual in which she is
elevated to a goddess, she before all eyes returns home in visible,
physical form, in the eyes of the guru she no longer exists as an
independent being, but merely as the product of his imagination, as a
conceptual image — even when a normal person perceives the girl as a being
of flesh and blood.
But although her autonomous feminine existence has
been dissolved, her feminine essence (gynergy) has not been lost.
Via an act of sexual magic the yogi has appropriated this and with it
achieved the power of an androgyne. He destroys,
so to speak, the exterior feminine in order to internalize it and produce
an “inner woman” as a part of himself. “He absorbs the Mother of the
Universe into himself”, as it is described in the Kalachakra Tantra (Grünwedel, Kalacakra IV,
p. 32). At a later stage we will describe in detail the subtle techniques
with which he performs this absorption. Here we simply list some of the
properties of the “inner woman”, the so-called maha mudra (“great” mudra). The boundary with the
inana mudra is
not fixed, after all the maha mudra is also a product of the imagination. Both
types of woman thus have no physical body, and instead transcend “the
atomic structure and consist of a purely spiritual substance” (Naropa, 1994, p. 82). But the inana mudra still exists outside of the
tantric master, the “inner woman”, however, as her name indicates, can no
longer be distinguished from him and has become a part of his self. In
general, the maha mudra is
said to reside in the region of the navel. There she dances and acts as an
oracle as the Greek goddess Metis once did in the belly of Zeus. She is the “in-born” and produces the “in-born joy of the
body, the in-born joy of language, the in-born joy of the spirit and the
in-born joy of consciousness” (Naropa, 1994, p.
204).
The male tantric master now has the power to
assume the female form of the goddess (who is of course an aspect of his
own mystical body), that is, he can appear in the figure of a woman.
Indeed, he even has the magical ability to divide himself into two gendered
beings, a female and a male deity. He is further able to multiply himself
into several maha mudras.
In the Guhyasamaja Tantra,
with the help of magical conjurations he fills an entire palace with female
figures, themselves all particles of his subtle body.
Now one might think that for the enlightened yogi
the book of sensual pleasures would be closed, since for him there are no
more exterior women. But the contrary is the case. His lust is not
transformed, but rather made eternal. Thus in his imagination, he is
“united day and night [with the maha mudra]. The yogi often says,
he would not live without her kiss and embrace” (Dasgupta,
1974, p. 102). He is even able to imaginatively stimulate the sexual organs
of the inner woman in order to combine her erotic pleasure with his own (he
simultaneously enjoys both), and thus immeasurably intensify it. (Farrow
and Menon, 1992, pp. 271, 272, 291).
Despite this sexual turbulence he retains a strict
awareness of the polarity of the primal cosmic forces,
it is just that these are now realized within his own person. He is
simultaneously masculine and feminine, and has both sexual energies under
his absolute control. He incarnates the entire tantric theater. He is
director, actor, audience, plot and stage in one individual.
Such agitated games are, however, just one side of
the tantric philosophy, on the other is a concept of eternal standstill of
being, linked to the image of the maha mudra. She appears as the “Highest Immobile”, who,
like a clear, magical mirror, reflects a femininity
turned to crystal. An obedient femininity with no will of her own, who
complies with the looks, the orders, the desires and fantasies of her
master. A female automaton, who wishes for
nothing, and blesses the yogi with her divine knowledge and holy wisdom.
Whether mobile or unmoving, erotic or spiritualized
— the maha mudra is
universal. From a tantric viewpoint she incarnates the entire universe.
Consequently, whoever has control over his “inner woman” becomes a lord of
the universe, a pantocrat. She is a paradox,
eternal and indestructible, but nevertheless, like the whole cosmos,
without an independent existence. For this reason she is known as a
“magical mirror” (Naropa, 1994, p. 81). In the
final instance, she represents the “emptiness”.
In Western discussion about the maha mudra she
is glorified by Lama Govinda (Ernst Lothar Hoffmann) as the “Eternal Feminine” which now
counts as part of the yogi’s essential being. (Govinda,
1991, p. 111). According to Govinda she fulfills
a role comparable to that of the muse, who up until the 19th century
whispered inspiration into the ears of European artists. Muses could also
become incarnated as real women, but in the same manner existed as “inner
goddesses”, known then under the name of “inspiration”.
The Buddhist doctrine of the maha mudra has also been compared with
Carl Gustav Jung’s concept of anima
(Katz 1977). Jung proposed that the human soul of a man is double gendered, it has a masculine and a feminine part, the animus and the anima. In a woman the reverse is true. Her feminine anima corresponds to a masculine animus. With some qualifications,
the depth psychologist was convinced that the other-gendered part of the
soul could originally be found in the psyche of every person. Jung thus
assumes the human soul possesses a primary androgyny, or gynandry, respectively. The goal of an integrated
psychology is that the individual recognize his or her other-gendered half
and bring the two parts of the soul into harmony.
Even if we attribute the same intentions to Tantrism, an essential difference remains. This is, as
all the relevant texts claim, that the feminine side of the yogi is
initially found outside himself — whether in the form of a real woman or
the figure of an imaginary one — and must first be integrated through
sacred sexual practices. If — as in Jung — the anima were to be found in the “mystic body” of the tantric
master from the start, then he would surely be able to activate his
feminine side without needing to use an external mudra. If he could, then all
the higher and highest initiations into Vajrayana would be redundant, since they always describe the “inner
woman” as the result of a process which begins with an “exterior woman”.
It is tempting to conclude that a causal relation
exists between both female tantric “partners”, the
internal and the external. The tantric master uses a human woman, or at
least an inana mudra to
create his androgynous body. He destroys her autonomous existence, steals
her gynergy,
integrates this in the form of an “inner woman” and thus becomes a powerful
double-gendered super-being. We can, hypothetically, describe the process
as follows: the sacrifice of the exterior woman is the precondition for the
establishment of the inner maha mudra.
The “tantric
female sacrifice”
But are we really justified in speaking of a
“tantric female sacrifice”? We shall attempt to find an answer to this
difficult question. Fundamentally, the Buddhist
tantric distinguishes three types of sacrifice: the outer, the inner and
the secret. The “outer sacrifice” consists of the offering to a divinity,
the Buddhas, or the guru, of food, incense,
butter lamps, perfume, and so on. For instance in the so-called “mandala sacrifice” the whole universe can be presented
to the teacher, in the form of a miniature model, whilst the pupil says the
following. “I sacrifice all the components of the universe in their
totality to you, O noble, kind, and holy lama!” (Bleichsteiner,
1937, p. 192)
In the “inner sacrifice” the pupil (Sadhaka)
gives his guru, usually in a symbolic act, his five senses (sight, hearing,
smell, taste, and touch), his states of
consciousness, and his feelings, or he offers himself as an individual up
to be sacrificed. Whatever the master demands of him will be done — even if
the sadhaka
must cut the flesh from his own limbs, like the tantric adept Naropa.
Behind the “secret sacrifice” hides, finally, a
particular ritual event which attracts our especial interest, since it is
here that the location of the “tantric female sacrifice” is to be
suspected. It concerns — as can be read in a modern commentary upon the Kalachakra Tantra —
“the spiritual sacrifice of a dakini to the lama” (Henss,
1985, p. 56). Such symbolic sacrifices of goddesses are all but
stereotypical of tantric ceremonies. “The exquisite bejeweled woman ... is
offered to the Buddhas” (Gäng,
1988, p. 151), as the Guhyasamaja Tantra puts it. Often eight, sometimes sixteen,
occasionally countless “wisdom girls” are offered up in “the holy most
secret of offerings” (quoted by Beyer, 1978, p. 162)
The sacrifice of samsara
A sacrifice of the feminine need not be first
sought in Tantrism, however; rather it may be
found in the logic of the entire Buddhist doctrine. Woman per se– as Buddha Shakyamuni repeatedly emphasized in many of his
statements — functions as the first and greatest cause of illusion (maya), but
likewise as the force which generates the phenomenal world (samsara). It
is the fundamental goal of every Buddhist to overcome this deceptive samsara. This
world of appearances experienced as feminine, presents him with his
greatest challenge. “A woman”, Nancy Auer Falk writes, “was the veritable
image of becoming and of all the forces of blind growth and productivity
which Buddhism knew as Samsara. As such she too
was the enemy — not only on a personal level, as an individual source of
temptation, but also on a cosmic level” (Gross, 1993, p. 48). In this
misogynist logic, it is only after the ritual destruction of the feminine
that the illusory world (maya) can be surmounted and transcended.
Is it for this reason that maya (illusion), the mother
of the historical Buddha, had to die directly after giving birth? In her
early death we can recognize the original event which stands at the
beginning of the fundamentally misogynist attitude of all Buddhist schools.
Maya both conceived and gave
birth to the Sublime One in a supernatural manner. It was not a sexual act
but an elephant which, in a dream, occasioned the conception, and Buddha Shakyamuni did not leave his mother’s body through the
birth canal, but rather through her hip. But these transfeminine
birth myths were not enough for the tellers of legends. Maya as earthly mother had, on the
path to enlightenment of a religion which seeks to free humanity from the
endless chain of reincarnation, to be proclaimed an “illusion” (maya) and
destroyed. She receives no higher accolade in the school of Buddha,
since the woman — as mother and as lover — is the curse which fetters us to
our illusory existence.
Already in Mahayana
Buddhism, the naked corpse of a woman was considered as the most
provocative and effective meditation object an initiand
could use to free himself from the net of Samsara. Inscribed in the
iconography of her body were all the vanities of this world. For this
reason, he who sank bowed over a decaying female body could achieve
enlightenment in his current life. To increase the intensity of the macabre
observation, it was usual in several Indian monastic orders to dismember
the corpse. Ears, nose, hands, feet, and breasts were chopped off and the
disfigured trunk became the object of contemplation. “In Buddhist context,
the spectacle of the mutilated woman serves to display the power of the
Buddha, the king of the Truth (Dharma) over Mara, the lord of the Realm of
Desire.”, writes Elizabeth Wilson in a discussion of such practices, “By
erasing the sexual messages conveyed by the bodies of attractive women
through the horrific spectacle of mutilation, the superior power of the
king of Dharma is made manifest to the citizens of the realm of desire.” (Wilson, 1995, p. 80).
In Vajrayana, the Shunyata doctrine (among others) of the nonexistence of
all being, is employed to conduct a symbolic
sacrifice of the feminine principle. Only once this has evaporated into a
“nothing” can the world and we humans be rescued from the curse of maya
(illusion). This may also be a reason why the “emptiness” (shunyata),
which actually by definition can not possess any characteristics, is
hypostasized as feminine in the tantras. This
becomes especially clear in the Hevajra Tantra. In staging of the ritual we encounter at
the outset a real yogini (karma mudra) or at least an imagined
goddess (inana mudra),
whom the yogi transforms in the course of events into a “nothing” using
magic techniques. By the end the tantric master has completely robbed her
of her independent existence, that is, to put it bluntly, she no longer
exists. “She is the Yogini without a Self”
(Farrow and Menon, 1992, pp. 218–219). Thus her
name, Nairatmya, literally means ‘one who has no
self, that is, non-substantial’ (Farrow and Menon,
1992, p. 219). The same concept is at work when,
in another tantra, the “ultimate dakini” is visualized as a “zero-point” and experienced
as “indivisible pleasure and emptiness” (Dowman,
1985, p. 74). Chögyam Trungpa
sings of the highest “lady without being” in the following verses:
Always present, you do not exist ...
Without body, shapeless, divinity of
the true.
(Trungpa, 1990, p. 40)
Only her bodilessness,
her existential sacrifice and her dissolution into nothing allow the karma mudra
to transmute into the maha mudra and gynergy to be
distilled out of the yogini in order to construct
the feminine ego of the adept with this “stuff”. “Relinquishing her form
[as] a woman, she would assume that of her Lord” the Hevajra Tantra establishes at another point
(Snellgrove, 1959, p. 91).
The maha mudra has, it is said, an “empty body” (Dalai Lama
I, 1985, p. 170). What can be understood by this contradictory metaphor? In
his commentary on the Kalachakra Tantra, Ngawang Dhargyey describes how the “empty body” can only be
produced through the destruction of all the “material” elements of a
physical, natural “body of appearance”. In contrast to such, “their bodies
are composed simply of energy and consciousness” (Dhargyey,
1985, p. 131). The physical world, sensuality, matter and nature —
considered feminine in not just Buddhism — thus become pure spirit in an
irreconcilable opposition. But they are not completely destroyed in the
process of their violent spiritualization, but rather “sublated”
in the Hegelian sense, namely “negated” and “conserved” at the same time;
they are — to make use of one of the favorite terms of the Buddhist
evolutionary theorist, Ken Wilber — “integrated”. This guarantees that the
creative feminine energies are not lost following the material
“dissolution” of their bearers, and instead are available solely to the
yogi as a precious elixir. A sacrifice of the feminine as an autonomous
principle must therefore be regarded as the sine qua non for the universal power of the tantric master.
These days this feminine sacrifice may only be performed entirely in the
imagination. But this need not have always been the case.
“Eating” the gynergy
But Vajrayana is concerned with more than the performance of
a cosmic drama in which the feminine and its qualities are destroyed for
metaphysical reasons. The tantric recognizes a majority of the feminine
properties as extremely powerful. He therefore has not the slightest
intention of destroying them as such. In contrast, he wishes to make the
feminine forces his own. What he wants to destroy is solely the physical
and mental bearer of gynergy — the real woman. For this reason,
the “tantric female sacrifice” is of a different character to the cosmogonic sacrifice of the feminine of early Buddhism.
It is based upon the ancient paradigm in which the energies of a creature
are transferred to its killer. The maker of the sacrifice wants to absorb
the vital substance of the offering, in many cases by consuming it after it
has been slaughtered. Through this he not only “integrates” the qualities
of the killed, but also believes he may outwit death, by feeding up on the
body and soul of the sacrificial victim.
In this connection the observation that world wide the sacred sacrifice is contextually linked
with food and eating, is of some interest. It is necessary to kill plants
and animals in order to nourish oneself. The
things killed are subsequently consumed and thus appear as a necessary
condition for the maintenance and propagation of life. Eating increases
strength, therefore it was important to literally incorporate the enemy. In
cannibalism, the eater integrates the energies of those he has slaughtered.
Since ancient humans made no basic distinction between physical, mental or
spiritual processes, the same logic applied to the “eating” of nonbodily forces. One also ate souls, or prana, or the élan vital.
In the Vedas,
this general “devouring logic” led to the conception that the gods
nourished themselves from the life fluids of ritually slaughtered humans,
just as mortals consume the bodies of animals for energy and nourishment.
Thus, a critical-rational section of the Upanishads advises against such human sacrifices, since they do
not advance individual enlightenment, but rather benefit only the
blood-hungry supernatural beings.
Life and death imply one another in this logic,
the one being a condition for the other. The whole circle of life was
therefore a huge sacrificial feast, consisting of the mutual theft and
absorption of energies, a great cosmic dog-eat-dog. Although early Buddhism
gave vent to keen criticism of the Vedic rites, especially the slaughter of
people and animals, the ancient sacrificial mindset resurfaces in tantric
ritual life. The “devouring logic” of the Vedas also controls the Tantrayana. Incidentally, the word tantra is first found in the
context of the Vedic sacrificial gnosis, where it means ‘sacrificial
framework’ (Smith, 1989, p. 128).
Sacred cannibalism was always communion, holy
union with the Spirit and the souls of the dead. It becomes Eucharistic
communion when the sacrifice is a slaughtered god, whose followers eat of
him at a supper. God and man are first one when the man or woman has eaten
of the holy body and drunk the holy blood of his or her god. The same
applies in the relation to the goddess. The tantric yogi unites with her
not just in the sexual act, but above all through consuming her holy gynergy, the
magical force of maya.
Sometimes, as we shall see, he therefore drinks his partner’s menstrual
blood. Only when the feminine blood also pulses in his own veins will he be
complete, an androgyne,
a lord of both sexes.
To gain the “gynergy” for himself, the
yogi must “kill” the possessor of the vital feminine substances and then
“incorporate” her. Such an act of violence does not necessarily imply the
real murder of his mudra, it can also be performed symbolically. But a real
ritual murder of a woman is by like measure not precluded, and it is not
surprising that occasional references can be found in the Vajrayana
texts which blatantly and unscrupulously demand the actual killing of a
woman. In a commentary on the Hevajra Tantra, at a point where a lower-caste wisdom
consort (dombi)
is being addressed, stands bluntly, “I kill you, o Dombi, I take your life!” (Snellgrove, 1987, vol.
1, p. 159).
Sati or the sacred inaugural
sacrifice
In any case, in all the rituals of the Highest Tantra initiations
a symbolic female sacrifice
is set in scene. From numerous case studies in cultural and religious
history we are aware that an “archaic first event”, an “
inaugural sacred murder” may be hiding behind such symbolic stagings. This “original event”, in which a real wisdom
consort was ritually killed, need in no sense be consciously acknowledged
by the following generations and cult participants who only perform the
sacrifice in their imaginations or as holy theater. As the French
anthropologist René Girard convincingly argues in his essay on Violence and the Sacred, the
original murderous deed is normally no longer fully recalled during later
symbolic performances. But it can also not become totally forgotten. It is
important that the violent origin of their sacrificial rite be shrouded in
mystery for the cult participant. “To maintain its structural force, the
inaugural violence must not make an appearance”, claims Girard (Girard,
1987, p. 458). Only thus can the participants experience that particular
emotionally laden and ambivalent mixture of crime and mercy, guilt and
atonement, violence and satisfaction, shuddering and repression which first
lends the numinous aura of holiness to the cult events.
It thus seems appropriate to examine Tantric
Buddhism for signs of such an “inaugural sacrifice”. In this connection, we
would like to draw attention to a Shiva myth, which has nonetheless had an
influence on the history of the Buddhist tantras.
In the mythical past, Sati was the consort of the god Shiva. When her father Daksa was planning a great sacrificial feast, he failed
to invite his daughter and son-in-law. Unbidden, Sati nonetheless attended the feast and was deeply insulted by Daksa. Filled
with shame and anger she threw herself upon the burning sacrificial altar
and died. (In another version of the story she alone was invited and cremated
herself when she heard that her spouse was barred from the feast.) Shiva, informed of the death of his
wife, hurried at once to the scene of the tragedy and decapitated Daksa. He
then took the body of his beloved Sati,
laid her across his shoulders and began a funeral procession across all India. The
other gods wanted to free him from the corpse and set about dismembering
it, piece by piece, without Shiva noticing what they were doing.
The places where the fragments fell were destined
to become holy sites known as Shakta pithas. There where Sati’s vulva came to land the most sacred location was
established. In some texts there is talk of 24, in others of 108 pithas,
the latter being the holy number of Buddhism. At Sati’s numerous graves cemeteries were set up forthwith, at
which the people cremated their dead. Around these locations developed a
many-sided, and as we shall see, extremely macabre death culture, which was
nurtured by Tantrics of all schools (including
the Buddhist variety).
In yet another version of the Sati legend, the corpse of Shiva’s
wife contained a “small cog — a symbol of manifest time -, [which]
destroyed the body of the goddess from the inside out. ... [It] was then
dismembered into 84 fragments which fell to earth at the various holy sites
of India”
(Hutin, 1971, p. 67). This is indeed a remarkable
variant on the story, since the number of famous Maha Siddhas (Grand Sorcerers), who in
both the Buddhist and Hindu tradition introduced Tantrism
to India
as a new religious practice, is 84. These first Tantrics
chose the Shakta pithas as
the central locations for their rituals. Some of them, the Nath Siddhas, claimed Sati had sacrificed herself for them
and had given them her blood. For this reason they clothed themselves in
red robes (White, 1996, p. 195). Likewise, one of the many Indian cemetery
legends tells how five of the Maha Siddhas emerged from the cremated corpse of a
goddess named Adinatha
(White, 1996, p. 296). It can be assumed that this is also a further
variation on the Sati legend.
It is not clear from the tale whether the goddess
committed a sacrificial suicide or whether she was the victim of a cruel
murder. Sati’s voluntary leap
into the flames seems to indicate the former; her systematic dismemberment
the latter. A “criminological” investigation of the case on the basis of
the story alone, i.e., without reference to other considerations, is
impossible, since the Sati legend
must itself be regarded as an expression of the mystifying ambivalence
which, according to René Girard, veils every inaugural sacrifice. All that
is certain is that all of the originally Buddhist (!) Vajrayana’s significant cult
locations were dedicated to the dismembered Hindu Sati.
Earlier, however, claims the Indologist
D. C. Sircar, famous relics of the “great
goddess” were said to be found at the Shakta pithas. At the heart of her cult
stood the worship of her yoni
(‘vagina’) (Sircar, 1973, p. 8). We can only
concur with this opinion, yet we must also point out that the majority of
the matriarchal cults of which we are aware also exhibited a phallic
orientation. Here the phallus did not signalize a symbol of male dominance,
but was instead a toy of the “great goddess”, with which she could
sexual-magically manipulate men and herself obtain
pleasure.
We also think it important to note that the
practices of Indian gynocentric cults were in no
way exempt from sacrificial obsession. In contrast, there is a
comprehensive literature which reports the horrible rites performed at the Shakta pithas in
honor of the goddess Kali. Her
followers bowed down before her as the “consumer of raw meat”, who was
constantly hungry for human sacrifices. The individuals dedicated to her
were first fed up until they were sufficiently plump to satisfy the
goddess’s palate. On particular feast days the victims were decapitated in
her copper temple (Sircar, 1973, p. 16).
Naturally we can only speculate that the
“dismemberment of the goddess” in the Sati
myth might be a masculine reaction to the original fragmentation of the
masculine god by the gynocentric Kali. But this murderous reciprocity
must not be seen purely as an act of revenge. In both cases it is a matter
of the increased life energy which is to be achieved by the sacrifice of
the opposite sex. In so doing, the “revolutionary” androcentric
yogis made use of a similar ritual praxis and symbolism to the aggressive
female followers of the earlier matriarchy, but with reversed premises. For
example, the number 108, so central to Buddhism, is a reminder of the 108
names under which the great goddess was worshipped (Sircar,
1973, p. 25).
The fire sacrifice of the dakini
The special feature of Greek sacrificial rites lay
in the combination of burning and eating, of blood rite and fire altar. In
pre-Buddhist, Vedic India rituals involving fire were also the most common
form of sacrifice. Humans, animals, and plants were offered up to the gods
on the altar of flame. Since every sacrifice was supposed to simulate among
other things the dismemberment of the first human, Prajapati, it always concerned a “symbolic human sacrifice”, even when
animal or plant substitutes were used.
At first the early Buddhists adopted a highly
critical attitude towards such Vedic practices and rejected them outright,
in stark opposition to Vajrayana later,
in which they were to regain central significance. Even today, fire pujas are
among the most frequent rituals of Tantric Buddhism. The origin of these
Buddhist “flame masses” from the Vedas
becomes obvious when it is noted that the Vedic fire god Agni appears in the Buddhist tantras
as the “Consumer of Offerings”. This is even true of the Tibetans. In this
connection, Helmut von Glasenapp describes one of
the final scenes from the large-scale Kalachakra ritual, which the Panchen Lama performed in Beijing 1932: A “woodpile was set alight
and the fire god invited to take his place in the eight-leafed lotus which
stood in the middle of the fireplace. Once he had been offered abundant
sacrifices, Kalachakra
was invited to come hither from his mandala and
to become one with the fire god” (von Glasenapp,
1940, p. 142). Thus the time god and the fire unite.
 
 
Burning Dakinis
The symbolic burning of “sacrificial goddesses” is
found in nearly every tantra. It represents every
possible characteristic, from the human senses to various states of
consciousness. The elements (fire, water, etc.) and individual bodily
features are also imagined in the form of a “sacrificial goddesses”. With
the pronouncement of a powerful magic formula they all perish in the fire.
In what is known as the Vajrayogini ritual, the pupil sacrifices several inana mudras to a
red fire god who rides a goat. The chief goddess, Vajrayogini, appears here
with “a red-colored body which shines with a brilliance like that of the
fire of the aeon” (Gyatso,
1991, p. 443). In the Guhyasamaya Tantra the goddesses even fuse together in a fiery
ball of light in order to then serve as a sacrifice to the Supreme Buddha.
Here the adept also renders malignant women harmless through fire: “One
makes the burnt offerings within a triangle. ... If one has done this three
days long, concentrating upon the target of the women, then one can thus
ward them off, even for the infinity of three eons” (Gäng,
1988, p. 225). A “burning woman” by the name of Candali plays such a
significant role in the Kalachakra initiations that we devote an entire chapter
to her later. In this context we also examine the “ignition of feminine
energy”, a central event along the sexual magic initiation path of Tantrism.
In Buddhist iconography, the tantric initiation
goddesses, the dakinis are represented dancing within a
fiery circle of flame. These are supernatural female beings encountered by
the yogi on his initiatory journey who assist him in his spiritual
development, but with whom he can also fall into serious conflict.
Translated, dakini
means “sky-going one” or “woman who flies” or “sky dancer”. (Herrmann-Pfand, 1996,
pp. 68, 38). In Buddhism the name appeared
around 400 C.E.
The German Tibetologist
Albert Grünwedel was his whole life obsessed with
the idea that the “heaven/sky walkers” were once human “wisdom companions”,
who, after they had been killed in a fire ritual, continued to function in
the service of the tantric teachings as female spirit beings (genies). He saw in the dakinis the “souls of murdered mudras” banished by magic,
and believed that after their sacrificial death they took to haunting as
Buddhist ghosts (Grünwedel, 1933, p. 5). Why, he
asked, do the dakinis always hold skull cups and
cleavers in their hands in visual representations? Obviously, as can be
read everywhere, to warn the initiands against
the transient and deceptive world of samsara and to cut them off
from it. But Grünwedel sees this in a completely
different light: For him, just as the saints display the instruments of
their martyrdom in Christian iconography, so too the tantric goddesses
demonstrate their mortal passing with knives and skulls; like their
European sisters, the witches, with whom they have so much in common, they
are to be burnt at the stake (Grünwedel, Kalacakra III, p. 41) Grünwedel
traces the origin of this female sacrifice back to the marked misogyny of
the early phase of Buddhism: “The insults [thrown at] the woman sound
dreadful. ... The body of the woman is a veritable cauldron of hell, the
woman a magical form of the demons of destruction” (Grünwedel,
1924, vol. 2, p. 29).
One could well shrug at the speculations of this
German Tibetologist and Asian researcher. As far
as they are understood symbolically, they do not contradict tantric
orthodoxy in the slightest, which even teaches the destruction of the
“external” feminine as an article of faith. As we have seen, the
sacrificial goddesses are burnt symbolically. Some tantras
even explicitly confirm Grünwedel’s thesis that
the dakinis were once “women of flesh and blood”,
who were later transformed into “spirit beings” (Bhattacharyya, 1982, p.
121). Thus she was sacrificed as a karma
mudra, a human woman in order to then be
transformed into an inana mudra, an
imaginary woman. But the process did not end here, then
the inana mudra
still had an existence external to the adept. She also needed to be “sacrificed”
in order to create the “inner woman”, the maha mudra. A passage from the Candamaharosana Tantra thus
plainly urges the adept: “Threaten, threaten, kill, kill, slay slay all Dakinis!” (quoted by
George, 1974, p. 64)
But what is the intent behind a fiery dakini sacrifice? The same as that behind all the other
tantric rituals, namely the absorption of gynergy upon which to found
the yogi’s omnipotence. Here the longed-for feminine elixir has its own
specific names. The adept calls it the “heart blood of the dakini”, the “essence of the dakini’s
heart”, the “life-heart of the dakini” (Herrmann-Pfand, 1992, p. 342). “Via the ‘conversion’ the Dakinis become protectors of the religion, once they
have surrendered their ‘life-heart’ to their conqueror”, a tantra text records (Herrmann-Pfand,
1992, p. 204).
This “surrender of the heart” can often be brutal.
For example, a Tibetan story tells of how the yogini
Magcig declares that she is willing for her
breast to be slit open with a knife — whether in reality or just
imagination remains unclear. Her heart was then taken out, “and whilst the
red blood — drip, drip — flowed out”, laid in a skull bowl. Then the organ
was consumed by five dakinis who were present.
Following this dreadful heart operation Magcig
had transformed herself into a dakini
(Herrmann-Pfand, 1992, p. 164). As macabre as
this story is, on the other hand it shows that the tantric female sacrifice
need not necessarily be carried out against the will of woman to be
sacrificed. In contrast, the yogini often
surrenders her heart-blood voluntarily because she loves her master. Like
Christ, she lets herself be crucified for love. But her guru may never let
this love run free. He has a sacred duty to control the feelings of the
heart, and the power to manipulate them.
In the dakini’s heart
lies the secret of enlightenment and thus of universal power. She is the
“Queen of Hearts”, who — like Diana, Princess of Wales — must undergo a
violent “sacrificial death” in order to then shine as the pure ideal of the
monarchy (the “autocratic rule”
of the yogis). Lama Govinda also makes reference
to a fiery sacrificial apotheosis of the dakini
when he proclaims in a vision that all feminine forces are concentrated in
the sky walkers, “until focused on a point as if through a lens they kindle
to a supreme heat and become the holy flame of inspiration which leads to
perfect enlightenment” (Govinda, 1991, p. 231).
It need not be said that here the inspiration and enlightenment of the male
tantra master alone is meant and not that of his
female sacrifice.
Vajrayogini
The “tantric female sacrifice” has found a sublime
and many-layered expression in what is known as the “Vajrayogini rite”, which we
would like to examine briefly because of its broad distribution among the
Tibetan lamas. Vajrayogini
is the most important female divine figure in the highest yogic practices
of Tibetan Buddhism. The goddess is worshipped as, among other things,
“Mistress of the World”, the “Mother of all Buddhas”,
“Queen of the Dakinis”, and a “Powerful Possessor
of Knowledge”. Her reverential cult is so unique in androcentric
Lamaism that a closer examination has much to recommend it. In so doing we
draw upon a document on Vajrayogini praxis
by the Tibetan lama Kelsang Gyatso.
This tantric ritual, centered upon a principal
female figure, begins like all others, with the pupil’s adoration of the
guru. Seated upon two cushions which represent the sun and moon, the master
holds a vajra
and a bell in his hands, thus
emphasizing his androgyny and transsexual power.
Vajra Yogini in
the burning circle
External, internal, and secret sacrifices are made
to him and his lineage. Above all this concerns many imagined “sacrificial
goddesses” which emanate from the pupil’s breast
and from there enter the teacher’s heart. Among these are the goddesses of
beauty, music, flowers, and the light. With the “secret sacrifices” the sadhaka pronounces the following: “And I offer most
attractive illusory mudras, a host of messengers
born from places, born from mantra, and spontaneously born, with lender
bodies, skilled in the 64 arts of love” (Gyatso,
1991, p. 250).
In the Vajrayogini praxis a total of three types of symbolic
female sacrifice are distinguished. Two of these consist in the offering of
inana mudras, that is of “spirit women”, who are drawn from the
pupil’s imagination. In the third sacrificial offering he presents his
teacher with a real sexual partner (karma
mudra) (Gyatso,
1991, p. 88).
Once all the women have been presented to the guru
and he has absorbed their energies, the image of the Vajrayogini arises in his
heart. Her body appears in red
and glows like the “apocalyptic fire”. In her right hand she holds a knife
with a vajra-shaped handle, in her left a skull
bowl filled with blood. She carries a magic wand across her shoulders, the
tip of which is adorned with three tiny human heads. She wears a crown
formed out of five skulls. A further fifty severed heads are linked in a
chain which swings around her neck. Beneath her feet the Hindu divinity Shiva and the red Kalarati
crouch in pain.
Thereupon her image penetrates the pupil, and
takes possession of him, transforming him into itself via an internalized
iconographic dramaturgy. That the sadhaka now
represents the female divinity is considered a great mystery. Thus the
master now whispers into his ear, “Now you are entering into the lineage of
all yoginis. You should not mention these holy
secrets of all the yoginis to those who have not
entered the mandala of all the yoginis or those who have no faith” (Gyatso, 1991, p. 355). With divine pride the pupil
replies, “I am the Enjoyment Body of Vajrayogini!” (Gyatso, 1991, p. 57) or simply and directly says, “I am
Vajrayogini!”
(Gyatso, 1991, p. 57). Then, as a newly arisen
goddess he comes to sit face-to-face with his guru. Whether the latter now
enjoys sexual union with the sadhaka as Vajrayogini
cannot be determined from the available texts.
At any rate we must regard this artificial goddess
as a female mask, behind which hides the male sadhaka
who has assumed her form. He can of course set this mask aside again. It is
impressive just how vivid and unadorned the description of this reverse
transformation of the “Vajrayogini pupil” into his original form is: “With the
clarity of Vajrayogini”,
he says in one ritual text, “I give up my breasts and develop a penis. In
the perfect place in the center of my vagina the two walls transform into
bell-like testicles and the stamen into the penis itself” (Gyatso, 1991, p. 293).
Other sex-change transfigurations are also known
from Vajrayogini
praxis. Thus, for example, the teacher can play the role of the goddess and
let his pupil take on the male role . He can also
divide himself into a dozen goddesses — yet it is always men (the guru or
his pupils) who play the female roles.
Chinnamunda
The dreadful Chinnamunda (Chinnamastra)
ritual also refers to a “tantric female sacrifice”. At the center of this
ritual drama we find a goddess (Chinnamunda) who decapitates herself. Iconographically, she is depicted as follows: Chinnamunda
stands upright with the cleaver with which she has just decapitated herself
clenched in her right hand. On her left, raised palm she holds her own
head. Three thick streams of blood spurt up from the stump of her neck. The
middle one curves in an arc into the mouth of her severed head, the other
two flow into the mouths of two further smaller
goddesses who flank Chinnamunda. She usually tramples upon one or more
pairs of lovers. This bloody cult is distributed in both Tantric Buddhism
and Hinduism.
According to one pious tale of origin, Chinnamunda severs
her own head because her two servants complain of a great hunger which she
is unable to assuage. The decapitation was thus motivated by great
compassion with two suffering beings. It nevertheless appears grotesque
that an individual like Chinnamunda,
in possession of such extraordinary magical powers, would be forced to feed
her companions with her own blood, instead of conjuring up an opulent meal
for them with a spell. According to another, metaphysical interpretation,
the goddess wanted to draw attention to the unreality of all being with her
self-destructive deed. Yet even this philosophical platitude can barely
explain the horrible scenario, although one is accustomed to quite a deal
from the tantras. Is it not therefore reasonable
to see a merciless representation of a “tantric female sacrifice” in the Chinnamunda
myth? Or are we here dealing with an ancient matriarchal cult in which the
goddess gives a demonstration of her triune nature and her
indestructibility via an in the end “ineffectual” act of self-destruction?
This gynocentric
thesis is reminiscent of an analysis of the ritual by Elisabeth Anne Benard, in which she explains Chinnamunda and her two
companions to be an emanation of the triune goddess (Benard,
1994, p. 75). [1]
Chinnamunda is in no sense the sole victim in this macabre
horror story; rather, she also extracts her life energies from out of the
erotic love between the two sexes, just like a Buddhist tantra
master. Indeed, in her canonized iconographic form she dances about upon
one or two pairs of lovers, who in some depictions are engaged in sexual
congress. The Indologist David Kinsley thus sums
up the events in a concise and revealing equation: “Chinnamasta [Chinnamunda]
takes life and vigor from the copulating couple,
then gives it away lavishly by cutting off her own head to feed her
devotees” (Kinsley, 1986, p. 175). Thus, a “sacrificial couple” and the theft of
their love energy are to be found at the outset of this so difficult to
interpret blood rite.
Yet the mystery remains as to why this particular
drama, with its three female protagonists, was adopted into Tantric
Buddhist meditative practices. We can see only two possible explanations
for this. Firstly, that it represents an attempt by Vajrayana to incorporate
within its own system every sacrificial magic element, regardless how
bizarre, and even if it originated among the followers of a matriarchal
cult. By appropriating the absolutely foreign, the yogi all the more
conspicuously demonstrates his omnipotence. Since he is convinced of his
ability to — in the final instance — play all gender roles himself and
since he also believes himself a lord over life and death, he thus also
regards himself as the master of this Chinnamunda “female ritual”.
The second possibility is that the self-sacrifice of the goddess functions
as a veiled reference to the “tantric female sacrifice” performed by the
yogi, which is nonetheless capable of being understood by the initiated.
[2]
Summary
The broad distribution of human sacrifice in
nearly all cultures of the world has for years occasioned a many-sided
discussion among anthropologists and psychologist of the most varied
persuasions as to the social function and meaning of the “sacrificium humanum”.
In this, reference has repeatedly been made to the double-meaning of the
sacrificial act, which simultaneously performs both a destructive and a
regulative function in the social order. The classic example for this is
the sacrifice of the so-called “scapegoat”. In this case, the members of a
community make use of magical gestures and spells to transfer all of their
faults and impurities onto one particular person who is then killed.
Through the destruction of the victim the negative features of the society
are also obliterated. The psychologist Otto Rank sees the motivation for
such a transference magic in, finally, the individual’s fear of death. (quoted by Wilber, 1990, p. 176).
Another sacrificial gnosis, particularly
predominant in matriarchal cults presupposes that fertility can be
generated through subjecting a person to a violent death or bleeding them
to death. Processes from the world of vegetative nature, in which plants
die back every year in order to return in spring, are simulated. In this
view, death and life stand in a necessary relation to one another; death
brings forth life.
A relation between fertility and human sacrifice
is also formed in the ancient Indian culture of the Vedas. The earth and the life it supports, the entire universe
in fact, were formed, according to the Vedic myth of origin, by the
independent self-dismemberment of the holy adamic
figure Prajapati.
His various limbs and organs formed the building blocks of our world. But
these lay unlinked and randomly scattered until the priests (the Brahmans) came and wisely recombined
them through the constant performance of sacrificial rites. Via the
sacrifices, the Brahmans guaranteed that the cosmos remained stabile, and that gave them enormous social power.
All these aspects may, at least in general, contribute
to the “tantric female sacrifice”, but the central factors are the two
elements already mentioned:
- The destruction of the feminine as a symbol
of the highest illusion (Hinayana and
Mahayana Buddhism)
- The sacrifice of the woman in order to absorb
her gynergy (Tantrayana).
Let us close this chapter by once again summing up
why the female sacrifice is essential for the tantric rite: Everything
which opposes a detachment from this world, which is characterized by
suffering and death, all the obscuring of Maya, the entire deception of samsara is the shameful work
of woman. Her liquidation as an autonomous entity brings to nothing this
world of appearances of ours. In the tantric logic of inversion, only
transcending the feminine can lead to enlightenment and liberation from the
hell of rebirth. It alone promises eternal life. The yogi may thus call
himself a “hero” (vira),
because he had the courage and the high arts needed to absorb the most
destructive and most base being in the universe within himself,
in order not just to render it harmless but to also transform it into
positive energy for the benefit of all beings.
This “superhuman” victory over the “female
disaster” convinced the Tantrics that the seed
for a radical inversion into the positive is also hidden in all other negative deeds, substances, and
individuals. The impure, the evil, and the criminal are thus the raw
material from which the Vajra master tries to distill the pure, the good, and
the holy.
Footnotes:
[1] Elisabeth Anne Benard would
like to clearly distinguish her interpretation from an androcentric
reading of the ritual. She openly
admits her feminist intentions and celebrates Chinnamunda as both a female
“solar deity” and a “triune moon goddess”.
She thus accords her gynandric control
over the two heavenly bodies and both genders.
[2] The Tibetan texts which describe the rite of Chinnamunda,
see in it a symbol for the three energy channels, with which the yogi
experiments in his mystical body. (We will discuss this in detail
later.) Hence, the famous scholar Taranatha writes, “when the [female] ruler severs her
head from her own neck with the cleaver held in her right hand, the three
veins Avadhuti, Ida and Pingala
are severed,and through this the flow of greed,
hate, and delusion is cut off, for herself and for all beings” (Herrmann-Pfand, 1992, pp. 263–264). This comparison is somewhat strained,
however, since the inner energy channels are in fact sex-specific (Ida —
masculine; Pingala — feminine; Avadhuti — androgyne) and for
this reason could well present difficulties for a represention
in the form of
three women.
Next Chapter:
4. THE LAW OF INVERSION
Links:
Sexual abuse by Buddhist Monks: www.trimondi.de/EN/links.htm#SEXABUSE
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