At the Burning Ground: Death and Transcendence in Bengali Shaktism

Abstract

The burning ground is both a place and a metaphor in the religion of Shaktism or goddess worship in West Bengal, India. As a place, it is where corpses are cremated. As a metaphor, it refers to the human heart, which has been left as a wasteland through sorrow and tragedy. It is when the soul loses its attachment to this world, when the heart is desolate and alone, that the dark goddess Kali descends from the heavens. She may bring the gift of salvation, bringing the soul to her paradise, or she may save it from unhappy rebirth by bringing a new and better life. She may also bring the universal consciousness that is moksha or liberation. Transcendence from the bondage of worldly attachments, which are left behind amid the ashes of the burning ground, brings divine vision and realization. This paper explores the roles of negation and desolation in ritual practice and religious experience in Bengali Shaktism.

1. Introduction

The religion of Bengali Shaktism, found in West Bengal, India, is a religion focused on the goddess Kali. Its tantric form is often called the Kali kula, the lineage or family of Kali. She may appear in frightening form to chase away the dark memories and dangers which arise from human attachment, or she may arrive as a beautiful and compassionate mother who saves the souls of her human children. She appears in many situations, but one that has been richly described in hymns and songs to the goddess is the burning ground, the place of cremation. That imagery will be the focus of this paper, how the situation of sacrifice, desolation, and death can evoke mystical vision and how self-mortification and suffering can lead to illumination.

Kali is a goddess of compassion towards her worshippers, but she is also described as terrible and frightening. This imagery is shown in one of the most famous poems dedicated to her by the poet Ramprasad Sen:

Because you love the burning ground

I have made a burning ground of my heart,

So that you, dark goddess, can dance there forever.

I have no other desire left, O Mother

A funeral pyre is blazing in my heart.

Ashes from corpses are all around me, my Mother,

In case you decide to come.

Prasad prays, “O Mother, at the hour of death,

Keep your devotee at your feet.

Please come dancing with rhythmic steps

Let me see you when my eyes are closed.

(Sen n.d., p. 46, my translation)

The 18th-century poet Ramprasad Sen is famous for his songs to the goddess Kali. He has been called the founder of the Shakta bhakti or devotional movement, the first Shakta poet to sing of the goddess Kali as a loving mother or as a little girl. His poetry is still popular in West Bengal today as a major part of the canon of Shakta padabali, or religious poetry dedicated to the goddess. He is often called the most beloved of Bengali poets and its greatest religious practitioner, or sadhaka. He is said to have died of love on the holiday dedicated to the goddess Kali Puja, as the Kali statue worshipped on that day was being immersed in the Ganges River; he died with the vision of the goddess before his eyes.1

Ramprasad’s poetry and songs (called shyama sangit or songs to the dark Goddess) are often called “Ramprasadi,” a genre named after him. He was often called “love-mad” (insane due to his love of the Goddess) by his friends and family, a “divine madness” found in the lives of many devotional Hindu mystics. Here he describes his experience of transcendent wonder as bhava, an abbreviation for mahabhava, or highest state:

O Ma Kali, wearing a garland of skulls

What an experience (bhava) you have shown me!

You taught me how to call you,

And at the moment I chanted “Ma”

You drove me to ecstasy!...

When worldly people look at me

They call me mad from love.

The members of my family

Hurl curses and insults at me.

But whatever people say, dark Mother

My faith will not waver.

Let people say what they want,

I will chant the name of Kali forever.

If you get rid of this illusory world

Insults and pride are unimportant.

I have made your red feet my goal.2

I am no longer concerned with worldly opinions.

(Sen n.d., p. 47, my translation)

Many of his poems speak of the appearance of the goddess while he is sorrowful and feeling abandoned. We see the experience of wonder in his hopes for her mystical vision:

Mother, I long to see the day

When my eyes will be full of tears,

Crying at the thought of you!

The clouds that fill my soul will break,

And my eyes will see your light.

I shall enter a new world,

Where I shall sing praises

And my soul will soar to heights

Where sorrow cannot reach!...

Vedantists say my Mother is formless

But I see into the heart of things.

My Mother is everywhere

Her smile lights the universe.3

The sorrow and misery of life must be understood in relation to a goddess who is beyond human understanding but who still contains goodness and compassion. Many songs by Ramprasad show a goddess who is beyond human concerns of good and evil, sorrow and joy. The devotee must accept the experiences that the goddess gives him or her, including abandonment and suffering, in order to perceive her true nature and show devotion.

But sometimes anger emerges in the worshipper, and it is shown in a struggle:

Earth has seldom seen such a trial of strength between

A mother and her son.

I will show you my strength,

As I cross swords with you right now!

You are mistaken if you think that you will win this fight.

I will struggle until I take your crown.

I will not give in.4

Other Shakta poets followed the theme of the compassionate yet terrible goddess who appears after sorrow, such as Dvijendralal Ray:

I lie clinging to your feet,

but you never look at me, Mother…

The entire universe closes its eyes in terror,

and calls out “Mother, Mother!”

while clutching at your feet.

In your hands, Kali, you hold

the world’s final destruction…

Wild laughter issues from your mouth

and streams of blood flow down your limbs.

Savioress, forgiving one, end our fear!

Pick me up like a baby in your arms.

Come shining like a star,

with a smiling face

and in fair dress, like the dawn

after a pitch-black night!

All these days, O Terrible Kali,

I’ve worshiped only you.

My worship is done, Mother.

Won’t you put down your sword?

(Mukhopadhyay 1996, p. 284, my translation)

2. What Is Death?

The mystical vision of the goddess Kali is intimately associated with death. The burning ground is the symbol of death in India, for bodies are cremated rather than buried. There are many understandings of death in Hinduism. The religion itself is a complex of different belief systems and rituals, for the term “Hinduism” is an outsider name, lumping together all of the traditions practiced around the Indus River, a name first given by Persians and then by the British. There are varieties of classical religion, folk religion, and popular religion, with sacred texts which describe death according to the type of Hinduism they follow. The understandings of death are dependent on the various understandings of the person and the soul.

In the Vedas, the most ancient written tradition of India, the soul may go to Devaloka (the home of the Gods) or Pitriloka (the home of the ancestors). As the Rig Veda (10.14.7-8) notes, the soul may go to the highest heaven. In this case, its goal is immortality and avoiding re-death. The soul may also have a life with the fathers or ancestors (RV 10.16.1). In order to guarantee a good future for the soul, the shraddha ritual is performed. This ritual is intended to nourish, protect, and support the spirits of the dead in their travel from the lower to the higher realms preceding their reincarnation.

The first annual death anniversary is observed with a shraddha ceremony that enables the deceased to become an ancestor (pitri). A homa fire is lit, and a body is built for the soul in the sapindikarana ritual. A pinda or rice ball is built of physical rice and ghee (clarified butter), which symbolizes an ancestor body. Once the soul has a body, it can enter the ancestor world to be with the other respected dead souls, and the ritual is repeated each year by the family. If the soul does not obtain a body, it may wander the world as a bhuta or preta, nameless and faceless, a spirit full of confusion. To keep the soul from being attracted to its previous body, the corpse is cremated soon after death. A funeral pyre is constructed, and the body is incinerated outdoors, usually in an area dedicated to this purpose known as a burning ground (smashan).

In the Upanishads and later Advaita Vedanta philosophy, the soul is described as going from one body to another like a caterpillar going from one leaf to another (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 3.2.13). It is purified in moving from life to life, as gold is purified. We have images of the soul as a spark from a giant fire and a drop of water in the ocean of consciousness. The best death would be as a liberated person or jivanmukta. Such a person has realized his or her deeper self, or atman, and merged with brahman, the ocean of consciousness. The process of gaining liberation or moksha would be accompanied by visions of light, during life or at the moment of death. However, this state is rare, and most people are reborn.

Rebirth is determined by karma. The role of karma is elaborated in the dharmashastra or law texts, which develop the different sub-types of karma which influence the direction and situation of rebirth. However, these are not visionary texts; they are theoretical ones. They discuss the influences on rebirth and possible rewards and punishments for deeds.

With the rise of bhakti, or devotional Hinduism, the dualistic or saguna perspective became popular. The soul was no longer just a spark or a droplet of awareness returning to the whole. Instead, it was an individual rising to enter heaven, guided by a deity who could come to the person at the moment of death. For Vaishnavas, those who worshipped the god Vishnu, the deity might come in his form as Krishna to take the person to his eternal heaven of Vrindavana. There are many stories of Krishna fighting Yama, lord of the underworld, for the souls of his devotees. For Shaivites, those who worshipped Shiva, the god could appear at death both to yogis and devotees and take them to his heaven of Kailash. Bengali Shaktas worship the goddess Kali as the mother of life, death, and rebirth. Kali could appear in death visions to keep the soul from harm during the process of reincarnation, and she could also take their souls to her heaven of Manidvipa to rest in her lap forever, as well as bring liberation.

This tradition of the goddess appearing at death became ritualized over time, developing practices associated with death while the devotee is still alive. Thus, we see the development of the ritual practices, or sadhanas, of the burning ground in the tantric style of Shaktism.

The ritual of shava-sadhana, in which the practitioner sits on a corpse in the burning ground, is performed to gain a mystical vision of the goddess Kali. The corpse ritual tests the courage of the Shakta tantrika and also his or her devotion, for the person must spend the night in a place haunted by the fears of the past and the dangers of the present. If the ritual is successful, Kali may bring both visionary experience and salvation from rebirth to the practitioner.

3. Who Is Kali?

The mysticism of desolation may be associated with several Hindu gods and goddesses, but it is found most often in Bengali literature in relation to the goddess Kali, the goddess of life and death. There are many mythic stories about the origin and manifestations of the goddess. She is mysterious, hidden, revealing, and hiding as she performs her lila (play of consciousness). Smashana Kali, or Kali of the Burning Ground, is regarded as the most dangerous and powerful form of Kali; she is the form of Kali who lurks behind the play of appearances and who reveals her true nature to all who pass through the veil of form. She is a major goddess of the tantric texts. In the form of Burning Ground Kali, the goddess reveals the spiritual practices of the cremation ground.

Kali has both theistic and non-theistic forms. In her wrathful theistic form, her skin is generally dark, black, or blue-green, and she wears a necklace of skulls or human heads. According to the Tantrasara (a book with many visualizations of deities), she is fond of snakes and wears them as her “sacred thread.” She wears the thousand-headed serpent Ananta over her head, and she sits on a bed of serpents. She wears a belt of human hands, and she carries weapons that drip with blood. She is terrifying; she laughs wildly and is accompanied by the god Shiva. While he is sometimes her husband or lover, in this text, Shiva appears as a young boy. It describes her angry or frightening form, which is intended to personify the worshipper’s deepest fears. Even the great god Shiva looks up to her like a child.

However, she also has a more benevolent theistic form. There is a widely held belief among Bengalis that the 16th-century tantric scholar Krishnananda Agamabagish had a dream of the goddess Kali in a more peaceful and loving form. The goddess, who was until then largely associated with death and darkness, is believed to have instructed him to worship her in the form of a village woman. He is popularly believed to have started the worship of this peaceful form of the goddess. He is also believed to have started the oldest ritual worship of Kali (Kali puja) in the region. In this form, the goddess is smiling, wearing a sari rather than being naked with bone ornaments, and her skin is sky blue (occasionally white) rather than dark.

Kali’s non-theistic form may appear as an ocean of consciousness or a sky full of light. One of the most famous non-theistic visions, which arose at a time of despair, was described by the Bengali saint (siddha) Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. He would fall into trances throughout his life, and he called on the goddess for a vision. He was miserable without her, agonized by loneliness and desire for her presence. His most famous non-theistic vision came after he contemplated suicide:

“I felt as if my heart were being squeezed like a wet towel. I was overpowered with a great restlessness and a fear that it might not be my lot to realize Her in this life. I could not bear the separation from Her any longer. Life seemed to be not worth living. Suddenly my glance fell on the sword that was kept in the Mother’s temple. I determined to put an end to my life. When I jumped up like a madman and seized it, suddenly the blessed Mother revealed Herself. The buildings with their different parts, the temple, and everything else vanished from my sight, leaving no trace whatsoever, and in their stead I saw a limitless, infinite, effulgent Ocean of Consciousness. As far as the eye could see, the shining billows were madly rushing at me from all sides with a terrific noise, to swallow me up! I was panting for breath. I was caught in the rush and collapsed, unconscious. What was happening in the outside world I did not know; but within me there was a steady flow of undiluted bliss, altogether new, and I felt the presence of the Divine Mother”.

(Gupta 1952, p. 15)

He later saw her in theistic or personal forms as well. As he stated, “Sometimes I would lose outer consciousness from that unbearable agony. Immediately after that I would see the Mother’s luminous form bestowing boons and fearlessness! I used to see Her smiling, talking, consoling, or teaching me in various ways” (Saradananda 2003, p. 213).

Kali’s benevolent form became popular in the songs and poems of Shakta writers and musicians. Today Kali is worshipped primarily in her theistic forms, while her non-theistic aspect is emphasized in Shakta tantric philosophy. Her benevolent forms are found in household worship and often in the statues and shrines found throughout West Bengal to celebrate the autumn Kali Puja holiday. The darker, wrathful forms are found in Kali temples and may act as inspiration for the corpse rituals performed at the burning ground.

4. Sitting on the Corpse’s Chest: The Tantric Ritual of Shava-Sadhana

While other regional forms of tantra in India are famed for their real or imagined sexual rituals, the Bengali style of Shakta tantra is perhaps most marked by its emphasis on death. Shava-sadhana, or the ritual practice of sitting on a corpse, is one of its most important rituals.

While much data on the ritual comes from medieval texts, modern Bengali practitioners still perform it and value it as one of the highest Shakta tantric practices—many of my Shakta informants looked forward to performing it before their own deaths. For some practitioners interviewed during field research, it is the single most important ritual in Shakta tantra. It is part of the heroic, or virachara, stage of tantra, violating social norms to transcend normal consciousness.

In the Bengali tantric system of the Kalikula or lineage of Kali, there are three stages. The first stage is normal ritual behavior, or pashuchara, the animal stage, in which the person behaves like the herd of ordinary worshippers. He or she follows the traditional rules of purity and ritual behavior and worships the goddess in the hope of blessings for the household or community. The person is often instructed by the family guru, or kulaguru.

The second stage, the path of the hero, or virachara, is the most controversial stage. In this stage, the person deliberately violates traditional moral and religious norms. It has three major associated rituals in the Kalikula system—the corpse ritual, the sexual ritual, and the general chakra ritual. The first two are practiced to overcome what are understood as humanity’s strongest passions: the fear of death and the desire for sex. If the tantrika can stay in the burning ground at night and overcome his or her fears of death (and the ghosts and spirits that come with it), then he has permanently overcome that fear.

The sexual ritual is performed to overcome the desire for sex, and it has two styles. The more ascetic style has the goal of remaining detached in the midst of sex, demonstrating that sexual desire is conquered. The sacrificial style has the act as a later version of the Vedic sacrifice, where sex becomes the sacrificial fire ritual into which all passions are given.5 In both of these approaches, sexuality becomes impersonal, part of a greater system. Female informants have told me that this ritual is more important for male tantrikas than female ones, for girls must learn to control their desires when they are young, while boys tend to be indulged by their relatives, getting better meals and toys as they grow up.

The ganachakra, the circle or group meeting, is the third type of ritual within the virachara stage of the Kalikula system. Here the participants ritually perform forbidden acts in a group rather than individually to show their detachment from traditional norms. The “five M’s”, so-called because of their Sanskrit names, are taken. The tantrikas in the chakra will take small pieces of fish and meat (traditional worshippers should be vegetarian), drink a cup of wine (they should not drink alcohol), eat parched grain (the meaning of this one is debated, but grain is a common interpretation), and have ritual sex (contemplating the union of the god and the goddess). Being able to do these acts without flinching shows that the tantrikas involved have become ritually detached from ordinary religious behavior. The virachara stage is a temporary one, perhaps comparable to Victor Turner’s liminal state. Its goal is to overcome desire, not become attached to it, as we see in some forms of “California tantra” that are more hedonistic than ascetic.

The third stage is divyachara, the divine stage, a state in which the person has merged with the goddess Kali. There is no longer any ritual needed, for the union is both long-lasting and spontaneous. Some practitioners refer to it as ekatmika bhava, the experience of having a shared soul with the deity. This is the goal of the practice, an eternal relationship or union with the goddess. It may be a mystical union with her form as a person or with her essence as the ocean of divine wisdom (brahmajnana).

The vision of the goddess received at the burning ground may give the tantrika special insight or powers, and she may stay with the devotee as a deeper part of the self, as his or her true identity. By sitting upon a newly-dead corpse and performing the correct meditation, the Shakta tantrika can evoke the vision of the goddess.

It could be seen as an indirect and perhaps vicarious visionary experience. When the person sits upon a corpse and meditates, the vision of the goddess, who normally comes at death, appears to the meditator during life. We might call it a “near death experience,” a vision of the goddess who appears to the living person in proximity to death.

The corpse ritual itself may be understood according to the three strands of Bengali Shaktism: folk, tantric/yogic, and devotional. From the folk perspective, the power of the corpse ritual leads to the enhancement of life on Earth. Challenging death leads to immortality, which is defined as amrita, non-death, a situation implying long life, wealth, and power. From the yogic or tantric perspective, rituals in the burning ground lead to detachment from the physical world and union with a transcendent ground, as the goddess Kali or as the universal consciousness or brahman. There is also a third interpretation of the ritual, and that involves the incorporation of the devotional or bhakti perspective. From this angle, the ritual brings a loving relationship with a deity who has a form and personality and who gives salvation by grace to her children. All of these can be found in the ritual and literature of the shava-sadhana rite.

In the typical shava-sadhana ritual, the tantric practitioner should go to a burning ground or some other lonely spot on a new moon night. He (or she) should bring a new corpse, young and attractive, preferably of a person who died by violence, drowning, or snakebite. The body is washed and placed on a blanket, deer, or tiger skin. Sometimes, a yantra, or mandala figure, is drawn on its chest. The practitioner should worship it and then sit on the corpse and contemplate the goddess. He or she will experience fearful images and sounds, as well as temptations, but he must remain emotionally detached, or else he may go insane.6 If he is successful, he may gain the power to use a mantra (mantrasiddhi), or he may become one with the god Shiva (the consort of Kali) using the corpse as a mediator, or he may have a vision of the goddess. In the visionary case, Kali may appear to possess the corpse or appear before the practitioner as a beautiful woman, a little girl, or a great goddess in the sky.7

The origin of the corpse ritual is unknown. Shaivite Kapalikas and Kalamukhas (worshippers of the god Shiva, most prominent in India from the 8th to the 13th centuries) early on made use of skulls and bones, and folk religion throughout India has used ritual sacrifices, occasionally including human sacrifices, to propitiate the gods and to make the ground fertile.8 I should note that modern tantrikas with whom I have spoken say that the goddess must choose the corpse for the ritual—indeed, finding the right corpse is proof that it is time to perform the ritual. It is up to her to provide the male corpse—we should note that the goddess is considered to be displeased if people sit and meditate upon a female corpse, and she will not appear. The corpse must be found; it is not acceptable for a tantrika to kill someone to create his own corpse, for the tantrika must be passive in following the goddess’ will.

The corpse ritual is part of the Kalikula tantric path, known as vamachara (the way of the left or reverse practice) or kulachara (the way of a family group or religious lineage)9. The goal is loosening the person from the bonds of the illusory world—he or she is no longer attached, neither hates nor fears, is ashamed of nothing, and has gone beyond all traditional notions of good and evil. Such a person is in the state of divyabhava, beyond purity and impurity. It is a radical breaking of attachment, with both the illusory world of samsara and traditional morality.

The tantrika who follows the yogic approach seeks total concentration and conquest of fear, and he worships the gods all around him and in the corpse. Some tantrikas focus on Kali’s consort, the god Shiva. When the god dwells in the tantrika’s body for the 15 years following the ritual, his body is understood to be identical to the body of the god Shiva, thus sanctified and treated as ritually pure. As David Kinsley states, “Surrounded by death in the place of death, those aspects of reality that end in the fires of the cremation ground become distasteful... attachment to the world and the ego is cut, and union with Shiva, the conqueror of death, is sought” (Kinsley 1977, p. 100).

From the yogic perspective, the goal is to sit on the corpse and gain detachment from the fear of death and spiritual discernment, recognizing both world and self as finite and even dead in comparison to the realm of brahman. This recognition should cause repulsion towards the physical world and attraction towards infinity, especially towards brahman or infinite consciousness.

The devotional approach to the corpse ritual interprets the practice to be a sign of true love and evidence of one’s passion and dedication to the goddess. Indeed, the goddess is herself often seated on a corpse in her iconography. Shiva without Shakti (Kali) is said to be a corpse, and the goddess may stand over him or sit upon him. The practitioner meditates upon Shakti, who is visualized in the heart lotus, sitting upon the pretas (spirits) of the gods Brahma, Vishnu, Rudra, Ishvara, and Sadashiva. They are shown as dead because they cannot act without her power.10

From the devotional perspective, the person at the burning ground who performs this ritual is a child of the goddess who risks everything to call on her. The Mother’s love for her children is a well-known theme in Bengali songs and stories—the poet as Dasarathi Ray states:

Mother does not care for the children who mix with others,

And go about laughing and playing.

She does not go to them, she rests instead

(But) She takes the child who weeps on her lap.

(Bhattacarya and Vidyarnava [1914] 1978, Part I, p. 140)

Here the tantrika is the child of the deity, overwhelmed by fear and love, who seeks to dwell in the lap of the goddess. This is the loving surrender of the devotee, who passes the ocean of birth and death to dwell in eternity with his goddess. The ritual of shava-sadhana is a powerful way to call down the goddess, for her power (shakti) is understood to dwell most strongly in corpses, burning grounds, jackals, and natural sites (Bhattacarya and Vidyarnava [1914] 1978, part II, p. 298). In this ritual, the corpse itself becomes the body of the deity, and the practitioner also becomes ritually sanctified. The goddess is often worshiped in other bodies, where the power of the mantra (mantra-shakti) reveals her true form. She may be worshiped as Kumari in the bodies of young virgins, as Uma in jackals, or as Mother of Siddhis within the brahmani bird or kite (Bhattacarya and Vidyarnava [1914] 1978, part II, p. 296). She may enter the corpse itself and speak through its mouth, or she may appear in a vision. The goddess descends as a savioress in the midst of fear, as the 19th-century tantrika Shivachandra Bhattacharyya stated:

When all earthly means fail… when in that terrible and pitiless great cremation ground, where horrors do a frantic dance, there is, despite the presence of the all-good Mother, nothing in all the infinite world which for our safety we can call our own; in that deep darkness of a new-moon night, haunted with destructive Bhairavas, Vetalas, Siddhas, Bhutas, Vatukas and Dakinis… when the firm and heroic heart of even the great Vira shakes with fear; when even the intricate bonds of the Sadhaka’s posture on the back of the corpse which is awakened by Mantra is loosened; when with a faning (sic) heart the Vira feels as he sits the earth quake furiously under him; when without means of rescue he is about to fall and be crushed; when he is overtaken by the swoon of death- if even at such times the Sadhaka but … extends his uplifted hands, saying, “Save me, I pray thee, O Gurudeva!” then the Mother of the world, who is Herself the Guru, at once forgets all his faults, dispels all his difficulties with Her glance, and stretching forth ten hands instead of two, says: “Come, my child, there is no more fear,” and blesses the Sadhaka by raising him to Her assuring bosom.

(Bhattacarya and Vidyarnava [1914] 1978, part I, pp. 256–57)

Here danger is deliberately sought so that the Mother goddess must come down and rescue the devotee. The Shakta poet Ramprasad Sen was also said to have performed this ritual at the burning ground, on a funeral pyre using a mala or rosary made of human bone. He performed it while sitting under a tree, on a seat made of the skulls of five animals, including a human skull (panchamunda asana) (Bhattacarya and Vidyarnava [1914] 1978, part I, p. 360). He, too, gained a vision of the goddess, and she blessed him for his devotion and dedication.

According to Shakta folklore, it is the devotion of the practitioner which brings the goddess down to him. He is so passionate that he is willing to risk the dangers of the burning ground, its ghosts and demons and jackals, and its risk of madness, to bring the goddess to him. She may enter his heart, or she may enter the corpse when it becomes a dwelling place (murti) for the goddess. In some cases, its head is said to turn around and begin speaking affectionately (or sometimes terrifyingly) to the devotee. When the devotee asks for a boon, the goddess cannot refuse.

To bring the goddess Kali/Shakti into the corpse is also to bring life and power (shakti) into it, as Shakti is said to enliven Shiva. Some tantrikas compare the devotee’s own body to a corpse, saying that the goddess must enter into the heart to enliven it. Others say that the practitioner himself becomes both the goddess and the corpse, realizing in him- or herself both the divine spirit and the physical body, the desolation of death and the deep presence of eternal life.

Why should a corpse be capable of being possessed by a god or goddess? Normally this state is reserved for living renunciants, professional oracles, and devotees. However, in this case, the corpse is not really dead.

In Indian tradition, there are two understandings of the moment of death. One is the moment of physical death. The other is the time of cremation, and more specifically, the kapala kriya—the ritual midway through the cremation when the chief mourner cracks open the skull of the burnt corpse with a staff to release the prana or vital breath. There is, thus, a distinction between the physical death of the body and the ritual death of the soul. Death impurity begins at the release of this prana, and the shraddha rite of commemoration is performed on the anniversary of the ritual burning of the body, not of the physical death.11 Before the time of ritual death, the corpse is in a liminal state, neither fully dead nor alive, and thus an appropriate home for a deity who may exist on earth and his or her heaven.

Despite the presence of deities, the religious elements shown in the corpse ritual (union with the deity, devotion to the goddess) have not been emphasized by the few writers who discuss this ritual. Why is this? There are several possible reasons. The magical dimension has been sensationalized in the memoirs and stories by visiting writers in India, and it was associated with criminals and corrupt holy men. Westerners, especially missionaries and Victorians, were repulsed by the whole tantric dimension and saw it as evil and demonic. In India, the corpse is associated by brahmanical Hinduism with impurity, the opposite of religion, and such impurity is threatening. Tantrikas responded to these threats with the desire to keep advanced rituals secret. They ignored the accusations or called their enemies “spiritually primitive”, like animals (pashus). For these reasons, and perhaps others, both tantrikas, and their critics tended to suppress the religious dimensions of the ritual.

All of these understandings of the corpse ritual are followed by different tantric groups. Shava-sadhana is an important tantric ritual in West Bengal, and as such, it defines what it means to be a Bengali Shakta tantrika. It is practiced by both male and female tantrikas, and it unites the folk, devotional, and yogic aspects of the tradition. It thus shows this tantric practice to be a part of the broader Shakta tradition.

5. Another goddess at the Burning Ground: Kali and Vajra Yogini

In the Bengali Hindu tradition, the burning ground is the place to meet the goddess Kali in her role as the goddess of life, death, and salvation, the loving mother who protects her children and whose fierceness guards them. She appears outwardly frightening but is inwardly beautiful. She can guarantee a good rebirth or great religious insight. At the burning grounds of Kolkata and Bakreshwar, her worship may involve contemplation of the devotee’s union with or love of the goddess, visualization of her form, chanting mantras and prayers before an image or symbol (yantra) of the goddess, and giving offerings. At the burning ground, she may appear in the sky or in the corpse itself.

These rituals are performed in many places in West Bengal. In the town of Tarapith, whose major religious focus is a cremation ground, the goddess Kali is called Tara, “the one who saves,” or Ugratara, “the fierce one”. She is also the goddess who gives liberation (kaivalyadayini). The forms of ritual practice performed here are more yogic and tantric than devotional, and they often involve sitting alone at the burning ground, surrounded by ash and bone. There are shamanic elements associated with the Tarapith tradition, including conquest of the goddess, exorcism, trance, and control of spirits. Indeed, the corpse ritual is often seen as a mingling of shamanic and yogic practices.12

For a comparison to another mystical death ritual in the region of northern Bengal, we may look at the Tantric Buddhist religion. This tradition has a similar practice, though, in the Himalayas, the bodies are often left out for vultures or other birds of prey rather than burned (it is difficult to find wood for funeral pyres above the tree line). Thus, death becomes part of the circle of life, with the dead person feeding other living beings.

In the tantric Buddhist chod rite, the practitioner goes out to a place of desolation to meet Vajrayogini, the goddess of transformation. Vajrayogini is a key figure in the advanced practice of chod, where she appears in her dark (Kalika) or wrathful (Vajravarahi) forms. In some forms of chod, she is visualized as Prajnaparamita, the perfection of wisdom, or as a dark Dakini figure. As in the Hindu corpse ritual, the goddess is invoked to oversee a mystical change in the person.

The term “chod” literally means “cutting through”, and what is cut off is ultimately the ego. Initially, this begins with cutting all attachments to the body and to material things. When identification with the mind and body is severed, then the person’s pure awareness is set free to perceive the ultimate emptiness of reality. The solitary Buddhist yogi at the burning ground visualizes offering his or her body to the tantric deities as training in radical non-attachment.

The chod ritual developed outside the Buddhist monastic system, and it was later adopted by the monastic lineages. It is said that Padmasambhava, the eighth-century mystic credited with introducing Tantric Buddhism to Tibet, spent years meditating on burning grounds (which had names including “Piled-Up Corpses” and “Sleep in the Mysterious Paths”). In each one, he is said to have feasted and danced with the supernatural women, known as dakinis, who revealed secret teachings to him. The ritual was also practiced by his disciples. It was later organized by the 12th-century Buddhist yogic couple Padampa Sangye and Machig Labdron, the “father and mother of chod”. Labdron became famous for developing a form of chod ritual for women, in which she emphasized compassion for all beings and the role of the female yogini and dakini (her chod writings include “The Exhortation of the 100,000 Dakinis”). Some sources give her credit as the major founder of the ritual (Beyer 1973, p. 47). Chod has also been practiced by some tertons, people who have found hidden “treasure texts” or revelations (Samuel 1993, p. 278).

As an internalization of an outer ritual, chod involves a form of self-sacrifice: the practitioner visualizes his or her own body as the offering at a ganachakra or tantric assembly, offering the flesh and blood of his body to other entities to devour. There are several levels of interpretation of the ritual. As the Buddhist siddha or saint Milarepa, the “prototype of the nonmonastic tradition,” phrased it: “External chod is to wander in fearful places where there are deities and demons. Internal chod is to offer one’s own body as food to the deities and demons. Ultimate chod is to realize the true nature of the mind and cut through the fine strand of hair of subtle ignorance. I am the yogi who has these three kinds of chod practice” (Lin n.d.).

An important part of chod is to travel alone on a journey. On the journey, the practitioner can deliberately bring kleshas (inner poisons or impurities) to the surface, see and face them in the spirit of compassion and courage, and let go of attachment to them. There are many stories of yogis who underwent inner transformations on such a journey. Some practitioners visualize themselves as a wrathful deity, invite their own kleshas in the form of demons and ghosts, offer them a feast, then dissolve them with a sense of inner liberation where he or she is no longer chained by these forces. The goal of the chod rite is to get rid of the attachments that make the person attached to an earthly body and identity.

Other practitioners transfer personal consciousness into space and identify it with the black form of Vajrayogini. The body is then visualized as expanded into the universe and offered to all beings who might wish to devour it. Separating the consciousness from the body shows that it should not be identified with the body, and identifying the self with the black Vajrayogini shows that the true nature of the person is the primordial wisdom of non-self, for tantric identification with a spiritual guide or yidam is a way of dissolving attachments.

The yogini (or dakini) may also appear as a separate being who can give revelations. The Tibetan Encyclopedia describes a vision of tantric practitioner Khyungpo Naljor when he arrived at a cemetery. He sat down amid the corpses there and also the wild animals that roamed among them. In his meditation, he had a vision of a dark dakini, who was naked except for some bone ornaments. She carried a skull cup and a skull-topped staff, or khatvanga. She was dancing in the sky above his head, sometimes as just one great figure and sometimes multiplied into a horde of dancers. Khyungpo Naljor realized that she must be a deity of revelation, and he asked for instruction (Dakini Visualized in the Chod Rite n.d.).

Such tantric practitioners are traditionally known as Chodpas (male) and Chodmas (female), people who stay in cemeteries and desolate places to face fearful situations and develop compassion for all beings. As they overcome their own attachments, they can also bless the land around them. They have thus been called upon for help in combatting plagues and epidemics. According to the Gyalwa Karmapa of the Karma Kagyu lineage.

Chöd is a special type of mysticism that unites shamanic practice with profound yogic meditation…. Chöd is a spiritual practice conducted by the yogini (or yogi) alone in the wilderness, where she must learn to face every fear and every bit of ego-clinging within herself. Indeed, to accomplish this, she (or he) is instructed to deliberately go to places that inspire supernatural dread. Traditionally, once the yogini has found a wild and lonely spot, which is supposed to be a place that seems imbued with power or reportedly haunted by spirits... the yogini will begin to sing the ancient melodious chant, signifying the start of the meditation. She must face the spirits of nature, the “elementals,” and the ghosts of the dead, which the ritual evokes, and dominate them; or, failing that, be dominated in turn, which might mean becoming possessed, possibly leading to madness or even death… What is really given to the spirits to feast on, is the energy used to bind the Ego in the mind-body form. In devouring this, they become liberated, as does the Siddha [practitioner] herself. (The Gyalwa Karmapa, of The Karma Kagyu Tradition n.d.)

In both of these rituals, shava-sadhana and chod, the transcendent vision comes through an experience of desolation, the feeling of negativity towards earthly life, and the renunciation of all attachments and passions at the burning ground. Whether he or she seeks Kali of the Burning Ground or the Dark Vajrayogini, there are female figures who represent the mysterious reality beyond conscious awareness and who take the person’s offerings in the spirit of compassion and wisdom. Both can give the gift of liberation to the serious seeker through a mystical vision that comes in the midst of death and sacrifice. While they have often been understood as silent practices, there is sometimes a musical tradition associated with them (Cupchik 2023).

A recent variant of the chod rite has been developed by the American Buddhist writer, lama, and teacher Tsultrim Allione (2008). According to her “How to Feed Your Demons” approach, chod is an internal psychological process similar to Jungian active imagination and recognition of the shadow. As she describes her alternative understanding of the chod rite:

“Feeding our demons rather than fighting them contradicts the conventional approach of fighting against whatever assails us. But it turns out to be a remarkably effective path to inner integration. Demons (maras in Sanskrit) are not bloodthirsty ghouls waiting for us in dark corners. Demons are within us. They are energies we experience every day, such as fear, illness, depression, anxiety, trauma, relationship difficulties, and addiction. Anything that drains our energy and blocks us from being completely awake is a demon. The approach of giving form to these inner forces and feeding them, rather than struggling against them, was originally articulated by an eleventh-century female Tibetan Buddhist teacher named Machig Labdrön (1055–1145). The spiritual practice she developed was called Chöd, and it generated such amazing results that it became very popular, spreading widely throughout Tibet and beyond”.13

In this approach, the desolation of the burning ground disappears, and feeding is not the self-sacrifice of the Tantric Buddhist yogi but rather paying attention to potentially threatening inner forces. In this process of humanistic psychologizing, the mystical aspect of liberation disappears. One is psychologically liberated by reaching integration or wholeness, rather than sacrificing the skandhas,14 which make up the earthly identity, and entering the emptiness of the Void. As yet, no corresponding process of psychologizing has made use of the Hindu Shakta corpse ritual, but it may be just a matter of time.

Both shava-sadhana and chod are practices for death, losing identification with the body while still dwelling in it. Tantrikas who meditate and perform yogic practices there can see the goddess because they are symbolically announcing that they are ready for death, even if they are still alive. Why wait until the last minute? This is where their lives will end, so it is useful to know about it in advance.

The burning ground symbolizes the heart that is barren of desire, for all ego and illusion have been burnt away. Hence, the true ascetic seeks to make a burning ground of his heart so that the goddess might abide and dance there. The cremation ground is a liminal zone: a nexus point where the physical and spiritual worlds intersect. Within this ultimate place of transformation, rituals are believed to yield faster and more powerful results. It is said that by performing his sadhana rituals in a cremation ground that the “mad saint” of Tarapith, Vamakhepa, achieved an enlightened state of consciousness when he was granted a vision of Kali in the form of Ma Tara dancing upon a burning corpse. She is the power beyond life and death, and sacrifice and despair are her pathways.15

6. Desolation and the Spiritual Hero

In Western monotheisms, death is a tragic end for the person who dies. He or she may take a heroic stance, and have faith in the end, believing in salvation and redemption against the darkness. But having only a single life means that life itself is a supreme value, to be dedicated to God or to other people.

In Hindu and Buddhist tantric traditions, there are many lives. Therefore, any single life is part of a vast series, and death is a transition from one to another. Heroism is not having faith at the end of a life but rather seeking to understand and experience that transition while still alive, learning about the supernatural and divine realms while the soul is still within the body as a preparation for future deaths. This is best performed among the dead and dying.

The path of the burning ground, the path of desolation, ideally leads to religious vision. However, such visions are not easily accepted in householder society, and such mystics are often accused of madness. Here we have potential pathologies. In Bengali society, there is a distinction between secular madness (paglami) and divine madness (divyonmada). Secular madness may be treated traditionally by Ayurvedic medicine or exorcism, and some of the mystics that I interviewed showed scars from exorcistic violence. But they were willing to stand the pain, for sometimes, the only way to prove the religious nature of the visions is undergoing exorcisms and still insisting on the truth of the visions.16 In modern Bengali society, we also have psychologists who would interpret all madness as secular due to various traumas or biological factors.

Divine madness is the result of the soul having difficulty in bearing the intensity of visions of the god or goddess. This state is sometimes described in the lives of poets and artists, but it is most often seen in renunciants (sadhus) who have left ordinary householder society and chosen to live in temples or ashrams or to follow a life of wandering. It is sometimes associated with the state of possession by an ancestor or spirit but more often comes with the state of god-possession (avesa). It is usually understood to be a temporary state, to be withdrawn when the deity finds the time to be right.

There are also mystical states which are more controlled and thus not called madness. The voluntary trance state, known as bhar, is socially accepted enough to be a vocation in which people (in West Bengal, usually women) are possessed by gods and can give blessings and prophecies. This is a state which is temporary, and the person in a trance usually has no memory of what has happened.17 In the more advanced state of mahabhava (or bhava for short), the person’s mind and soul may co-exist with the deity, and they may share thoughts and emotions. It is the sort of state that is full of religious visions and vivid dreams, and such people are highly respected. But there is often confusion between these states. As the poem by Ramprasad Sen earlier in this paper shows, people call him mad, and his family curses him (families have a notoriously low tolerance for secular madness), but he keeps his faith and knows that the goddess is real. This is one way that true religious vision is proved.

There are a variety of understandings of how the mind and soul are structured, but one popular way is to look at the relationship between the lower soul or personality (the jiva) and the spiritual soul (or atman). Both may have their own types of experiences. When the lower soul is disrupted, we have ordinary madness, inappropriate thoughts and feelings, hallucinations, delusions, and various pathologies. When the atman is disrupted, we have visions of deities, who may create emotional chaos, or who may be integrated into the personality as the basis of the self. The person is then understood as perfected, as a siddha or saint.

The burning ground rituals are a special subtype of spiritual journey. People go there for visions, for a relationship with the goddess, for a good death, for liberation for rebirth. But it is a dangerous type of spiritual journey, for the goddess is known to be unpredictable and often angry. Therefore, a relatively small number of people perform the ritual: those who want enlightenment in this life, who want to “break on through to the other side” and are willing to risk madness to do it. Therefore, they will challenge the goddess, fight her for her favor, and demand her grace. They can be heroes in relation to her tantric forms and children in relation to her devotional forms.

This is quite different from Western prayer and meditation, where even ascetics tend to be passive before the will of God. If they walk through the valley of the shadow of death and hit a wall, that is God’s will too. Whether Christian hermits and anchorites, Muslim fakirs and dervishes, or (the much smaller number of) ascetic Jewish Kabbalists and Karaites, asceticism will not support the full-throated storming of the gates of heaven. One suffers in desolation by those gates and then waits for God’s mercy18. In the Christian case, it may be part of the tradition of imitation of Christ: “‘Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin”. (1 Peter iv.1).

On the other hand, the Hindu practice of struggling with the goddess at the burning ground can reveal the immediate truth of the soul found in the Bhagavad Gita (2:20):

It is not born, it does not die;

Having been, it will never not be.

Unborn, eternal, constant and primordial;

It is not killed, when the body is killed.

There are many negative aspects to the burning ground rituals, notably their dangers. These can increase both the emotional desolation of the person and the desire for the goddess, as Mother or as a liberator. They make the emptiness and temporality of the world more vivid to highlight the Goddess’ eternal beauty and power. World negation has a long history in India as a part of the Vedantic and Yogic systems of philosophy. It can also highlight the path to divinity to show that the fires of the burning ground can illuminate the world.