Kapala and Kalamukha Sects

Kapala and Kalamukha Sects

The Kapalas and Kalamukhas are two distinct sects though they were of ten confused with one another. According to Ramanuja the Kapalikas (members of Kapala sect) maintained that a man who was advanced in their doctrine could attain the highest bliss by concentrating his mind on the soul seated on the female organ. They owrshipped Bhairava the great God and attributed great virtue and occult powers to drinking wine and eating disgusting substances as food. They performed human sacrifices and bolived that by the practice of Yaga they could achieve miraculous powers of speedy movement. The Kalamukhas held that happiness in this world and salvation in the next could be attained by such practices as (1) eating food in a human skull (2) besmearing the body with the ashes of the dead and also eating those ashes (3) worshipping the God as seated in a pot of wine and (4) holding a club. Men of other castes could become Brahmanas by performance of certain rites and one who under took the vow of a kapala became a holy saint.

The religious devotion of these outlandish sects was reserved for the horrid God Bhairava with his wife Chandika wearing a garland of human skulla and requiring human sacrifices and offering of wine for his propitiation.

They must have been in vogue from fairly early times and their origin may be traced to the terrible form and conception of Rudra. What is however significant is heir philosophical aspects of Saivism.