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36-695: The Legends of the Eighty-four Mahasiddhas ( Wylie : grub thob brgyad bcu tsa bzh'i lo rgyus , written by the Tibetan monk Mondup Sherab, which was narrated to him by Abhayadattashri c. 12th century) narrates the following tale: Mekhala and Kanakhala were daughters of a householder in Devīkoṭṭa (now in Bengal ), who married them to sons of a boatman. Their husbands taunted them and their neighbours gossiped about them. Finally, Kanakhala could not take

72-435: A period between a prefix g and initial y . E.g. གྱང "wall" is gyang , while གཡང་ "chasm" is g.yang . The four vowel marks (here applied to the base letter ཨ ) are transliterated: When a syllable has no explicit vowel marking, the letter a is used to represent the default vowel "a" (e.g. ཨ་ = a). Many previous systems of Tibetan transliteration included internal capitalisation schemes—essentially, capitalising

108-546: A Latin keyboard. Since the Wylie system is not intuitive for use by linguists unfamiliar with Tibetan, a new transliteration system based on the International Phonetic Alphabet has been proposed to replace Wylie in articles on Tibetan historical phonology . (Some of the following links require installation of Tibetan fonts to display properly) Kapala A kapala ( Sanskrit for "skull")

144-411: A kapala is used symbolically to hold bread or dough cakes, torma , and wine instead of blood and flesh as offerings to wrathful deities, such as the ferocious Dharmapāla ("defender of the faith"). The dough cakes are shaped to resemble human eyes, ears and tongues. The kapala is made in the form of a skull, specially collected and prepared. It is elaborately anointed and consecrated before use. The cup

180-491: A magic trick. The sisters with their powers moved the house of Gorakhnath's disciples to an arid desert from the picturesque setting it was at previously. Repentant, the yogis begged for forgiveness; the sisters relented and restored their dwelling to its former location. After 12 years, the sisters sought to meet their guru. They found Kanhapa in Bengal, however the guru failed to recollect his meeting with them. Upon his request,

216-411: A painting, where Kanakala is depicted headless, three streams of blood gush from her neck. One stream of blood is drunk by Kanakhala's head in her hand; the others are collected in the skull-cups of Mekhala and Kanhapa. Mekhala and Kanakhala are dated to the late ninth century based on the dating of their guru Krishnacharya, identified with Kanhapa. Wylie transliteration Wylie transliteration

252-642: A skull and a knife. This form is almost identical to the Hindu goddess Chinnamasta , who is standing on a copulating couple . Taranatha (1575–1634) in his Historical Works - Kahna pa 'i mam char (a biography of Kanhapa) describes the life of some of his disciples including Mekhala and Kanakhala. The sisters lived in south of Maharashtra . When Mekhala and Kanakhala were 10 and 8 years old respectively, they were betrothed to young Brahmin boys, however were not married to them after they reached puberty and finally their marriages broke. Their neighbours gossiped about

288-414: A sword or a kartika knife . A skull-staff is supported in the crook of her left arm. Kanakhala holds her own severed head in her left hand and a sword or a kartika in her right. Kanakhala's head may be intact over her neck or she may be beheaded. In combined portrayals of the dancing sisters, Kanhapa may be depicted with one of sisters' heads by his side; the sisters may not be beheaded in the portrayal. In

324-448: A syllable may be represented through the use of prefixed or suffixed letters or by letters superscripted or subscripted to the root letter (forming a "stack"). The Wylie system does not normally distinguish these as in practice no ambiguity is possible under the rules of Tibetan spelling. The exception is the sequence gy- , which may be written either with a prefix g or a subfix y . In the Wylie system, these are distinguished by inserting

360-431: A transcendental state of mind within the shortest possible time; libation to gods and deities to win their favor. Hindu deities that may be depicted with the kapala include Durga , Kālī and Shiva , especially in his Bhairava form. Even Ganesha , when adopted into Tibetan Buddhism as Maharakta Ganapati , is shown with a kapala filled with blood. Some of the Hindu deities pictured thus are: The Kāpālika tradition

396-481: A yogi who has accomplished the siddhi of non-discriminatory awareness has broken through all illusions of duality, of purity and impurity (all constructed realities), and most importantly, nirvana and samsara. The ability to break through the duality of nirvana and samsara results in the union of emptiness and bliss, which is the highest expression of enlightenment in Vajrayana Buddhism. In this way,

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432-466: Is a skull cup used as a ritual implement (bowl) in both Hindu Tantra and Tibetan Buddhist Tantra ( Vajrayana ). Especially in Tibetan Buddhism, kapalas are often carved or elaborately mounted with precious metals and jewels. Samding Dorje Phagmo 'Kapala' ( Tibetan : ཀ་པ་ལ་ , Wylie : kapala ) is a loan word into Tibetan from Sanskrit kapāla ( Devanagari : कपाल) referring to

468-634: Is a method for transliterating Tibetan script using only the letters available on a typical English-language typewriter . The system is named for the American scholar Turrell V. Wylie , who created the system and published it in a 1959 Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies article. It has subsequently become a standard transliteration scheme in Tibetan studies, especially in the United States. Any Tibetan language romanization scheme faces

504-486: Is also elaborately decorated and kept in a triangular pedestal. The heavily embossed cup is usually made of silver-gilt bronze with lid shaped like a skull and with a handle made in the form of a thunderbolt. Many of the deities of Vajrayana , including mahasiddhas , dakinis and dharmapalas , are depicted as carrying the kapala, usually in their left hand. Some deities such as the Hindu Chinnamasta and

540-487: Is capitalised Bka' brgyud and not bKa' brgyud . Wylie's original scheme is not capable of transliterating all Tibetan-script texts. In particular, it has no correspondences for most Tibetan punctuation symbols, and lacks the ability to represent non-Tibetan words written in Tibetan script (Sanskrit and phonetic Chinese are the most common cases). Accordingly, various scholars have adopted ad hoc and incomplete conventions as needed. The Tibetan and Himalayan Library at

576-459: Is distinctly different from the customs of graveyards and cremation, but all three of them have been a part of the home ground of tantric practitioners’ such as the yogis and yoginis, Shaiva Kapalikas and Aghoris, shamans and sadhus. The charnel ground, often referred to as "sky burial" by Western sources, is an area demarcated specifically in Tibet, defined by the Tibetan word Jhator (literal meaning

612-511: Is ’giving alms to the birds’), a way of exposing the corpse to nature, where human bodies are disposed as it were or in a chopped (chopped after the rituals) condition in the open ground as a ritual that has great religious meaning of the ascent of the mind to be reincarnated into another circle of life. Such a practice results in finding human bones, half or whole skeletons, more or less putrefying corpses and disattached limbs lying scattered around. Items made from human skulls or bones are found in

648-546: The University of Virginia developed a standard, EWTS —the Extended Wylie Transliteration Scheme—that addresses these deficiencies systematically. It uses capital letters and Latin punctuation to represent the missing characters. Several software systems, including Tise , now use this standard to allow one to type unrestricted Tibetan script (including the full Unicode Tibetan character set) on

684-478: The sādhanā (spiritual practice) of the goddess Vajravārāhī , a ferocious form of Vajrayogini . The sisters practised the meditative techniques for 12 years and accomplished their goal. The sisters journeyed to meet their guru to seek further instruction. They bowed to him and circumambulated him in reverence, however the daka failed to recognize them. They introduced themselves as the married unhappy sisters he had initiated twelve years ago. He responded that if he

720-458: The abuse any more and suggested to Mekhala that they should flee their house. However, the wise Mekhala told her younger sister that they deserved it and would have to face the same torment somewhere else if they run away, so they stayed and bore the agony. The mahasiddha guru Kanhapa passed by their house with his retinue of seven-hundred dakas and dakinis . The sisters prostrated to the guru and explained their anguish. Kanhapa instructed them in

756-412: The beginning of a sentence). On the grounds that internal capitalisation was overly cumbersome, of limited usefulness in determining pronunciation, and probably superfluous to a reader able to use a Tibetan dictionary, Wylie specified that if a word was to be capitalised, the first letter should be capital, in conformity with Western capitalisation practices. Thus a particular Tibetan Buddhist sect ( Kagyu )

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792-628: The beings of the world for several years, they bodily assumed Khechara, the Paradise of dakinis governed by Vajrayogini . The legend of the sisters is associated with Chinnamunda or Sarvabuddhadakini, the severed headed form of the goddess Vajrayogini or her form Vajravarahi. The nude self-decapitated goddess, standing in a fighting posture, holds her own severed head in one hand, a knife in another. Three jets of blood spurt out of her bleeding neck and are drunk by her severed head and two dakini attendants, Vajravairocani and Vajravarnini. The attendants hold

828-451: The charnel ground are the charnel ground ornaments such as the i) Crown of five skulls, ii) Bone necklace, iii) Bone armlets, iv) Bone bracelets, v) Bone skirt and vi) Bone anklets which decorate many images of dakinis, yoginis, dharmapalas and a few other deities (as may be seen in some of the pictures and stone images depicted in the gallery here), and other products such as the Bone trumpet,

864-422: The dakinis to stop further head-chopping. Mekhala and Kanakhala are depicted nude or topless, clad only in gold ornaments and tiara-like headgear, with swords held above their heads or dancing with them. They may also be depicted in the act of decapitation. In combined portrayals, Mekhala is on the left, holding a skull-cup in her left hand and drawing a sword from her mouth with her right hand or simply holding

900-409: The difference with the result that they achieved neither goal perfectly. Wylie transliteration was designed to precisely transcribe Tibetan script as written , which led to its acceptance in academic and historical studies. It is not intended to represent the pronunciation of Tibetan words. The Wylie scheme transliterates the Tibetan characters as follows: In Tibetan script, consonant clusters within

936-463: The dilemma of whether it should seek to accurately reproduce the sounds of spoken Tibetan or the spelling of written Tibetan. These differ widely, as Tibetan orthography became fixed in the 11th century, while pronunciation continued to evolve , comparable to the English orthography and French orthography , which reflect late medieval pronunciation. Previous transcription schemes sought to split

972-408: The image of the dakini who not only drinks but takes pleasure and delight from consuming the blood in the kapala is a powerful symbol of a yogi who has perfected the paramita of prajna, and who dwells in the reality of non-dualism. The kapala is one of several charnel ground implements made from human bone found by tantrics at sky burial sites. The charnel ground, an ancient Tibetan burial custom,

1008-443: The related Buddhist Vajrayogini are depicted as drinking blood from the kapala. The kapala itself is a symbol of wisdom ( prajna ) and knowledge. In the inner-level or subtle-body practices of Buddhist Tantra, the underside of the skull contains the moon drops, which are melted by tummo or inner heat yoga, creating a cooling sensation of bliss as the drops move through the inner channels. As many Vajrayana empowerments such as

1044-412: The root letter rather than the first letter of a word, when the first letter is a prefix consonant. Tibetan dictionaries are organized by root letter, and prefixes are often silent, so knowing the root letter gives a better idea of pronunciation. However, these schemes were often applied inconsistently, and usually only when the word would normally be capitalised according to the norms of Latin text (i.e. at

1080-436: The same. The sisters surrendered to Kanhapa, who had arrived in the region then. Kanhapa considered them fit disciples and trained them. They remained with his entourage for a few days. Kanhapa taught them the sadhana of Vajravarahi and sent them to a forest to practise in solitude. They attained many siddhis. Once, they encountered yogi disciples of Gorakhnath , who mocked them as disciples of Kanhapa and asked them to show

1116-400: The sisters drew swords of wisdom from their mouths and severed their heads and offered them to Kanhapa. The headless sisters danced rising upward in the sky and disappeared in a rainbow light. The self-decapitation of Mekhala and Kanakhala started a dangerous trend of self-decapitation by dakinis. Ultimately, the goddess Vajravārāhī herself appeared in this form as Chinnamunda and danced with

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1152-432: The skull or forehead, usually of a human. By association, it refers to the ritual skullcup fashioned out of a human cranium. The Sanskrit word, in turn, was derived from Proto Indo-Aryan *kapā́las, and descended from Proto-Indo-European *káp-ōl- (cup, bowl), from *kap- (to seize, to hold). Kapalas are used mainly for esoteric purposes such as rituals. Among the rituals using kapalas are higher tantric meditation to achieve

1188-558: The sky burial grounds by the Sadhus and Yogins of the tantric cult. The charnel grounds are also known by the epithets the "field of death" or the "valley of corpses". In Tibet, a class distinction in the burial practices is also noted. The dead High Lamas are buried in Stupas or cremated but the dead commoners are disposed of in the Charnel ground or in a Sky burial. The products from

1224-572: The vase empowerment are also performed by touching the top of the head, the kapala also represents the transmission of knowledge from the Tantric guru to disciple, known as lineage transmission. As blood was associated with hell-beings and was considered to be one of the most polluting substances in the Indian Vedas, the drinking of blood was an esoteric symbol for non-discrimination. As wisdom transforms all duhkha into emptiness ( sunyata ),

1260-515: Was a Tantric , non- Puranic form of Shaivism in India . The word is derived from kapāla , meaning "skull", and Kāpālika means the "skull-men". The Kāpālikas were an extinct sect of Shaivite ascetics devoted to the Hindu god Shiva dating back to the 8th century CE, which traditionally carried a skull-topped trident ( khatvanga ) and an empty skull as a begging bowl. In Tibetan monasteries

1296-517: Was their guru, they should have brought him offerings. The sisters asked him his desired offerings. The guru promptly asked for their heads. The sisters unquestioningly decapitated themselves and offered their severed heads at his feet. Their bodies danced as their severed heads sang reverently. The guru rejoined their heads and torsos. They were known as the "Headless Yoginis " henceforth. By this act, they acquired mahamudra- siddhi (supernatural magical powers) and became mahasiddhas . After serving

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