On the dakṣiṇācāra and the vāmācāra – III

Posted by Phil Hine in History, tantra  |  July 25th 2020  |  About poster:

In the previous post in this series I gave a brief overview of the “mainstream” or base of the Śaiva mantramārg – the Śaiva Siddhānta. I will now turn to an examination of the non-Saiddhāntika traditions that developed around it. These were a diverse array of traditions focused on the worship of the fierce ectype of Śiva – Bhairava – often seen as a “higher” form of Śiva, and various forms of the Goddess – Śiva’s power or Śākti. The scriptures oriented towards Bhairava came to be known collectively as the Mantrapīṭha, and those devoted to the goddess, the Vidyāpīṭha. These systems were more oriented towards private practices than the Siddhānta, and they featured various degrees of antinomian practices, as they drew from the Atimārgic traditions of the Somasiddhāntins or Kāpālikas ¹ – these Atimārgic-inspired systems are the traditions of the vāmācāra.

As I have noted in the previous posts in this series, the relationship between the two broad streams of the traditions was not as antagonistic as is often supposed. Rather, if a distinction was made, it was between the sāmānya – ordinary revelation and the viśeṣa – extraordinary revelation.

The first of these viśeṣa systems I will explore is that of the Caturbhaginī or “Four Sisters”.

The Caturbhaginī
Little is known of the Caturbhaginī or Vāma tradition. It is called Vāma as the scriptures of this system were held have been spoken from Śiva’s northern or leftward face, the feminine Vāmadeva. ² The tradition seems to have emerged as early as the sixth century, as it is mentioned by the Buddhist philosopher Dharmakirti who, in his Pramāṇa-vārtika names it among those traditions whose scriptures are “full of violence, theft, sexual congress, base acts and the like” yet whose mantras are effective. ³ The tradition is also named by the great Śaṅkara in his Brahma-sūtra-bhāṣya where it is classed as one of four kinds of worshippers, naming it as belonging to the Bhūtavratas, who attain only the bhūtas, or malevolent spirits – that is to say, one of the lowest grades of worship.

This tradition worshipped four sister goddesses of the directions: Jayā (East), whose vehicle was a corpse; Vijayā (South), mounted on an owl, Jayantī (West), visualized riding a horse, and Aparājitā (North), who rode in a flying chariot. Here is the dhyāna (visualization) for Vijayā:

“He should meditate on Vijayā who grants success as having the (red) colour of the dāḍiṃī flower, equal in lustre to a rainbow, fear-inspiring with the bow in her uplifted hand, consuming fish, meat and wine, seated upon an owl, adorned by necklace and bracelets and in the possession of a red garment and sunshade.” ⁴

Worshipped alongside them is their brother, the four-faced Tumburu – an embodiment of Śiva. According to Christopher Wallis (2013, p222) this tradition may have been the earliest of the mantramārgic traditions to feature goddesses, and also to feature transgressive modes of worship, although Goudriaan states in his introduction to the Vīṇāśikhātantra that the four sisters are subordinate to Tumburu. ⁵

The tradition reached as far as Cambodia, Java and Bali, but seems to have died out by the tenth century. Elements of it were assimilated into early Buddhist Tantra. Tumburu is featured, together with his four sisters, in the Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa, where he is named as a Bodhisattva. In that text, it is said that the deities are to be depicted sailing in a ship, with Tumburu at the helm. ⁶

Only one of this traditions’ scriptures has survived – the Vīṇāśikhātantra, which has been translated into English by Teun Goudriaan. A comparatively short work, it contains procedures relating to initiation, the worship of the five deities of the system, meditations of the subtle body, and several acts of sorcery. Here is an example of the latter:

178. Take a patch of cloth which belonged to an expired Brahman woman:
179. With charcoal taken from a funeral pyre and collected on the fourteenth of the dark half of the moon one should write someone’s name on it, surrounded by the Bijas (i.e. the seed mantras of the five deities); that person, in whose house that object is buried quickly departs to Yama’s house (i.e. they die).
180. Even a person who is proficient in the observance of wisdom and is adorned with fame and glory is victimized by such a practice and dies without delay. ⁷

The four goddesses were propitiated for success in battle or in love. Tumburu has associations with healing, protection, and sovereignty. He is described in various texts as being four-faced and four-handed, white of colour, and seated upon a bull. The eleventh-century tantric digest Śāradātilika says he is red in hue, four-faced, three-eyed, and is to be placed in the devotee’s heart on a pedestal, around which are his four sisters, and in the intermediate directions, four female attendants: Durbhagā (NE), Shubhagā (NW), Karālī (SW) and Mohinī (SE).

The name Tumburu is well-known from Puranic sources and the Epics as a chief of the Gandharvas, but I do not know if there is any connection between the Gandharva and Tumburu as a form of Śiva.

Sources
Matthew Clark The Daśanāmī-Saṃnyāsīs: The Integration of Ascetic Lineages into an Order (Brill, 2006).
Teun Goudriaan The Vīṇāśikhātantra: A Śaiva Tantra of the Left Current (Motilal Banarisidas, 1985).
Shaman Hatley “Converting the Ḍākinī: Goddess Cults and Tantras of the Yoginīs Between Buddhism and Śaivism” in David B. Gray & Ryan Richard Overbey (eds) Tantric Traditions in Transmission and Translation (Oxford University Press 2016).
Alexis Sanderson “History through Textual Criticism” in François Grimal (ed) Sources and Time: A colloquium (French Institute of Pondicherry, 2001).
Alexis Sanderson “The Śaiva Age” in Shingoo Einoo (ed) Genesis and development of Tantrism (University of Tokyo, 2009).
Christopher Wallis Tantra Illuminated: The Philosophy, History, and Practice of a Timeless Tradition (Mattamayūra Press. 2013).

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