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A kapala (Sanskrit for "skull") is a skull cup used as a ritual implement (bowl) in both Buddhism Tantra and Tibetan Buddhism Tantra (Vajrayana). Especially in Tibetan Buddhism, kapalas are often carved or elaborately mounted with precious metals and jewels.
Some of the Hindu deities pictured thus are:
As many Vajrayana empowerments such as 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.Rangdrol, Tsele Natsok. Empowerment and the Path of Liberation. Rangjung Yeshe Publications, 1993, p. 33. 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.Urban, Hugh B. The power of Tantra: Religion, sexuality and the politics of South Asian studies. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2009, p. 56. As wisdom transforms all duhkha into emptiness ( sunyata), 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.Tulku, Ringu. The Ri-Me Philosophy of Jamgon Kongtrul the Great: A Study of the Buddhist Lineages of Tibet. Shambhala Publications, 2007. In this way, 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 charnel ground, an ancient Tibetan burial custom, is distinctly different from the customs of graveyards and cremation, but all three of them have been a part of the home ground of tantra 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 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 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 or cremated but the dead commoners are disposed of in the Charnel ground or in a Sky burial.
The products from 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, the Skull cup and Skull drum used by the tantric practitioners. Kapala or the skull cup is thus a produce from the Charnel ground.
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