– David N. Lorenzen
Some of the most valuable material about the Kāpālikas appears in the legendary biographies of the great Shankaracharya (A.D. 788-820). The most important, and probably the earliest, of extant biographies are the Shankara Vijaya, attributed to his disciple Anandagiri, and the Shankara Digvijaya, attributed to the famous Vijayanagar sage Mādhavācārya alias Vidyāraṇya. Dhanapati Suri’s ḍiṇḍima commentary on the latter work adds some extra detail but is mainly extracted from ānandagiri’s account. A significantly different version of one of the legends is contained in a Kānpaṭhā work, the Gorakṣa siddhānta saṁgraha. None of these three sources can lay much claim to historical accuracy. They are collections of stories handed down, embellished, and invented during several centuries between the great theologian’s death and their final redaction. Most modern authorities agree that the author of the Shankara Vijaya was not Shankara’s disciple ānandagiri but an obscure author of about the fifteenth century. Many scholars also believe that the author of the Shankara Digvijaya was not Mādhavācārya, the Vijayanagar Rājaguru, but a later author who wrote under his name. Sarkar (A History of Dasanami Sanyasis), G S Ghurye (Indian Sadhus), etc. accept Mādhava -Vidyāraṇya’s authorship and place the Shankara Vijaya of ānandagiri in the eleventh to twelfth centuries. The ḍiṇḍima commentary must be later than both these works. The Gorakṣa siddhānta saṁgraha (GSS) dates from sometime in the later medieval period.
There are three separate legends. The first of these, the story of Shankara’s encounter with a treacherous Kāpālika named Ugra Bhairava, appears in Mādhava’s work and in the GSS; the second, Shankara’s battle with the militant Krakacha of Karṇāṭaka, appears in the works of Mādhava and ānandagiri; and the third, Shankara’s debate with the casteless hedonist Unmatta Bhairava, appears in ānandagiri and is repeated in similar wording by Dhanapati Suri.
Shankara and Ugra Bhairava
Shankara’s meeting with Ugra Bhairava seems to have occurred somewhere along the Kr̥ṣṇā river, perhaps at a spot near ṣrīśaila (ṣrīparvata). Mādhavācārya begins his tale:
“Once a certain Kāpālika there, who hid his own wickedness by adopting the disguise of a sādhu like Paulastya (Rāvaṇa) and had not yet completed what he had set to accomplish, saw the muni (Shankara) whose magical power was limitless”.
Thinking that his own ambition was as good as achieved, Ugra Bhairava approached Shankara and greeted him with fulsome praise. The Kāpālika then explained what he had set out to accomplish:
“I will endeavor to please Kapālin (Shiva) and thereby achieve my own object.
I gratified Ugra (Shiva) with arduous and severe penances for a full one hundred years in order to go to Kailāsa with this body to sport with īṣa.
Pleased, Girīṣa said to me: ‘You will attain the goal which men desire if, for the sake of pleasing me, you sacrifice in the sacrificial fire either the head of an omniscient sage or the head of a king’.
Having said this, Maheśa hid himself. From that time on I have wandered about, my hope fixed on obtaining that, but I have not yet found a (willing) king nor a (willing) omniscient sage.”
In order to persuade Shankara to accede to his implicit demand, Ugra Bhairava then extolled the great benefits of self-sacrifice:
“By good fortune I have now seen you, an omniscient sage, traveling about for the welfare of the world. Soon the rest (of my object) will be accomplished, for the bondage of men has its termination incorrect vision.
The skull of an anointed king of a lord of munis is the prerequisite for my success (siddhi). The former, however, I cannot even conceive of obtaining. Therefore, it is up to you.
In offering your head you will acquire wondrous fame in the world, and I will acquire siddhi. After meditating on the transience of the body, O Best of Men, you should do what is propitious.
I cannot dare to ask for that. Who will (willingly) abandon his own body, the fulfiller of desires? (But) you are indifferent (to worldly desires) and care nothing for the body. (You have) assumed your own body (only) for the benefit of others”.
Here he even attempts to turn Shankara’s own Vedāntic doctrines against him.
Ugra Bhairava then compared himself, with spacious modesty, to those men who are ignorant of the pain of others and think only of their own ends. Such men, he said, are like Indra, who stole the bones from the sage Dadhyanc to use as an axe to slay the ninety-nine Vr̥tras. Men like Dadhyanca, who abandon their transient bodies for the sake of others, acquire an immutable body of fame (yaśaḥ-śarīra). Their priceless virtues delight all mankind. After several more verses in the same vein, Ugra Bhairava finally made his request: “You should bestow (your) head (on me)”. Shankara was apparently moved by the Kāpālika’s plea and agreed to grant him his desire. ‘What true sage’, said Shankara, ‘who knows the human body here in this world (to be subject to) decay, would not fulfill the request of a supplicant?” Shankara had to abide by the principles of his theology. Since the ātman is the only ultimate reality, it matters little what becomes of the body. It is merely the creation of māyā. Realizing that his pupils would never allow such idealistic foolhardiness, however, Shankara advised Ugra Bhairava to visit him in secret. Shankara retired to an isolated spot hidden from his pupils.
In full Kāpālika regalia, Ugra Bhairava again approached to collect his reward:
(Holding) a trident, with three horizontal lines (drawn across his forehead), looking about (cautiously), wearing ornaments made of garlands of bones, with eyes inflamed and rolling about through intoxication, Ugra Bhairava went to the dwelling place of the teacher.
Shankara then sitting in a proper yogic position (siddhāsana), ‘forgot the entire world of creation in samādhi’. When Ugra Bhairava saw him seated in this position, his fears were dispelled and he prepared to strike with his trident. No sooner did he come near Shankara, however, than that sage’s disciple Padmapāda knew it:
Then, remembering the supreme power of the Man-lion (Viṣṇu’s Nr̥simha incarnation) held by Prahlāda, which removes the affliction of those who call it to mind, that Padmapāda, well-versed in mantras (mantra-siddha), became the Man-lion (incarnate) and saw the ill-intentioned endeavor of Ugra Bhairava.
Running up with great speed, he tore open with his claws the breast of the Kāpālika who was striking with his trident.
This ends Mādhava’s version of the encounter.
The GSS belongs to the Kānphaṭā or GorakhnAth (Gorakṣanātha) tradition, sometimes called the religion of the Nātha siddhas. Many of the tantric practices of its adherents resemble those attributed to the Kāpālikas. According to the GSS, its philosophy is ‘above dualism and monism (dvaitādvaita vivarjita)’. In these circumstances, it is not surprising that the GSS version of the legend of Shankara and Ugra Bhairava reflects less favorably on the Advaita sage. Here the god Bhairava himself assumed the form of Ugra Bhairava in order to challenge Shankara’s religious beliefs and test their sincerity. The disguised god appeared to him and said: ‘Sir, you are a sannyāsin and hence impartial to friend and foe alike and indifferent to the (opposite) senses of word pairs such as bliss and sorrow’. He requested the sage’s head as an offering to Bhairava. By this means, he would fulfill his vow (pratijñā). Shankara carefully considered the alternatives:
If it is not done (as the Kāpālika demands), then there will be the ruin of monism (Advaita-hāni) since there will not be impartiality towards friend and foe. If it is done, defeat is (equally certain). Even in this twofold thought, there is defeat (of pure non-duality).
These unhappy alternatives completely baffled the great sage, and he could not say anything. Mādhava posed more or less the same problem but avoided carrying matters to their final philosophical absurdity by the commonsense intervention of Padmapāda. The GSS retains this episode but refuses to let go of that. After he was struck by Padmapāda – Nr̥simha, Ugra Bhairava manifested his true identity as Bhairava. He then addressed Shankara in a voice as deep as thunder:
“Sir, (this is) a defeat for Advaita. What has become of that which you said about friend and foe? As a wrestler causes his opponent to fall by falling himself, (I have) accomplished the ruin of your doctrine through the loss of my own body. Moreover, now you yourself will also meet your doom. Stand up! You should fight!”
The Kāpālika then created a magical power of Yoga (yogamāyā) and employed it to cut off the heads of Shankara and his four disciples. Afterward, however, they were revived. ‘Then’, says the GSS, ‘true detachment arose’.
Although it is clear that the author of the GSS wishes to condemn Shankara’s insistence on akriyā, he never really proposes any practical alternative. Whether Shankara stood up and fought or not, his doom was equally certain. In a sense, this paradoxical dilemma is well-suited to a doctrine that says it is ‘beyond Dvaita and Advaita’s. Similar statements are found in other tantric texts. In the Kulārṇava Tantra, for example, Shiva declares: ‘Some accept Dvaita and others accept Advaita, (but) they do not know my essence which is beyond Dvaita and Advaita’. Neither most Tantras nor related Kānphaṭa literature contains much systematic philosophical speculation. For the most part, they are content to loosely synthesize the arguments and hypotheses of the orthodox systems. To a certain extent phrases such as ‘beyond Dvaita and Advaita’ merely proclaim the religious superiority of tantric doctrine. They do not necessarily imply any rational philosophical position. In a sense, they are rejections of all rational metaphysics. It is not knowledge, but ritual, devotion, and psycho-physical discipline which these schools emphasize. In this context, there is no need for the GSS to propose an alternative course of action. The author needs only to point out the inadequacy of Shankara’s position. The command to stand up and fight may be interpreted simply as a demand to symbolically acknowledge the self-defeating nature of the doctrine of akriyā. Shankara’s beheading is therefore the occasion for the appearance of true detachment.
GSS not only wishes to criticize Shankara but also to claim him for the Kānphaṭa side. The section which immediately follows this passage describes Shankara’s spiritual advancement through Viṣṇu, Shiva and Shakti worship to his final enlightenment by the Mahāsiddhas and his adoption of the path of the Nāthas (nātha mārga).
The attitude of the GSS towards the Kāpālika towards Ugra Bhairava is ambiguous. Bhairava assumes this form to challenge Shankara but Ugra Bhairava himself is neither praised nor condemned. Since both the Kāpālika and Kānphaṭa schools belong to similar tantric traditions, however, one might expect that the Kānphaṭa attitude would be broadly favorable. That this is the case is made clear by some subsequent passages in the GSS. In the first of these the author asserts the superiority of the doctrine of the Nātha Siddhas but allows the Kāpālika faith a qualified validity:
Indeed, some people believe that these (Siddhas) hold the Kāpālika doctrine on account of the mention of the devotion of the Kāpālika, but that is not actually the case. Our doctrine is beyond all worldly ties (Avadhūta). Nonetheless, the Kāpālika doctrine was also revealed by Nātha (Shiva).
The author then quotes from the ṣābara tantra a list of twelve sages to whom the Kāpālika doctrine was revealed: ādinātha, Anādi, Kāla, Atikāla, Karāla, Vikarāla, Mahākāla, Kālabhairava, Baṭuka, Bhūtanātha, Vīranātha, and ṣrīkaṇṭha. These twelve had twelve disciples: Nāgārjuna, Jaḍabharata, Hariścandra, Satyanātha, Bhīmanātha, Gorakṣa, Charpaṭa, Avadya, Vairāgya, Kanthādhārin, Jalandhara and Malayārjuna. These pupils were the original promoters of the Kāpālika path.
Several of these names recur in traditional Kānphaṭa lists of the eighty-four Siddhas and nine nāthas, most notably the name of Gorakhnāth (Gorakṣa) himself. On the basis of this statement and the common features in Kāpālika and Kānpatha worship, some modern authorities believe that the latter school was a later ‘transformation’ of the older Kāpālika order. As a historical document, however, the late GSS is virtually useless, and the similarities between the two schools – such as meat-eating, drinking wine, attainment of magical powers through Yoga, dwelling in cremation grounds, and the like – are common to the whole of the tantric tradition. We feel, therefore, that such historical speculations are of little value.
The author of the GSS next poses the question: ‘For what reason was the Kāpālika path revealed?’ The answer is found in a myth. Once the twenty-four avatāras of Viṣṇu became intoxicated with pride (also wine). As mortal creatures amuse themselves, so Varāha, Narasimha, and the other avatāras began splitting the earth, frightening wild animals, oppressing towns and villages, and doing other mischiefs. Kr̥ṣṇa was filled with adulterous emotions, and Paraśurāma destroyed a great number of kṣatriyas to punish the sin of only one of them. Kr̥ṣṇa is strangely singled out for his adulterous emotions (vyabhicāri bhāva), a charge more frequently aimed at the Tantrikas themselves. Nātha became extremely angered by these wicked actions and assumed the form of twenty-four Kāpālikas. In the ensuing battle, the Kāpālikas cut off the heads of the avatāras and carried the skulls about in their hands. This was how the school of Kāpālikas (Skull-men) arose. The loss of their heads caused the avatāras to lose their pride and Nātha replaced the skulls and returned them to life.
The Ugra Bhairava legend, whatever its historical value, and this myth both reflect the very real hostility between the tantric sects and the Brahminic orthodoxy. The fact that the author of the GSS chooses the Kāpālikas instead of the Siddhas to represent the Kānpaṭha side of the dispute suggests not only that the two sects were on friendly terms, but also that the stories were already in popular circulation. Mādhavācārya’s Vedāntic version of the Ugra Bhairava legend is certainly older than the GSS’s Kānphaṭa account.
The battle between the Viṣṇu’s avatāras and the twenty-four Kāpālikas may reflect an extension of the conflict between the Jains and Kāpālikas. In many parts of India, the Vaiṣṇavas replaced the Jains in popularity and influence and in the process absorbed many Jain beliefs and practices, including hostility to the excesses of Tantric Shaivism.
Shankara and Krakacha
This legend also has two versions – one by Mādhava and the other by ānandagiri. Although the broad outlines of the two accounts are identical, several important differences indicate that they may have originated from separate traditions. ānandagiri sets his story in Ujjain while Mādhava sets his somewhere in Karṇāṭaka. Mādhava calls Shankara’s Kāpālika antagonist Krakacha and ānandagiri calls him Bodholbaṇa Nityānanda. The latter Kāpālika also has a disciple named Baṭukanātha. Anandagiri begins his account with a lengthy debate between Shankara and Bodholbaṇa which is omitted by Mādhava, and Mādhava includes some semi-historical and martial detail omitted by ānandagiri.
According to this version of Mādhava, Shankara had begun a March to Setu (Rameshvaram) in South India accompanied by his best pupils and a king named Sudhanvan. At Rameshvaram, they met a number of non-Vedic ṣāktas whom Shankara defeated in a great debate. This was the start of a conquest of the four quarters (Digvijaya). The sage honored Lord Rāmanātha and converted the Cholas, Pāṇḍyas, and Drāviḍas. Next, he proceeded north to Kāñcī, constructed a beautiful temple there, and suppressed the Tāntrikas by spreading Goddess worship in a form authorized by the scriptures (śruti-sammata). Proceeding towards the northeast he passed through Andhra, paid homage to the Lord of Venkata hills (Veṅkaṭācaleśa), and eventually arrived at the capital of the Vidarbha kingdom.
There the king of the Kratha-Kaishikas (Vidarbhas) approached him with reverence and offered his worship. Shankara then caused his disciples to suppress the heretical views of the followers of the Bhairava Tantra.
These ‘followers of the Bhairava Tantra’ are not identified, but they might be Kāpālikas since many authors of the yore depict Kāpālikas as worshipers of Shiva in his Bhairava form. Krakacha himself is subsequently said to ‘prattle the essence of the Bhairavāgamas’.
Then the king of Vidarbha bowed to Shankara, who desired to proceed to the Karṇāṭa region, and said: That region is unsuitable for your visit since it is filled with many crowds of Kapālins. I say this since they cannot endure your fame and have a secret hatred towards the shrutis. They revel in the misfortunes of the world and bear hostility against honored men’.
When Krakacha, the foremost of the Kapālin teachers, learned of Shankara’s arrival, he came to meet him.
Smeared with ashes from a cremation ground, carrying a skull-bowl in his hand, wielding a trident, and accompanied by many whose appearance matched his own, that conceited and proud Kāpālika spoke thus:
‘Although properly ashes are worn by you, for what reason do you hold that impure clay bowl and renounce this pure and fitting skull? Why is not Kapālin worshiped by you? If He does not receive Bhairava worship with liquor and blood-smeared lotuses which are human heads, how can he attain joy when his body is embraced by the lotus-eyed umā, who is his equal?’
After Krakacha ‘had prattled thus the essence of the Bhairavāgamas’, King Sudhanvan ordered his officials to send him away. The enraged Kāpālika soon returned with his followers to seel retribution for this insult. As they approached, he shouted: “I am not Krakacha (a saw) if I do not cut off your heads’.
He sent out countless crowds (kulas) of angered Kapālins whose cries were as terrifying as the clouds of the deluge. They attacked with weapons held aloft.
The Brāhmaṇas were terrified but the faithful Sudhanvan countered the Kāpālika advance and drove them back. Krakacha then shifted the battle to another part of the field and again threw the Brāhmaṇas into confusion. In desperation, they sought Shankara’s protection. The king of ascetics then reduced those Kāpālikas to ashes in an instant through the fire which arose from his humkāra. Sudhanvan rejoined Shankara and seeing his army routed, Krakacha again approached Shankara and said:
‘O Devotee of Evil Doctrines, behold my power! Now you will reap the fruit of this action.’ Closing his eyes, Krakacha placed a skull in the palm of his hand and briefly meditated. After that master of Bhairavāgamas had thus meditated, the skull was immediately filled with liquor (surā). After drinking half of it, he held the remaining half and thought of Bhairava.
This god instantly appeared in the form of Mahākapālin. He wore a garland of human skulls and his hair was a flaming mass of matted locks (jaṭā). He held a trident and uttered loud and dreadful laughter. Krakacha commanded him:
“O God, you should destroy the enemy of your devotee with your fierce gaze’.
Instead, the enraged Mahākapālin declared, ‘How dare you offend against my own self (i.e. Shankara),’ and cut off the head of Krakacha.
This ends Mādhava’s account. Dhanapati Suri’s ḍiṇḍima commentary, following ānandagiri almost verbatim, continues the story to the final conversion of the Kāpālika’s disciples. In this version, the god Samhāra Bhairava does not immediately kill Bodholbaṇa Nityānanda. When the god appeared Shankara paid him homage and set forth his own philosophy in order to justify his action against the Kāpālika and his disciples. Bhairava was pleased and explained that he had become manifest because he was bound by the mantra (mantra-baddha) used by Bodholbaṇa, not because of any merit of that ascetic. Bhairava then vanished and the followers of the Kāpālika doctrine, who were of twelve sorts, Baṭukas, etc., bowed down to Shankara. The sage was filled with compassion and instructed Padmapāda and his other disciples to reform the repentant heretics.
Unfortunately, neither the commentator nor ānandagiri identifies the ‘twelve sorts of Kāpālikas beginning with the Baṭukas’. Baṭuka, however, appears as one of the twelve original Kāpālika sages in the ṣābara Tantra list quoted in the GSS. Evidently, these twelve sages were considered to be the founders of twelve divisions of the Kāpālika sect. The presence of this tradition in such unrelated sources suggests that there may have been some factual justification for it.
The personalities of the two Kāpālikas, Krakacha, and Ugra Bhairava, are quite distinct – while the latter used guile the former chose brute force – but in appearance Krakacha, like Ugra Bhairava, is a typical Kāpālika. He smears his body with the ashes of the dead; he carries a trident and a skull bowl; he worships Bhairava and Mahākapālin; his text is the Bhairavāgama; he honors this god with liquor and offerings of human heads, and he imagines salvation as the indescribable bliss of an endless embrace in the arms of Umā.
Both the location and the large size of Krakacha’s Kāpālika battalions merit additional comment. In MAdhavAchArya’s version, the Vidarbha king warned Shankara against going to the Karṇāṭa region because it was populated by ‘many crowds of Kapālin s’. Dhanapati Suri glosses this location as the town of Ujjayanī but this cannot be correct. The Karṇāṭa region approximately corresponds with the modern Mysore state and never included the famous Mālava city, Ujjain. Evidently, there were two separate traditions. Reasons exist for both these places to be associated with the Kāpālikas.
It is tempting to identify the Ujjayinī of ānandagiri with the town by that name in Bellary District in Karnataka, where one of the five chief maṭhas of the Vīraśaivas is located. The maṭha at this place was supposedly founded by Marulasiddha, one of the five great ācāryas of Vīraśaiva tradition. Unfortunately, ānandagiri’s statement that Shankara reached Ujjayinī ‘traveling along the northern road’ makes this identification less likely.
The Karṇāṭaka region, which seems to have been the home of Ugra Bhairava as well as Krakacha, was dominated by the Kālāmukhas during the eleventh to thirteen centuries. Since no lesser authorities than Yāmunācārya and Rāmānuja associate, and perhaps confuse, the two sects, there is at least a prima facie case that Mādhava did the same. Krakacha’s dress, behavior, and religious beliefs are definitely those of a Kāpalika, not a Kālāmukha, but in one important respect, he and his followers have more affinity with the latter sect.
In Mādhava’s story, Krakacha is said to command vast legions of Kāpālikas. Nearly every story featuring Kāpālikas describes them as solitary peripatetic ascetics, occasionally joined by a single female. This absence of organization may help to explain the relative lack of Kāpālika epigraphy. The Kālāmukhas, on the other hand, usually established themselves in large monastic communities. It seems quite likely that Mādhava was modeling his Kāpālika legions on the brotherhoods of the Kālāmukha maṭhas. As in the accounts of Yāmunācārya and Rāmānuja, the confusion between the two sects may have been intentional. This would help explain the absence of any mention of Kālāmukhas in Mādhava’s work.
Although in each chapter of ānandagiri’s Shankara Vijaya, Shankara debates a different rival sect, the Kālāmukhas do not appear in his work either. Since the Mālava Ujjain was never a center of the Kālāmukhas, however, it is less likely that ānandagiri was confusing the two sects. There is a tenuous connection between this town and the Kāpālikas in the fact that Bhavabhūti wrote his Mālatī-Mādhava for the festival of Lord Kālapriya, who is usually identified with Mahākāla of Ujjain. Today Ujjain is an important center of the Kānphaṭa yogins. If Gorakhnath’s commonly accepted date, A.D. 1200, is correct, this town may well have been a Kānphaṭa center by the time of ānandagiri. Since they also organize themselves into monastic communities, Anandagiri might have confused them to be Kāpālikas.
Whether Krakacha’s ascetic legions are modeled on the organization of the Kālāmukhas, Kānphaṭas, or even Kāpālikas themselves, their militancy is quite striking.