Colonial

Transformation
and Asian Religions
in Modern History
Colonial
Transformation
and Asian Religions
in Modern History
Edited by

David W. Kim
Colonial Transformation and Asian Religions in Modern History

Edited by David W. Kim

This book first published 2018

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Copyright © 2018 by David W. Kim and contributors

All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without
the prior permission of the copyright owner.

ISBN (10): 1-5275-0559-6

ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-0559-9
 CONTENTS

List of Tables and Figures ......................................................................... vii

Acknowledgements .................................................................................... ix

Preface ........................................................................................................ xi

Introduction ................................................................................................. 1

Part One: South Asia

Chapter One ............................................................................................... 10

From Colony to Post-Colony: Animal Baiting and Religious Festivals
in South Punjab, Pakistan
Muhammad Amjad Kavesh

Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 30

Nīlācala: The Mountain of Desire, Death and Rebirth
Paolo E. Rosati

Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 54

(In)complete Rebellion: M. G. Ranade and the Challenge of Reinventing
Hinduism
Alok Oak

Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 74

The Mahābhārata as Celebrity Political Text?
Gregory Millett Bailey

Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 95

Karma Yoga: An Ideal of the Performance of Action in the Bhagavad Gita
Taritwat Chaihemwong
vi Contents

Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 110

Two Women Reformers: The Brahmani of Kaushika-Dharmavyadha-
Legend in the Mahabharata and Rani Rashmoni of Calcutta;
A Comparative Study
Supriya Banik Pal

Part Two: Southeast Asia

Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 140

Buddhist Art of 9th-Century Champa: Đồng Dương
Ann R. Proctor

Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 163

Religious Pentecostal Evangelisation of Politics Has Begun: Evidence
from the Grassroots Practitioners
Joel A. Tejedo

Part Three: East Asia

Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 186

A Socio-Religious Volunteerism: The Australian NGO Movement
during the Korean War (1950-1953)
David W. Kim

Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 210

The Meaning of “New Religion” in Japan: The Presence of Tenrikyo
and the Meiji Era
Midori Horiuchi

Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 230

Re-Interpreting Hansai: Burnt Offerings as the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb
Gwyn McClelland

Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 261

Coming Down the Mountain: Transformations of Contemplative
Culture in Eastern Tibet
Elizabeth McDougal

Contributors ............................................................................................. 290

Index ........................................................................................................ 293

 CHAPTER TWO

NĪLĀCALA:
THE MOUNTAIN OF DESIRE,
DEATH AND REBIRTH

PAOLO E. ROSATI
SAPIENZA UNIVERSITY, ROME

Nīlācala or “the Blue Mountain”––also called Kāmagiri, or “the Mountain

of Desire”1 is in the Brahmaputra Valley of Assam between Khasi and
Garo’s Hills, a land infamous for black magic,2 and human sacrifices.3
Since early times, its local inhabitants have been considered to be strongly
linked with supernatural powers; in fact they are described in Epic,
Puranic and Tantric sources as kāmarūpiṇī (shape-shifters),4 and today all
Assamese women are still considered to be the human counterpart of the
divine yoginīs.5 The mountain is revered as the most sacred abode of the
goddess in South Asia, because on its top is placed the temple of Kāmākhyā,

1
The hill is also called Nīlakuṭa, Nīlāparvata, Nīlagiri, and Kāmaparvata; see
Kālikāpurāṇa (=KP), 62.1, 75; 72.2; 76.75; 79.84, in B. Shastri, ed. and trans., The
Kālikāpurāṇa: Text, Introduction and Translation in English (2nd ed., Delhi: Nag
Publisher, 2008).
2
Kaulajñāna-nirṇaya (=KJN), 4.14-15; 14.75-76, in P. C. Bagchi, ed., M. Megee
trans., Kaulajñāna-nirṇaya of the School of Matsyendranatha, (2nd ed., Varanasi:
Prachya Prakashan, 1986).
3
M. Eliade, Yoga: Immortality and Freedom (2nd ed., Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1971), 305.
4
See KJN, 7-10; cf. Vāyupurāṇa (=VP), 1.39.31, in G. P. Bhatt, ed., and G. V.
Tagare, trans., Vāyupurāṇa. Translated and Annotated, vol. 1 (Delhi/Paris: Motilal
Banarsidass/UNESCO, 1987-1988); and KP, 38.38.
5
KJN, 22.9-11, in Bagchi, ed., Megee, trans. (1986); N. N. Bhattacharyya, History
of the Śākta Religion (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1974), 104-105; see
particularly V. Dehejia, Yoginī Cult and Temple: A Tantric Tradition (New Delhi:
National Museum, 1986).
 Nīlācala: The Mountain of Desire, Death and Rebirth 31

where inside its garbhagṛha (inner chamber) is preserved the yoni of Satī.
Thus, the site is recognised by the Sanskrit sources as well as the Tantric
pilgrims to be the greatest śākta pīṭha, as it is stated in the Kulacūḍāmaṇi
Tantra: “Of all pīṭhas, the supreme pīṭha is Kāmarūpa. It bears great fruits,
even if the worship is done there only once.” 6 During a period of
fieldwork conducted on Nīlācala in January and February 2016, it is
evident from interviews that many Hindu practitioners came from West
Bengal, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, while a number of worshippers arrived
on the hill-top from Deccan and Southern India. Although not all the
pilgrims were tāntrikas (Tantric worshippers), all of them agreed that the
site was the most sacred of India because of its connection with the yoni of
the goddess.7
H. B. Urban calls the sanctum “the womb of tantra” to underline the
extreme religious relevance of the Kāmākhyā temple within the South
Asian context as well as its central role in the genesis of the Tantric
phenomena.8 Indeed, the inner chamber where the yoni is preserved is
metaphorically reminiscent of the female womb; it is very dark, and there
is a water-stream that covers the yoni-like stone. Every day, a crowd of
pilgrims starts the queue to visit the sanctum well before dawn, and it
takes a few hours to arrive in the inner chamber where the pilgrims are
allowed to worship the yoni only for a few minutes.9 At the temple
complex every year the annual menstrual period of the goddess is
celebrated through the Ambuvācī melā, in June or July (āṣāḍha)––the
main śākta festival of Assam. Nīlācala is revered as the womb from which
all the śākta pīṭha network spreads out, a religious network founded either
on the goddess’s sacrifice or on the Śiva-Śakti union. Furthermore the
Kālikāpurāṇa––the earliest text devoted to the worship of the goddess
Kāmākhyā compiled between the tenth and eleventh centuries10––through
the myths of its cosmogenesis, highlights the link of the hill with the

6
Kulacūḍāmaṇi Tantra (=KCT), 5.36-40, in L. M. Finn, ed. and trans.,
Kaulacūḍāmaṇi Tantram and Vāmakeśvara Tantra, with the Commentary
(Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1986); see also Devībhāgavatapurāṇa (=DBP), 38.15-
18, in R. T. Pandey, ed., Devībhāgavatapurāṇa (Kashi: Pandit Jayaratha
Pustakalya, 1956); KJN, 8.20-22; KP, 62.82-83.
7
Author’s Field-work Notes, Assam: January-February 2016; see also B. Shastri,
ed., Yoginī Tantra (Delhi: Bharatiya Vidya Prakashan, 1982), xxx.
8
H. B. Urban, “The Womb of Tantra: Goddesses, Tribals, and Kings in Assam,”
The Journal of Hindu Studies 4 (2011): 232.
9
Author’s Field-work Notes, Assam: January-February 2016.
10
Shastri, ed. and trans., The Kālikāpurāṇa: Text, Introduction and Translation in
English, xxvi-xxxiv.
32 Chapter Two

sexual symbolism and the death imagery. After the death of Satī, an
episode well-fitted within the scenario of the great sacrifice officiated by
Dakṣa (dakṣayajña),11 the gods cut her corpse into pieces that then fell
down on to the earth (India), originating the śākta pīṭhas network. Among
them, her yoni fell on Nīlācala, a fact that explains why it is revered as the
greatest pīṭha by Puranic and Tantric literature.12
Her husband Śiva, still attached to the bodily pleasures and desperate
over the loss of his wife, reached the goddess in every pīṭha, through his
aniconic phallic shape (liṅga). When the hill––the body of Śiva––was
touched by the yoni its colour turned into blue and it came to be known as
Nīlācala. Moreover, the hill also came to be described as Kāmagiri,
because here the divine couple reside in an endless yoni-liṅga union.13
Hence, the death of the goddess also rendered the power of Śiva accessible
to human beings.14 How did Satī die? She burned her body through her
tapas (or jumping inside the sacrificial fire-pyre). Thus, her self-
incineration provoked a chain of events that explains her connection with
Nīlācala as the yoni pīṭha––the core from which the śākta religious

11
Here is a short list of the textual references on the dakṣayajña mythology:
Mahābhārata (=Mbh), 12.274.36-59, in S. K. Belvalkar, ed., The Santiparvan. The
Twelth Book of the Mahābhārata, vol. 2 (Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research
Institute, 1954); Matsyapurāṇa (=MP), 13.1-64, in J. D. Akhtar, ed.,
Matsyapurāṇa (Delhi: Oriental Publishers, 1972); Liṅgapurāṇa (=LP), 1.99-100,
in J. L. Shastri, ed., Liṅgapurāṇa. Translated by a Board of Scholars, vol. 1 of 2,
Ancient Indian Tradition & Mythology (Delhi/Patna/Varanasi: Motilal
Banarsidass, 1973); Kūrmapurāṇa (=KūP), 1.14, J. L. Shastri, ed., The Kūrma-
Purāṇa, vol. 1 of 2 (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1981-1982); Brahmapurāṇa
(=BaP), 34, in J. L. Shastri, ed., Brahmapurāṇa. Translated and Annotated by a
Board of Scholars, vol. 1 of 4, Ancient Indian Tradition & Mythology (Delhi:
Motilal Banarsidass, 1978); Śivapurāṇa (=ŚP), 2.2.26-37, in J. L. Shastri, ed., The
Śiva Purāṇa, vol. 1 of 4, Ancient Indian Tradition & Mythology (Delhi: Motilal
Banarsidass, 1969-1970); VP, 1.30; Vāmanapurāṇa (=VmP), 2.1-4, in A. S. Gupta,
ed. and trans., Vāmanapurāṇa. With English Translation (Varanasi: All-India
Kashiraj Trust, 1968); Varāhapurāṇa (=VrP), 3.3, in S. Vankitasubramonia Iyer,
ed. and trans., Varāhapurāṇa. Translated and Annotated (Delhi/Paris: Motilal
Banarsidass/UNESCO, 1985); VP, 1.30.
12
KP, 18.39-47; particularly see D. C. Sircar, The Śākta Pīṭhas (2nd ed., Delhi:
Motilal Banarsidass, 1998); see also note no. 7.
13
KP, 18.53, 62.72b-76a; see also Mahābhāgavatapurāṇa (=MBP), 11.113-116,
in S. P. Kumar, ed., Mahābhāgavata Purāṇa: An Ancient Treatise on Śakti Cult
(Delhi: Eastern Book Linkers, 1983).
14
KP, 18.46; DBP, 7.30.44-50. See particularly David Kinsley, Hindu Goddesses.
Vision of the Divine Feminine in the Hindu Religious Traditions (2nd ed., Delhi:
Motilal Banarsidass, 2005), 38-40.
 Nīlācala: The Mountain of Desire, Death and Rebirth 33

network spread out throughout the Indian sub-continent. In this way her
ashes are metaphorically the origin of the śākta pīṭhas. The theogonic role
of ashes appears also in another myth of cosmogenesis of Kāmarūpa: the
madana-bhasma or “the incineration of Kāma”. In fact the god of desire
was incinerated by the fiery glance of Śiva, because he struck Śiva with
his divine arrows, provoking his sexual desire. Then he regained his
corporeal form––after the wedding of Śiva with Parvatī––in the North-
East, so that the region took the name of Kāmarūpa or the “land of desire”
(literally “the shape of desire”).15 Therefore, according to purāṇas and
tantras produced in the North-East, all the śākta pīṭhas in general, Nīlācala
in particular, emerge as either sexual pleasure alcoves or cemeterial
grounds; in fact they are the earthly tomb of the goddess. Both concepts
fuse together with the tribal as well as the pre-Aryan world.

Naraka, the Tribal Assam and the Cult of Kāmākhyā

Why have only the North-eastern purāṇas narrated that the yoni of the
goddess landed on Kāmarūpa?16 Why has Nīlācala been considered either
the core of the śākta pīṭhas network,17 or the religious centre from which
the Tantric phenomena spread out? 18 During the age of the Gupta
Empire––the fourth to sixth centuries––the North-East was at the margins
of Indian history. It was a land inhabited by tribal people as documented
by the Epic as well as the Puranic sources.19 According to the most
famous Assamese accounts––the Kālikāpurāṇa as well as the later Yoginī
Tantra––the hill tribesmen of Assam practised the kirāta-dharma (the
religion of Kirātas), and they were already devoted to Kāmākhyā.20 The

15
KP, 1.24-62, 2.1-59, 3.1-49; MP, 3.30-44, 4.11-21; ŚP, 2.3.51.1-15.
16
KP, 18.41-47; see also DBP, 7.38.16-18; MBP, 11.1-2; although the extreme
sacrifice of Satī is described in Epic and Puranic sources, it is only in the purāṇas
compiled in North-Eastern India that the śākta pīṭhas lists are included.
17
H. B. Urban, The Power of Tantra. Religion, Sexuality and the Politics of South
Asian Studies (New York: I. B. Tauris, 2010), 31-32.
18
Eliade, Yoga: Immortality and Freedom, 305; see also K. P. Goswami,
Kāmākhyā Temple: Past and Present (New Delhi: A.P.H., 1998), 49. T. E.
Donaldson did not agree with this position; on the contrary he considered Purī in
Orissa to be the place where the śākta cults, as well as the concept of pīṭhas
originated; cf. T. E. Donaldson, Tantra and Śākta Art of Orissa, vol. 1 (Delhi: D.
K. Printworld, 2002), 7-11, 19-20, 88.
19
KP, 38.100-103a.
20
Yoginī Tantra (=YogT), 1.9.13-6, in B. Shastri, ed., Yoginī Tantra (Delhi:
Bharatiya Vidya Prakashan, 1982); see also KP, 38.100-103a. See also R. M.
34 Chapter Two

Puranic name Kāmākhyā could be a corruption of a local goddess’s name;

indeed the Khasi’s main goddess is called Ka-me-kha, while Kam-Ki or
Kham-mai-kha is the Bodo-Khacarie goddess’ name. Although from an
etymological point of view the studies have not arrived at any certain
conclusion,21 it emerges from a sociological perspective that a regional
process brought an alien deity into the Hindu pantheon, together with her
religious and socio-cultural substratum.
B. K. Kakati in 1948 hypothesised that Austroasiatic speaker groups
imported an aniconic-yoni cult to ancient Assam.22 Although there is no
written evidence, it seems possible to speculate on the existence of an
ancient tribal Mother Goddess worshipped as an aniconic deity. Indeed,
after a glance at the regional tribal religions and arts, it is evident from the
data that they are linked with the aniconic concept of the divine,23 so it is
more than possible that ancient Assamese hill tribesmen practised the
aniconic cult of the goddess Kāmākhyā before the Aryan cultural
penetration, mirrored by the mytho-historical invasion headed by King
Naraka––a cult continued by the Hindu ruler.
According to the myth, Naraka was the son of Viṣṇu in the form of a
vahāra (boar), and Pṛthvī (the Earth goddess),24 and he was conceived
during her menstrual period (considered the most impure period by the
Hindu orthodoxy).25 He was not only described as the ruler who aryanised
ancient Assam, but he was also considered as the founder of the Bhauma

Davidson, Indian Esoteric Buddhism: A Social History of the Tantric Movement

(New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 209.
21
F. Brighenti, pers. comm. [e-mail correspondence from November 2014 to
March 2015]; see also Urban, The Power of Tantra. Religion, Sexuality and the
Politics of South Asian Studies, 46.
22
B. K. Kakati, The Mother Goddess Kāmākhyā, or, Studies in the Fusion of
Aryan and Primitive Beliefs of Assam (Guwahati: Punya Prasad Duara for the
Assam Publishing Corporation, 1948), 43-44.
23
See C. Mallebrein, “Local and Tribal Deities: Assimilation and Transformation,” in
V. Dehejia, ed., Devi: The Great Goddess. Female Divinity in South Asian Art
(Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institute, 1999), 137-156.
24
KP, 38.163.
25
See H. B. Urban, “Matrix of Power: Tantra, Kingship and Sacrifice in the
Worship of Mother Goddess Kāmākhyā,” South Asia: Journal of South Asian
Studies 31, 3 (2008): 500-534; Urban, The Power of Tantra. Religion, Sexuality
and the Politics of South Asian Studies, 55-6; cf. Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad,
6.4.13.20-22 (=BU), in E. Sénart, ed. and trans., Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad (Paris:
Les Belles Lettres, 1934).
 Nīlācala: The Mountain of Desire, Death and Rebirth 35

dynasty of Kāmarūpa.26 The storytelling of Naraka was already narrated

in the Mahābhārata, where he was considered as the son of Pṛthvī,27
although his filial relationship with Viṣṇu has been cleared through the
Kālikāpurāṇa. The Dubi Copper Plate of Bhāskaravarman (600-625 CE)
corroborates the story of his miraculous birth; in fact, it reports that
“Naraka was born from the Earth for the stability of the people.” 28
Furthermore, his divine birth justified the name of his dynasty, the
Bhauma, as recorded in the rock-cut inscription of Nagājarī-Kanikargāon–
–Bhauma means “the son of the Earth.” 29 Moreover, the genealogies
reported in the rock-cut inscriptions indicated that Naraka was considered
to be the ancestor by all the regional dynasties that ruled over Assam
during the Medieval Age.
Was the royal families’ high consideration of Naraka due to his
divine origins? Alternatively, did it derive from his connection with
Tantric elements? According to the Kālikāpurāṇa Naraka was found by
his stepfather Janaka––the king of Mithila––in his sacrificial ground, lying
inside a human skull.30 This is a clear reference to the Tantric ritual;
however, he was introduced to the Vedas soon after he was adopted.31 In
the Puranic storytelling, Naraka emerged to be both either the ruler who
was able to overcome the tribal hostility and the one able to unite under his
flag both the Hindu and tribal cultures, as it is pointed out by the following
verses of the Kālikāpurāṇa:

The (Kirāta) king having been killed, some Kirātas fled while others
surrendered to Naraka. Naraka killed those who fought him, protected
those who took refuge in him, and then he went to his father and submitted

26
M. M. Sharma, Inscriptions of Ancient Assam (Guwahati: Dept. Publications
Guwahati University, 1978), 10-34.
27
The Udyogaparvan and Droṇaparvan (the fifth and seventh books of Mbh)
confirm that Naraka was born from Bhumī, but they do not explain his relationship
with Viṣṇu. See Mbh, 5.48.80-86 in K. Garbutt, ed. and trans., Mahabharata V:
Preparations For War (Udyogaparvan), vol. 1 (New York: New York University
Press/JJC Foundation, 2008), 455-457; Mbh, 7.29.30-39, in P. Vaughan, ed. and
trans., Mahābhārata VII: Drona (Droṇaparvan), vol. 1 (New York: New York
University Press/JJC Foundation, 2006/2009), 251-253.
28
Lines 2-5, translated by Sharma, Inscriptions of Ancient Assam, 20; cf. Mbh,
2.9.10-15, in P. Wilmot, ed. and trans., Mahābhārata II: The Great Hall
(Sabhāparvan) (New York: New York University Press/JJC Foundation, 2006),
95.
29
See Sharma, Inscriptions of Ancient Assam, 303-305.
30
KP, 37. 35-60.
31
KP, 38.1-4, and see particularly 38.157.
36 Chapter Two

after paying his obeisance. Naraka said: ‘O Father! I killed Gaṭaka, the
king of the Kirātas along with many other generals of his army, command
me what else I should do.’ Bhagavān said: ‘Annihilate the Kirātas up to the
(abode) of the goddess Dikkaravāsinī, drive away the fleeing ones and
protect those who submit.’32

Thus, it emerges from his myth that he killed the tribal chief Ghaṭakāsura,
a king of the Kirāta tribes. Then some of the defeated tribes fled to Eastern
Kāmarūpa,33 while others submitted to the new Hindu Lord. The North-
eastern account explains how the new ruler was able to manage a political
alliance with some hill tribes, although there was a socio-cultural gap
between the conquerors and the conquered:

You shall not worship any other god or goddess except the great goddess
Kāmākhyā, mother of the world, who is none else than Mahāmāyā,
Ambikā. Acting otherwise, you shall die therefore, O Naraka! Adhere to
the promise with great care.34

Hence, the text describes the acceptance of a local goddess within the
Brahmanic pantheon, together with her tribal characters––mainly her
blood-thirsty behaviour and the associated sexual rites. The political role
of the religion is evident; the Puranic regional literature became an
instrument to transform and incorporate the tribal beliefs and practices
within the Brahmanic religious folds. Indeed, the Kālikāpurāṇa underlines
the fact that brāhmaṇas as well as other dvijas (twice-born castes) had
settled down in ancient Assam:

32
KP, 38.110-113.
33
An ancient diaspora is mirrored by the presence of another regional śākta pīṭha
near the eastern border of modern-day Assam, the Dikkaravāsinī pīṭha in the Paya
area (Lohit district of Arunachal Pradesh) around 30 km from Sadiya’s area
(Assam). The temple was known either as Tamreśvarī temple or “the Copper
temple” and it was registered as a protected monument in 1910 by the Government
of India. Unfortunately, today the temple has been “buried under earth during the
great earthquake of the 1950s and the area was submerged by the Haju River due
to the changing of its course” (D. K. Chuley [Superintendent Archaeologist of
Archaeological Survey of India––Guwahati circle], pers. comm. [e-mail
correspondence 22 February 2016]; on 21 February 2016 I also personally
examined the area).
34
KP, 38.149-150.
 Nīlācala: The Mountain of Desire, Death and Rebirth 37

By evicting Kirāta people from the region, many people belonging to the
twice-born castes, who are well versed in the Vedas, and others also of the
fold of the sanātana caste-system settled here.35

The text through its verses describes the first step in the Aryan cultural
penetration in Assam. Hence the religion has been used as a political tool
to obtain the loyalty of local cultures which was a necessity for the Hindu
rulers in a region dominated by tribal traditions. From the textual analysis,
the paurāṇika(s) (Puranic compilers) of Kālikāpurāṇa placed the roots of
the regional goddess within the tribal religiosity; even Naraka is strongly
linked to both cultures, an aspect that could justify the early Hindu (or
Hinduised) royal dynasties of the North-East considering him as a
common ancestor. 36 His inclusion in the dynastic genealogies as the
earliest common ancestor underlines the political need for the North-
eastern kings to find common ground with the tribesmen.
Nevertheless, Naraka is still today an enigmatic character of the
ancient history of Assam. He was probably not a single ruler; on the
contrary his name designed a dynastic royal title assumed by a family,
which grounded its roots in the sexual intercourse between Viṣṇu and
Pṛthvī. 37 Perhaps the compilers of the Epic and Puranic sources
misunderstood or consciously mixed the rulers of the earlier Hindu (or
Hinduised) royal family of Assam, creating the mytho-historical king. It
also explains the ritual changes during his mytho-historical rule, so that the
ritual praxis shifted from the vaiṣṇava type to the śaiva type.38 The myth
of Naraka from a historical-religious perspective does underline the origin
of the aniconic cult practised on Nīlācala, while from a sociological
perspective it explains how the absorption process of a tribal goddess
within the Hindu world is not only influenced by Universalisation, and
Brahmanisation/Sanskritisation processes, 39 but is also influenced by
Parochialisation and Tribalisation ones.40

35
KP, 38.128.
36
P. C. Choudhury, The History of Civilization of the People of Assam up to the
12th Century AD (2nd ed., Guwahati: Department of Historical and Antiquarian
Studies in Assam, 1966), 119-277.
37
D. R. Mankad, Purāṇic Chronology (Anand, Gujarat: Gangajala Prakashan,
1951), 225-231.
38
S. P. Kumar, Śakti Cult in Ancient India (Varanasi: Barathiya Publishing House,
1974), 133-5; see also KP, 60.1-18.
39
Regarding the Sanskritisation concept, see Mysore Narasimhachar Srinivas,
Religion and Society among the Coorgs of South India (London: Asia Publishing
House, 1952), 30. Cf. L. Carroll, “«Sanskritisation» «Westernisation» and «Social
38 Chapter Two

The Yoni Cult: Its Cross-cultural Implications

On the one hand the acceptance of the local goddess Kāmākhyā within the
Brahmanic pantheon and on the other hand the inclusion of tribal praxis to
worship her, were both necessary elements to obtain the loyalty of non-
Aryan people––a necessity for the new Hindu kings in a region dominated
by tribal traditions. Who, then, was the ancient Kāmākhyā? This Sanskrit
name was a corruption of tribal goddesses’ names, but it could be argued
that her character was built through tribal deities’ traits fused with the
Hindu goddess’s construction of the Devīmāhātmya.41 On Nīlācala the
absorption process resulted in the identification of a tribal goddess with
the sacred yoni of Satī––the most sacred part of the female body. 42
Therefore, the mythology of Satī was manipulated to highlight the cross-
cultural influences on Nīlācala as a locus sacer (place of worship).
As narrated in the Kālikāpurāṇa, the brāhmaṇas arrived in Assam
from Western regions (mainly from Bengal).43 They needed to legitimate
the yoni-tribal symbol into the Brahmanic sphere to create a meeting-point
between Hindu kings and local people. The death of Satī connected to the
rise of the śākta pīṭhas in India is a North-eastern transformation of
ancient literature, influenced by archetypes (mythologems) already present
in the Vedas.44 The North-eastern texts legitimated the cult of Kāmākhyā
as well as her aniconic worship, through the transformation of the ancient
mythologies grounded in the Vedic myths of the exclusion of Rudra-Śiva

Mobility»: A Reappraisal of the Relevance of the Anthropological Concept of the

Social Historian of Modern India,” Journal of Anthropological Research 33, 4
(1977): 355-357.
40
M. Merriott “Little Communities in an Indigenous Civilization,” in Village
India: Studies in the Little Community, M. Marriott, ed. (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1955), 197-198; see also P. Dold, “The Mahavidyas at Kamarupa:
Dynamics of Transformation in Hinduism,” Religious Studies and Theology 23
(2004): 89-122.
41
See Mārkaṇḍeyapurāṇa (=MkP), 81-93, in F. E. Pergitar, ed. and trans., The
Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa (2nd ed., Calcutta: The Asiatic Society, 1904); this group of
chapters is commonly known as Devīmahātmiya, the glorification of the goddess.
42
KP, 62.75-76; DBP, 7.38.16-18; MBP, 12.30-31; KCT, 5.36-40; YogT, 1.15.51;
Yoni Tantra (=YT), 4.2, in J. A. Schoterman, ed., The Yonitantra. Critically edited
with an introduction (Delhi: Manhohar, 1980).
43
See footnote no. 35.
44
Regarding the relationship between archetypes (i.e. mythologems) and
mythology, see Kerényi, Károly, “Introduzione. Origine e fondazione della
mitologia,” in Carl Gustav Jung and Károly Kerényi, Prolegomeni allo studio
scientifico della mitologia, trans. A. Brelich (Torino: Einaudi, 1941), 14-17.
 Nīlācala: The Mountain of Desire, Death and Rebirth 39

from the sharing of the sacrifice’s parts and in the incest of Prajāpati with
his daughter Uṣas (Aurora).45
The Vedic exclusion of Rudra-Śiva was confirmed in the Puranic
accounts, which justified it through the narrative of the bad relationship
between Śiva and his father-in-law Dakṣa.46 It was due to the fact that
Śiva was a skull-bearer,47 since he beheaded one of the Brahmā’s heads,
and thus he blemished himself through brahmanicide.48 Moreover, Śiva
was used to dwelling and engaging in sexual intercourse with his wife
inside the cremation grounds, 49 further behaviour considered from a
mythological standpoint as inappropriate by Dakṣa, while on a historical-
religious level, the Hindu orthodoxy considered these behaviours to be
highly impure and polluting. The lack of respect for Śiva displayed by
Dakṣa was considered an offence by his daughter Satī, and it was the
instigating event that provoked her decision to sacrifice herself inside the
sacrificial ground organised by him. 50 Her extreme act caused the
destruction of the sacrificial ground by Śiva who was “overwhelmed by
pain and angry.”51 After the destruction of their sacrificial ground, the
presiding deities accepted the superiority of Śiva.52
Analysing the Puranic narratives, it is evident from the data that at
this stage of the myth the North-eastern purāṇas diverged from the other
Northern and Southern accounts; indeed it emerges, as a regional
(Assamese) literary variation of the Brahmanic scenario, that the
dismemberment of the lifeless body of Satī caused the rise of the śākta

45
W. Doniger, The Origins of Evil in Hindu Mythology (2nd ed., Berkeley/Los
Angeles/London: University of California Press, 1980), 274-290; S. Kramrisch, La
presenza di Śiva, trans. V. Vergiani (Milano: Adelphi, 1999), 17-22.
46
KP, 43.77-78a.
47
KP, 16.29-30, 17.12.
48
KP, 61.5; particularly see ŚP, 2.2.29.20-32; BaP, 4.2.4-18; VmP, 2.18.
49
Skandapurāṇa (=SkP), 5.2.8.1ff, in G. V. Tagare, ed. and trans., The
Skandapurāṇa. Translated and Annotated, vol. 1 (New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass,
1992).
50
The details regarding the death of Satī depend on the Epic or Puranic source
being taken into consideration.
51
S. Wendt, “Ugrā Satī––Saumyā Satī. Two Versions of one Myth in the
Kālikāpurāṇa,” in A. Michaels, C. Vogelsanger and A. Wilke, eds., Wild
Goddesses in India and Nepal: Proceedings of an International Symposium, Bern
and Zurich, November 1994 (Bern/Berlin/Frankfurt/New York/Paris/Vienna: Lang,
1996), 179-187.
52
KP, 17.21-55; 61.6-11; DBP, 7.30.44-50; MBP, 11.32-118. The details of the
destruction of the sacrificial ground vary from a purāṇa to another one.
40 Chapter Two

pīṭhas’ network in the Indian sub-continent. 53 The number of these

religious centres varies from four to 108 or more, according to the
different traditions taken into consideration; each of them has preserved a
different limb of the goddess’s body––an ancient heritage of pre-Aryan
traditions.54 The splitting of the corpse of the goddess is a clear recollection
of the primordial puruṣa’s sacrifice,55 which originated the caste system,
the plinth of Indian society; however, the dismemberment of the lifeless
body of the goddess was not only a creative act, but also a destructive
one.56
By falling down on Nīlācala the yoni of Satī translated into
mythological terms the incorporation of a tribal symbol within the
Brahmanic context developed in Assam.57 Furthermore, the mountain was
also permeated by the power of Śiva, as evidenced by the blue colour of
the hill, due to the contact of the Śiva-liṅga with the yoni.58 Therefore, the
praxis on Nīlācala is dominated by the ritualisation of violence and sexual
intercourse; the first is the public part of the ritual, which recalls the
violent sacrifice of Satī, while the second is the most secret religious
practice, and the esoteric counterpart of the public one. The sexual rituals
are secretly practised on Nīlācala, often in the crematory grounds during
the night with the ritual use of alcoholic substances.59
According to the Kālikāpurāṇa animal and human sacrifice dominated
the ritual scenario in the early Medieval Age; the almost contemporary
Kaulajñānanirṇay,60 although it is the first Tantric text to systematise the

53
KP, 18.41-7, and 64.43-9; DBP, 7.38.16-8; MBP, 11.1-2.
54
See S. M. Bhardwaj, Hindu Places of Pilgrimage in India (A Study in Cultural
Geography) (Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: University of California Press, 1973);
see also D. L. Eck, India: A Sacred Geography (New York: Harmony Books,
2012), 257-299.
55
Ṛg Veda (=ṚV), 10.90, in R. T. H. Griffith, ed. and trans., The Hymns of the Ṛg
Veda, vol. 1 of 2 (2nd ed., Varanasi: Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series, 1963).
56
See W. C. Beane, Myth, Cult, and Symbols in Śākta Hinduism. A Study of the
Indian Mother Goddess (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1977), 205; cf. H. B. Urban, “The Path
of Power: Impurity, Kingship and Sacrifice in Assamese Tantra,” American
Academy of Religion 69, 4 (2001): 788.
57
See J.-E. Shin, “Yoni, Yoginīs and Mahāvidyās: Feminine Divinities from Early
Medieval Kāmarūpa to Medieval Koch Behar,” Studies in History 26, 1 (2010): 1-
29.
58
KP, 18.41-47; MBP, 11.60-116.
59
Interview with a Tantric Guru from Varanasi (Kamakhya Village, February 12,
2016); interview with a Tantric priest of Kamakhya Hill (February 15, 2016).
60
Urban, “Matrix of Power: Tantra, Kingship and Sacrifice in the Worship of
Mother Goddess Kāmākhyā,” 508; cf. D. G. White, The Kiss of the Yoginī.
 Nīlācala: The Mountain of Desire, Death and Rebirth 41

secret cult of the sixty-four yoginīs,61 has few references to the sexual
rituals. Even the Kulacūḍāmaṇi Tantra, another eleventh-century text,62
does not go into detail about the ritualisation of sexual intercourse. On the
other hand, with the later Tantric literary production, the sexual rites
became the most important ritual practice in Assam. Emblematic of this
literary change is the Yoni Tantra, where the yoni pūjā is prescribed as the
most important rite, which reaches its apex with the consumption of the
yonitattva (sexual discharges) 63 ––a fluid necessary to obtain siddhis
(accomplishments).64 The absorption and acceptance of sexual symbolism
within Hindu orthodox ideology and religious praxis on the one hand
evidence the political role assumed by religion, while on the other hand it
outlines the first step of the śākta-tantra religiosity grounded in the tribal
substratum within the Brahmanic world.65

The Incineration of Desire: Sexual and Death Symbolism

The relevance of Kāmarūpa as a sacred spot within a broader list of pīṭhas
dates back to the ninth century with the composition of the Hevjra
Tantra; 66 this Vajrayana source does not link the pīṭhas with the
goddess’s symbolism, but connects them with the bodhisattva’s states. Its
connection with the female power (śakti) appears with the śākta-tantra

“Tantric Sex” in Its South Asian Contexts (2nd ed., Chicago: Chicago University
Press, 2006), 22-23 and 278.
61
Particularly see Bhattacharyya, History of the Śākta Religion, 104-105.
62
Finn, ed. and trans., Kulacūḍāmaṇi Tantram and Vāmakeśvara Tantra, with the
Commentary, 21.
63
Schoterman, ed., The Yonitantra. Critically edited with an introduction (Delhi:
Manhohar, 1980), 18-21. See also Hevajra Tantra (=HT), 2.11.10b-12b, 14b-15b,
in D. L. Snellgrove, ed., Hevajra Tantra: A Critical Study, 2 vols. (London:
Oxford University Press, 1959).
64
The word siddhis is translated as “supernatural powers” by K. R. Van Kooij,
Worship of the Goddess According to the Kālikāpurāṇa (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1972),
24; it has been translated as “supernatural enjoyments,” the goals of “the male
tantric practitioner” (yogin) by D. G. White, Sinister Yogis (Chicago/London: The
University of Chicago Press, 2009), 11.
65
Cf. G. Flood, The Tantric Body. The Secret Tradition of Hindu Religion (New
York: I. B. Tauris, 2006), 14.
66
HT, 1.7. In this context, Kāmarūpa has to be considered as Nīlācala. It is not
intended to describe the entire Assamese region. For the date of the text see also P.
Szántó, “Selected Chapters from Catuṣpīṭatantra. 1/2: Introductory Study with the
Annotated Translation” (Unpublished DPhil Thesis: University of Oxford, 2012),
14.
42 Chapter Two

literature produced in the North-East during the tenth to eleventh

centuries; this is particularly the case with the Kālikāpurāṇa and the
Devībhāgavatapurāṇa, where the death of Satī is associated to the rise of
the pīṭhas. On the other hand, the almost contemporary Tantric texts––the
Kulacūḍāmaṇi Tantra and the Kulajñānirṇaya––do not convey the
goddess’s myth, though they consider the pīṭhas as places of feminine
power, particularly the Kāmarūpa, which is revered as the homeland of the
cult of the sixty-four yoginīs.67
Therefore, the Kāmarūpa and the other pīṭhas were linked to the
cemeterial ground and its related death imagery well before the Puranic
transformation of the dakṣayajña mythology and the introduction of the
śākta pīṭhas’ ideology within the Brahmanic religion. The pīṭhas that in
Puranic literature became the earthly tomb of the goddess preserve the pre-
Aryan dead world’s roots. Furthermore, the Assamese mythologies not
only confirm the link between the yoni pīṭha on Nīlācala and the death
imagery, but also intertwine both aspects with the sexual symbolism,
through the myth of the incineration of Kāma, the god of desire. The
connection between death and desire is evident in the following passage of
the Kālikāpurāṇa: “[Inside the cave of Manobhava]68 on that stone there
is the very lovely yoni in the form of stone […] and lying along the
Bhasma-śaila (the hill of ashes of Kāma)”.69 Thus the hill which preserves
the yoni of the goddess was constructed from the ashes of the god of
desire, perhaps in memory of the fact that the site was an ancient Kirāta
burial ground.70 The myth of the incineration of Kāma is another Puranic
transformation and adaptation of some Vedic archetypes. In particular, the
Kālikāpurāṇa’s version stresses the sexual and death imageries linked to
the Nīlācala and to the yoni of Satī. As pointed out by Wendy Doniger, the
role of Kāma changed from Vedic to Puranic narratives. Kāma was the
one able to provoke the desire in Brahmā/Prajāpati, originating the incest
of the god with his daughter, an act that caused his curse and incineration
by Śiva.71

67
KJN, 8.13-45.
68
Manobhava is the Assamese name of Kāma.
69
KP, 62.89, trans. by Shastri, ed. and trans., The Kālikāpurāṇa: Text,
Introduction and Translation in English, 459; see also YT, 11.35.
70
According to H. B. Urban the site was an ancient Garo and Khasi burial ground;
see Urban, “The Womb of Tantra: Goddesses, Tribals, and Kings in Assam,” 234.
71
See particularly W. Doniger, Asceticism and Eroticism in the Mythology of Śiva
(London: Oxford University Press, 1973), 141-71. See MP, 3.30-44; 4.10-20; SkP,
5.2.13.2-20.
 Nīlācala: The Mountain of Desire, Death and Rebirth 43

In other Puranic sources, it is narrated that Kāma was the only one
able to instigate the love between Śiva and the goddess Parvatī,72 even
though Śiva was practising asceticism when he was struck by the magic
arrows of Kāma,73 and for this reason he punished this act by burning the
god of desire.74 Nevertheless, Śiva was unable to interrupt the chain of
events triggered by “desire”. According to the purāṇas, Rati, the wife of
Kāma, brought her husband’s ashes to Śiva, and, thanks to his divine
glance, Kāma emerged from his ashes, regaining his shape.75 Yet, the
Assamese Kālikāpurāṇa modifies some details, thus in this context
Brahmā cast his curse against Śiva and not against the god of desire,
because it is a “śākta purāṇa”.76 However, the main manipulation of the
mythology is mirrored by Kāma’s rebirth in the North-East, a detail
omitted in the other Puranic accounts, where the god of desire is
considered anaṅga (shapeless).77 Thence, the Kālikāpurāṇa narrates that
the god is reborn in Kāmarūpa (a form of desire), and it intertwines his
mythology with the yoni preserved in the temple of Kāmākhyā on
Nīlācala, which has been made by the ashes of Kāma.78 Furthermore,
before the Aryan invasion it appears that the hill had a cave which was
presided over by genius loci called Manobhava (Kāma) and his companion
(Śakti). Over the centuries and due to the cross-cultural negotiation that
took place in Assam, the sacred place was absorbed by and adapted into
the Brahmanic tradition. Indeed from the Kālikāpurāṇa’s verses Kāma
emerges as the presiding deity of Nīlācala:

One should worship Manobhavaguhā and also her friend (śakti), and
thereafter the guardians of the quarter of the sky, and also the nine planets.
In order to get one’s desire fulfilled one should worship them according to
their respective shapes.79

72
MP, 154.207; ŚP, 2.3.17.20.
73
KP, 18.3-6; Mbh, 12.183.10.3-5; MP, 154.208-220; ŚP, 2.3.17.1-2, 28-43.
74
KP, 42.148-173a, 43.108; see also MP, 154.235-250; Brahmavaivartapurāṇa
(=BRP), 62.41-59, in R. Chaturvedi, ed., S. L. Nagar, trans., Brahmavaivartapurāṇa.
Text with English Translation (Delhi: Parimal Publications, 2012).
75
ŚP, 2.3.51.1-15; see also KP, 79.51-52; MP, 154.259-274.
76
T. E. Donaldson, Kamadeva’s Pleasure Garden: Orissa (Delhi: B. R.
Publishing Corporation, 1987), 27; see also KP, 19.63-67.
77
KP, 79.51-52.
78
See note no. 69; cf. KP, 62.1-2.
79
KP, 63.8-9a.
44 Chapter Two

The presence of an ancient cave is corroborated by a verse of the

Devīpurāṇa––another śākta text produced in the North-East, perhaps
around the ninth century.80 Moreover, the texts link the myth of the yoni’s
cave with the mythology of Naraka: “The son of Bhauma worshipped
Devī in the cave of Kāmākhyā [hill]”.81 Indeed, Naraka is the son of the
Earth Goddess (Bhumī) and the verse is a clear reference to him. The Yoni
Tantra––a fifteenth to sixteenth century text compiled in Koch Bihar
(actually an eastern district of West Bengal)82––confirms the presence of
an ancient dark cave where the yoni is worshipped.83 Its description is
corroborated by the appearance of today’s garbhagṛha of the temple of
Kāmākhyā. Although it is difficult to determine if the temple incorporated
the original cave when it was constructed, the yoni stone is covered by the
water of a stream that flows underground, reminiscent of the yonigarta
(cave of the yoni) described in the Yoni Tantra. From a metaphorical
perspective, the chamber reminds one of the mother’s womb; Kāmākhyā is
the South Asian mother par excellence and she resides inside the yoni
stone, 84 and during the Ambuvācī festival the water of the stream
becomes red as the menstrual blood of the goddess.

The Enhancement of the Yoni Symbolism

The Yoginī Tantra, a text compiled in Assam during the sixteenth to
seventeenth centuries,85 preserves a completely different story regarding
the Nīlācala’s cosmogenesis as yoni maṇḍala. The mountain is described

80
R. C. Hazra, Studies in Upapurāṇas. Volume 2: Śākta and Non-sectarian
Upapurāṇas (Calcutta: Sanskrit College, 1963), 36-37.
81
Devīpurāṇa (=DP), 39.6cd, in S. P. Kumar, ed., Devī Purāṇam (New Delhi: Sri
Lal Bahadur Shastri Kendriya Sanskrit Vidyapeeth, 1976); trans. by Shin, “Yoni,
Yoginīs and Mahāvidyās: Feminine Divinities from Early Medieval Kāmarūpa to
Medieval Koch Behar,” 8.
82
Hazra (1963), 232; see also A. M. Sacco, Il culto della yoni (Yonitantra)
(Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso, 2014), 13.
83
YT, 4.2d; see also trans. by Sacco (2014), 136; YogT, 1.13.1-23; Shoterman, ed.,
Hevajra Tantra: A Critical Study, 4-6.
84
Kāmākhyā Tantra, 1.4, cit. in Sacco, Il culto della yoni (Yonitantra), 48.
85
A. C. Barthakuria, The Tantric Religion of India: An Insight Into Assam’s
Tantra Literature (Calcutta: Punthi Pustak, 2009), 5, 33-34; T. Goudriaan, and S.
Gupta, Hindu Tantric and Śākta Literature, Vol. 2 of A History of Indian
Literature, 10 vols., J. Gonda, ed. (Wiesbaden: O. Harrassowitz, 1981), 85; Shastri,
ed., Yoginī Tantra, xxxvii-xl; Urban, The Power of Tantra. Religion, Sexuality and
the Politics of South Asian Studies, 199; White, “The Kiss of the Yoginī. “Tantric
Sex” in Its South Asian Contexts,” 103.
 Nīlācala: The Mountain of Desire, Death and Rebirth 45

as the abode of the feminine powers under the shape of the goddess’s yoni.
In this Tantric context Śiva describes the goddess Kāmākhyā to be no
other than Kālī, and she is the main actor within the cosmogonic
scenario.86 According to the narration, after Brahmā created the universe,
he arrogated to himself the supreme cosmogonic power. His arrogance
was considered an offence by the goddess, and to punish it she created the
demon Keśin who began to torment the three worlds. Brahmā and Viṣṇu
were unable to destroy the demon, so they worshipped the goddess
Kāmākhyā in order to obtain the salvation of the whole cosmos. Thus the
goddess was pleased to show her superiority, burnt Keśin in a place which
has been identified as Keśīpura and ordered Brahmā to build a hill with the
demon’s ashes. Then she asked the god to catch a star from the sky and to
put it on the hill-top. It is the association with the star that confers upon the
mountain the status of yoni maṇḍala.87
According to B. K. Kakati the Tantric story seems to have no contact
points with the Puranic one, thus he argued in 1948 in the first scientific
study on Kāmākhyā, that the Puranic and Tantric mythologies grounded
their roots in two different matrilineal traditions.88 Notwithstanding, the
Indian scholar did not take into consideration the likelihood that both texts
were also influenced by oral traditions which influenced both sources.
Indeed, the Kālikāpurāṇa narrates more than one myth of genesis of
Kāmākhyā; one of these explains that Brahmā made a star in Kāmarūpa89–
–an act that originated the name of Prāgjyotiṣapura (the ancient capital of
Kāmarūpa), the “city of eastern astrology.”90 In this way the Kālikāpurāṇa as
well as the Yoginī Tantra associated the firmament with the sexual
symbolism of the yoni. This link star––yoni still survives today in folk
tradition, and indeed during the interviews conducted in the vicinity of the
temple of Kāmākhyā, most of the pilgrims believed that the yoni stone
preserved in the garbhagṛha was a meteorite that fell down on the earth.91

86
YogT, 1.15.1-2.
87
See YogT, 1.15; N. N. Bhattacharyya, Religious Culture of North-eastern India
(New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1995), 87.
88
Kakati, The Mother Goddess Kāmākhyā, or, Studies in the Fusion of Aryan and
Primitive Beliefs of Assam, 37.
89
KP, 38.123.
90
Cf. Choudhury, The History of Civilization of the People of Assam up to the 12th
Century AD, 434; E. A. Gait, A History of Assam, (2nd ed., Calcutta: Thackar,
Spink & Co., 1926), 15.
91
Series of interviews with pilgrims held during a field-work period (Kamakhya
village, January-February 2016).
46 Chapter Two

Moreover, both mythologies considered the hill to be made of ashes

(the first from Kāma’s and the second from Keśin’s), underlining the
importance of the death imagery––a memory of pre-Aryan cultures. The
greatest difference between the two Assamese sources resides in the
symbolism connected to the yoni. If it is mainly considered a sexual
symbol in Puranic literature, and in the Yoginī Tantra (and the Yoni
Tantra) the yoni is raised to a higher level; it is at the origin of the whole
universe. It is not a religious medium to legitimise the absorption process
of tribal traditions within the Brahmanic sphere, but it symbolises the
superiority of female powers over male powers. In this Assamese
philosophical evolution, the goddess is able to create and destroy the
whole universe without any male interference.92

The Ritualisation of Violence and Desire

On the ritual ground Nīlācala has emerged as a religious centre linked with
blood sacrifices as well as sexual rites. Through the myth of Satī’s
sacrifice, both elements that have dominated the ritual praxis at the temple
of Kāmākhyā during the centuries are explained; on the one hand the
violent death of the goddess is mirrored by animal sacrifices; on the other
hand the sexual element is translated by the rebirth of the goddess in every
śākta pīṭha, where she eternally resides united with Śiva.93
As already explained the dismemberment of the corpse of Satī recalls
the primordial sacrifice of the puruṣa, even if the goddess’s death is at the
origin of the destruction of the Brahmanic orthodoxy and represents the
first step of the local religiosity connected with the feminine inside the
Hindu religious cosmos. This new order subverts the old Vedic order as
pointed out by H. B. Urban in his analysis of ritual prescriptions described
in the Kālikāpurāṇa.94 The socio-religious context of Kāmarūpa reflects a
narrow connection between politics and ritual praxis, as evidenced by the
daily public blood sacrifices performed on Nīlācala:

92
According to the Devīmāhātmya, male gods need female powers to destroy the
demon. At the same time, the goddess needs male weapons to fight against and
destroy him; see also T. B. Coburn, ed. and trans., Encountering the Goddess: A
Translation of the Devī Māhātmya and a Study of its Interpretation (Albany: State
University of New York, 1991).
93
Urban, The Power of Tantra. Religion, Sexuality and the Politics of South Asian
Studies, 31-32.
94
See Urban, “The Path of Power: Impurity, Kingship and Sacrifice in Assamese
Tantra,” 797-804.
 Nīlācala: The Mountain of Desire, Death and Rebirth 47

Kings should perform śakrapūjā (worshipping the god Indra) on the

twelfth day of the moon when the sun is in the house of Leo. Particularly
kings should perform the following by spending heavy amounts. These
having been done, the army, the kingdom, and the treasure increase. If
these sacrifices are not performed, famine and mass death occur, and the
six kind dangers (iti) take place. Therefore, particularly these should be
performed.95

The passage explains the necessity of blood sacrifices to preserve the

political order in the state, and it goes on to describe the need for sacrifices
to achieve victory over enemies:

By [performing] these sacrifices, by offering gifts, one becomes a king in

this world… By performing sacrifices … [your enemy] kings are slain, and
you will become king, without doubt.96

The wide and complex relationship between mythological manipulation

and political power appears also in the ritual praxis performed on Nīlācala.
On the one hand the blood became a medium to preserve and develop the
political power and on the other hand the bloodshed is an anti-Vedic
system of ritual, its roots grounded in tribal cultures.97 In particular, the
fact that the goddess is pleased through the offering of the victims’ heads
finds its roots in the head-hunter tribes of the North-eastern hills. Indeed,
they considered the heads of the victims to be the place where the soul of
the human being resides, a very powerful trophy for tribal warriors.98
According to the Kālikāpurāṇa, blood sacrifices are the core of the
worship of the goddess, as underlined by the composition of the “blood
chapter,” infamous for the use of human beings to satisfy the bloodthirsty
goddess Kāmākhyā.99 Two texts compiled in ancient Assam, probably
during the eleventh century, are the Kulacūḍāmaṇi Tantra, and the
Kaulajñānanirṇaya. 100 Although they are Tantric sources like the

95
KP, 85.12-14a.
96
KP, 84.79-81, trans. by Urban, “The Path of Power: Impurity, Kingship and
Sacrifice in Assamese Tantra,” 806.
97
B. Dobia, “Śakti Yātrā. Locating Power, Questioning Desire: A Women’s
Pilgrimage to the Temple of Kāmākhyā,” (Unpublished PhD Thesis: University of
Western Sydney, 2008), 159 and 172.
98
Interview of a Khasi man (Shillong, February 8, 2016).
99
See the KP, 67 (rudhirādhyāya); according to the manuscript taken into
consideration by K. R. Van Kooij, Worship of the Goddess According to the
Kālikāpurāṇa, see Ch. 71.
100
See notes nos. 60 and 62.
48 Chapter Two

Kālikāpurāṇa, they do not stress the sexual ritual prescriptions considered

as the most transgressive and secret ritual practice. On the contrary, the
later Tantric regional sources placed the sexual ritual (such as the Yoni
Tantra) and the yoni symbol (such as the Yoginī and the Yoni Tantra) at
the centre of devotional practice. In fact, it is through the consumption of
the yonitattva that the adept can obtain the siddhis.101 Despite this, blood
sacrifices were still considered a complement to sexual ones, and as a
result, blood and sexual fluids are homologated by Tantric ideology.102

Conclusion
According to mythology as well as ritual praxis, Nīlācala emerged as a
cross-cultural sacred spot, where a negotiation between local people and
Brahmanic traditions took place over the centuries. The mountain, an
archetypal symbol of the male sexual reproductive organ, is permeated by
female energies and can be read as a macro-yantra, composed of two
opposed and superimposed triangles––a symbolic image of the endless
Śiva-Śakti union.103 The religious traditions linked with the hill have been
influenced by matrilineal tribal cultures, which still today dominate the
Assamese hills. The yoni symbol already worshipped by the Kirāta tribes
also became predominant within the Brahmanic tradition of ancient
Assam; it was adapted with the transformation of the dakṣayajña episode,
with the addition of the śākta pīṭhas’ birth from the splitting of the limbs
of Satī.
Nīlācala was an ancient burial ground of the Khasi and Garo tribes,
and still remains linked to the dead-world symbolism with the advent of
Hindu people. Indeed, if the Puranic and Tantric mythologies have
considered the hill to be made from ashes, today the cremation grounds are
considered places where the adepts and pilgrims can purify their bodies.
Therefore, Nīlācala is a macro representation of śakti-śava, underlining the
necessity of female power to awaken the male power; indeed, at
Kāmākhyā it is the goddess’s menstrual blood that permeates the earth
every year during the main festival celebrated at the Nīlācala––the
Ambuvācī Melā. According to the Devībhāgavatapurāṇa, the festival
should be a heritage of tribal traditions and originally it celebrated the
sexual intercourse between Viṣṇu and Bhumī during her menstrual

101
YT, 8.2a and 8.13; cf. KP, 74.136-138.
102
YT, 2.10-15; 3.16-17; 5.24-26; see also Schoterman, ed., Hevajra Tantra: A
Critical Study, 30; cf. KP, 78.140.
103
MBP, 7.9-11; see also KP, 62.73b-78.
 Nīlācala: The Mountain of Desire, Death and Rebirth 49

period.104 Today, it celebrates the menstrual period of Kāmākhyā, when

the goddess gives back the power that she obtained with daily blood
offerings. Thus, through the divine menstrual blood, the earth is vivified
and permeated by śakti power––a clear link with an ancient agricultural
festival, connected to early tribal traditions.

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