Kapalikas: India

Select Language Afrikaans Albanian Arabic Armenian Azerbaijani Basque Belarusian Bulgarian Bengali Catalan Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) Croatian Czech Danish Dutch English Estonian Filipino Finnish French Galician Georgian German Greek Gujarati Haitian Creole Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Indonesian Irish Italian Japanese Javanese Kannada Khmer Korean Latvian Lithuanian Macedonian Malay Maltese Marathi Nepali Norwegian Persian Polish Portuguese Punjabi Romanian Russian Serbian Slovak Slovenian Spanish Swahili Swedish Tamil Telugu Thai Turkish Ukrainian Urdu Vietnamese Welsh Yiddish

A nearly 1,000-year-old rare stone inscription on Kapalikas, worshippers of Bhairava who is a manifestation of Shiva, discovered in Raichur district of Karnataka; Picture courtesy: The Hindu, June 27, 2016

This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content.

2016

June: Rare stone inscription on Kapalikas found in Raichur district

The Hindu, June 27, 2016

M. AHIRAJ

A nearly 1,000-year-old rare stone inscription on Kapalikas, worshippers of Bhairava who is a manifestation of Shiva, discovered in Raichur district of Karnataka.

“This is the first time that we have an inscription that throws light on the presence of Kapalikas in South India, and in Karnataka in particular,” says Professor Kalaveer Manvachar, head of the Department of Epigraphy., Kannada University in Hampi. THE HINDU “This is the first time that we have an inscription that throws light on the presence of Kapalikas in South India, and in Karnataka in particular,” says Professor Kalaveer Manvachar, head of the Department of Epigraphy., Kannada University in Hampi. Kannada university professor finds rare evidence on presence of the mysterious cult in Karnataka’s Raichur

A nearly 1,000-year-old rare stone inscription on Kapalikas, worshippers of Bhairava, a manifestation of Shiva, has been discovered in Raichur district by a professor of Kannada University, Hampi.

“This is the first time that we have an inscription that throws light on the presence of Kapalikas in South India, and in Karnataka in particular,” said Kalaveer Manvachar, head of the Department of Epigraphy.

Human sacrifice

Though there were references to Kapalikas, he says, in a few inscriptions found in northern India and Karnataka, there was no documentary evidence about their presence.

Kapalikas were a mysterious cult who may have practised human sacrifice and immolation.

The inscription, found above a cave atop a hilly area, two kilometres from Maliyabad village in Raichur district, is undated.

However, based on the nature of the script, which is in ancient Kannada, it is presumed to be from mid 1,000 AD. The inscription also refers to a ‘Kankala Gorava’ who had mastered Soma Siddantha or Kapalika Siddantha.

Lavish life

It states that though Soma Siddanthis led a lavish life, they had a cordial relationship with the rest of society. It also claims that taking a dip in the pond and having a darshan of the deity in the cave would relieve one of sins.

“The finding is significant especially because there is a lack of information about Kapalikas in any literature other than Sanskrit,” Prof. Manvachar says.

“We will now take up a detailed study to throw light on the presence of the Kapalika cult in various places, their culture, traditions, practices, their status in society, how they began to wane after the emergence of Veerashaivism,” he said.