kapala
कपाल kapālaA skull, and specifically the skull-bowl carried by Kapalika and Aghori ascetics, used as a begging bowl and drinking cup; the emblem from which the Kapalika 'skull-bearers' take their name.
Where this term appears
- Do Aghoris really eat human flesh? Journal
Eating the flesh of a person already dead is cannibalism in the precise sense, and a small number of Aghori ascetics are reported to have done it. What is not…
- The Aghorīs Lineages
…anasi and the skull falls from his hand at the spot ever after called Kapāla-mocana , "the releasing of the skull." The Kāpālika ascetic imitates this penance.
- Who is Bhairava? Deities
The moment the head falls, the skull, the kapāla , sticks fast to Bhairava's palm and will not come loose.
- Why do Hindus cremate their dead? Essentials
This is the meaning of the striking rite the son performs at the height of the burning, the kapala kriya , the breaking of the skull.
- The Fierce Guardians Treatise
… set at the eight directions, Asitāṅga, Ruru, Caṇḍa, Krodha, Unmatta, Kapāla, Bhīṣaṇa and Saṃhāra, each with his own colour and mount and temperament, from the drunken to the annihilating.