Kapalika
कापालिक kāpālikaThe “skull-bearer”: a medieval Śaiva ascetic of the Mahāvrata, carrying a skull-bowl in imitation of Shiva’s penance; the documented antecedent of the modern Aghorīs.
Where this term appears
- The Aghorīs Lineages
…hind him stands a documented medieval history, and it begins with the Kāpālikas , the "skull-bearers." The Kāpālikas and their parallel order, the Kālāmukhas , the "black-faced," were Śaiva ascetic groups most …
- The Pāñcarātra Saṃhitās Lineages
The Kūrma Purāṇa lumps the Pāñcarātra with the Kāpālika and Bhairava cults as scriptures made "for the delusion of mankind," and calls its followers non-Vedic.
- The Types of Tantra Lineages
… the Pāñcārthika Pāśupata, derived from Lakulīśa, the Lākula, and the Kāpālika or Somasiddhānta, added as a third only after 1988, in which paper the word Kāpālika had been reserved for a Mantramārgic group ins…
- What is Tantra? Lineages
Its exemplary figures are the Kapalikas , the "skull-bearers," Shaiva ascetics who imitated the terrible god Bhairava: they haunted the shmashana , the cremation ground, carried a skull as a begging bowl, and u…
- The Four Streams of Hinduism Essentials
And there are the older ascetic orders behind them all, the Pashupatas , the Kapalikas , and the Nath yogis of Gorakhnath who shaped hatha yoga.
- Who is Bhairava? Deities
The scholar David Lorenzen, in his 1972 study The Kapalikas and Kalamukhas , traced the Kāpālikas , the "skull-men," a Shaiva order who took Bhairava's penance as their model, carrying a skull-bowl and a skull-…
- Samaya: the fetter and who was spared it Lineages
…haiva scriptures particularly compelling, and attributes those to the Kapalikas.
- The Golagi matha: the monastery that survives only in its own praise Lineages
Swamy classifies the Mattamayura, Amardaka and Golagi schools as dualistic Shaivism, that is Shaiva Siddhanta, and treats the Kapalika, Bhairava, Pasupata and Kaula streams as rivals.