Upper-Status Tantrism: Puja

In part three of Gupta, Hoens, and Goudriaan's book Hindu Tantrism (1979), a section entitled "Modes of Worship and Meditation," Sanjukta Gupta presents the "fully developed" Tantric puja in detail. The "fully developed" Tantric pujas performed in Bhaktapur by priests and their upper-status clients are minor variations on the sequence Gupta describes and interprets.^[4] Descriptions such as Gupta's relieve us to some degree both of our ethnographic responsibility to record Bhaktapur's esoteric practices here and of our conflcting moral responsibility to keep them secret.

Tantric worship has many of the features and sequences of ordinary worship (app. 4), but there are additions, emphases, and occasional reversals, which take their force from their contrasts with those ordinary procedures. Acajus and Brahmans have manuals of instructions, paddhatis , often in the form of palm-leaf manuscripts, which outline the steps of all complex priest-conducted worship sequences used in Bhaktapur. For basic Tantric pujas , such as those held in conjunction with important family or phuki worship to the Tantric lineage deity (see

below), paddhatis include about a dozen major phases. We will follow one of these paddhatis in order to give a rough and superficial paraphrase of an illustrative sequence for our present limited purposes, namely to suggest the Tantric puja's special features.^[5]

Prior to the puja there must be worship and offerings to the local areal Ganesa^[*] and at the proper mandalic^[*]pitha . The participants must purify themselves in preparation for performing puja , as they must for all important worship (chap. 11). The area in which the worship is to be done has also to be purified and marked out in colored powder with diagrams, mandalas^[*] and yantras , and the proper utensils and materials for the worship are assembled.

The first preparatory phase of the worship is done by the principal worshiper, the jajaman , and will be done subsequently by the officiating priest. This is called a nyasa , a Sanskrit word that apparently originally included the meaning of "laying aside" and "renunciation" (Macdonell 1974, 148). The nyasa is a mimesis of yogic practices; the sorts of things that yogis do at length to produce altered states of awareness in conjunction with meditation and a quest for "escape" or mukti are done here as ritual gestures. "Nyasa " in Bhaktapur's usage seems to refer to a less specified range of yogic activities than the term does elsewhere (cf. Gupta, Hoens, and Goudriaan 1979, 143f.). "Nyasa " varies in the details of the procedure depending on the particular kind of puja in which it is used. It includes various gestures, movements, and hand signs, mudras , and meditative acts, which among other purposes, are said to be for the purpose of establishing the worshipers' bodies as the mandalas^[*] , or sacred circles, in which the deity will be realized. It also includes rudimentary breath control procedures (pranayama^[*] ), essentially the alternate closing of the right and left nostril during the inhalation and exhalation of air and the holding of the inhaled breath, with the various phases being accompanied and timed by the mental recitation of a mantra . The nyasa prepares the jajaman for the puja .

On the completion of the nyasa the jajaman dedicates the puja , identifying its central deity and its conventional purpose, for example, as part of a marriage, a death memorial ceremony, or as some focal worship of the Aga(n) lineage deity. After the dedication, the sa(n)kalpa , the jajaman touches and makes an offering to a ritual waterpot and to a container of various ritual items that will be used in the later worship and hands them to the priest.

The priest, in a purification and preparation for his part of the ceremony, washes his mouth and performs a nyasa . He now becomes the

central performer in the remainder of the puja , instructing the jajaman when the latter has to participate. The next step is snana , offerings of various kinds made to the primary and attendant deities of the puja . The attendant deities include an oil lamp (representing Ganesa^[*] , Siva, and Sakti), "the deity dwelling in one's own heart," and the worshipers' quasi-deified gurus . Offerings to these deities include flowers, vegetarian foods, grain, and light, the same offerings that are given at all pujas . In a departure from ordinary pujas , some aspects of the snana sequence precede the worship of Ganesa^[*] within the puja . (He has been worshiped at his neighborhood shrine prior to the puja .) This violation of the usual preliminary worship of Ganesa^[*] as the siddhi -giving god is explained locally as showing that the Tantric goddess (the usual focus of the puja in one or another of her forms) "comes before all." The snana is followed by a puja to the officiating priest's own guru , and at this point he performs nyasa for the second time.

The next step begins a sequence in which there is worship by all assembled to, first, the secondary gods and goddesses and, then, to the main goddess through offerings of flowers, grains, colored powder, and the like. This sequence is concluded with an offering by the worshipers to themselves—to the internal representation of the deity in their body. In the course of these offerings uncooked polished rice, known in ritual contexts as kiga :, which is of central importance as an offering in all pujas (app. 4), is presented in a flicking motion to the deity by the left hand rather than with, as would be done in ordinary pujas , the right hand.

After an interlude in which the client performs japa meditation (see below) comes a sequence called "giving bali ." "Bali "—Sanskrit for a food offering—is used in the context of worship of the dangerous deities to designate an animal sacrifice. At this point there is no actual animal sacrifice; that will come later. What is offered now is samhae (a mixture of fish, meat, ginger, and grams; see section entitled "Symbolic Complexes: Sacrifices") and alcoholic spirits, either fermented rice beer, tho(n) or, more commonly, a clear distilled alcoholic spirit, aila (Kathmandu dialect, aela ).^[6] These offerings are a further reversal and violation of what would be the proper worship of an ordinary deity.

In the next episode oil-lamp wicks and incense are first worshiped to give them power, sakti , and then lit and presented to the gods by the priest as he rings a bell. The flaming wick and burning incense, used in all pujas , have here special meaning in relation to the Tantric use of the imagery of Sakti and Siva (below).

Now the priest, as the jajaman had previously, performs japa meditation. He covers his left hand, in which he holds flowers and kiga :, with a cloth and counts off a number of mantras , usually 108, which he mutters or says silently to himself. He then offers some of the kiga : and flowers he held during the japa meditation to the goddess. Next he puts some on his own head, as an offering to the internal goddess who dwells within him.

A stotra , a hymn of praise, is now read by the priest from one of the Tantric texts. He rings a bell in the course of this, and then worships the goddess with kiga :, throwing it three times, again from his left hand. As in all pujas , this presentation of kiga : accompanied by sound announces one of the major climaxes of the puja . The climax here is a blood sacrifice. This is usually a goat or a drake in upper-status phuki pujas . On some occasions, however (often for economic reasons), an egg or samhae may be substituted at this step. We will return to the procedures and interpretations of animal sacrifice in a later section.

Now the priest and the jajaman (and the other participants) take and eat some of the fish and meat-containing samhae that had previously been offered to the Goddess—which will now also have some of the sacrificial animal's blood splattered on it—and they also take some of the aila , the alcoholic spirits presented to the god and drink it. This is here not only prasada —the taking back of materials that have been offered to the gods and "contaminated" by the gods, and then by eating them putting oneself in a dependent but inferior hierarchical relation to that god (compare "cipa, " chap. 6)—but something more. The eating of the substances represent, in part, an offering to the participant's body and its internally dwelling Goddess, whose Tantric, nonordinary status, and contrast to the moral entity of the "self" (represented by another internal god, Visnu^[*] , who dwells in the "soul" or "heart" [chap. 8]) is repeatedly emphasized.

If the Acaju were performing a Tantric puja for a client at a pitha , he would not himself eat part of the offering, for the pitha is a relatively public setting. In this case some of the offering, samhae , with blood and aila sprinkled on it would be sent to the client households. This mixture would be eaten by members of these upper thars who sponsor pitha pujas , including Brahmans, in the same way as they would eat the blood-spattered prasada in worship within their homes.

Now flowers are taken back from the Goddess as prasada. Daksina^[*] , a gift of money, is given by the jajaman to the Acaju , and finally a farewell ceremony to the gods is performed, thus ending the puja .

This basic puja varies somewhat as it is used in different settings and for different purposes. However, variations are within this general pattern. The offering and sharing of meat and drink make this "left-handed, "or Vamacara Tantrism.^[7] These are two of the five "forbidden substances," the five makaras , whose use as witnesses of the true Tantric adept's supposed ability to be spiritually impervious to practices and substances that would represent dangerous and profound violations of the moral order for an ordinary person characterize the kaula school or tradition within Tantrism, a school that "is without doubt the most important—and certainly the most characteristic—movement within Tantrism" (Gupta, Hoens, and Goudriaan 1979, 45). Bhaktapur's upper-status Tantrism includes (in at least gestural form) these five makaras . The other three forbidden substances or actions (besides meat and alcohol) are fish, "mudra " (probably originally thought of as an aphrodisiac), and sexual intercourse. One of the substances presented to the gods, and tasted during the course of the puja, samhae , contains fish. "Mudra " is identified with some of the grain offered and eaten during the puja .^[8] Although there is speculation among noninitiates (which is characteristically not discouraged by initiates) that there is sexual intercourse during Tantric pujas , this does not normatively exist. The sexual act, like whatever sexual reference mudra may have, is a matter of symbolic reference. In many Tantric pujas that are performed for householders or phuki groups, one or more women who have the proper "half-dekha " or "half-initiation." may take part, as they do in ordinary pujas , but most Tantric pujas have only men participants. In all these pujas , the parts of the prayers and stotras that refer to sexual intercourse are read only in Sanskrit and, in contrast to some other Sanskrit passages, are not translated into Newai. References to the performance of sexual intercourse that occur in some of the puja sequences are represented by hand positions (also called mudras ) and are, it is said, not thought of as directed to a particular woman participant. Some initiate informants believe that sexual pujas were performed in the past, but this was privately by husband arid wife "for the purpose of procuring a son." This is in contrast to the fantasies of noninitiates about sex between nonspouses, including men with women of lower social levels, a fantasy that is closer to some reported actual practices of the kaula school, to which Bhaktapur's symbolic Tantric forms and a considerable portion of Tantric practice are related.^[9] Whether these sexual practices existed among Newar Tantric initiates in the past and

constituted an acceptable aspect of aristocratic Tantric practice seems unknowable now.^[10]

The upper-status Tantric puja represents a struggle and a compromise between proper social behavior as defined in the ordinary civic dharma , the behavior that is necessary for the maintenance of social respectability, ijjat , and, in fact, for the maintenance of social status (for there is, or was, the threat of outcasting for serious violations of the dharma ), and the anti-dharmic , antinomian behavior, which in the context of Tantric ideology and practice, represents the transcendence of that dharma . The transcendence is suggested in the mimesis of Yoga, that attempted escape from the illusion of phenomenal reality. However, it is clearest in the transgressions of what would be fundamental violations of pujas to the moral deities. In Bhaktapur's moral system where reputation, rectitude, and proper behavior is closely monitored in what is for the middle and upper social levels, at least, a rather puritanical system, the violations inherent in the Tantric pujas , even if some of them are, in the case of sexual acts, "symbolic" (or more precisely a much weaker symbolic act than actual Tantric intercourse), are still presumably potentially moving and meaningful to the participants, as the rumors of these acts are to outsiders.

In comparison with Tantric rituals that take place in vegetarian Hindu communities, the eating of fish and meat and the drinking of alcoholic spirits is perhaps less powerful in that Newars do these things in other settings—although the offering of these products of slaughtered animals to gods in the context of the radical inappropriateness of this to the benign moral gods is still a clear antinomial reversal. As "slaughtered animals" suggest, however, the most significant aspect of meat eating is the taking of life, and this is quite overt in the animal sacrifice—which is at the climax of major Tantric pujas —whose blood splatters the prasada and whose flesh will be consumed by household members or the phuki group or some larger group of kin in the ceremonial feasts, bhwae , which follow many major Tantric pujas and are held in connection with auspicious rites of passage and some major calendrical occasions. The sacrifice is ideally done by the jajaman himself on behalf of his family group; he should himself cut the animal's throat. We will return to this central antinomial act, sacrifice, later in this chapter and in connection with urban symbolic enactments centering on Devi in chapter 15. For Bhaktapur, however, the violation of the ordinary dhar-

ma in the worship of the dangerous deities, which most resists becoming routine and trivialized during ritual repetition, is the sacrifice itself.

The participation of Brahmans in some of the most esoteric and "powerful" Tantric puja s is another profound violation of the implications of the city's ordinary religion. Newar Brahmans can eat certain meats, but are never supposed to drink alcohol, which would be a violation of their basic status regulations. In the course of the Tantric puja s in which their participation is essential, the worship of Taleju as the Malla lineage deity and as a central civic deity—which is witnessed by the auxiliary priests of Taleju, and in worship held for and witnessed by high-status clients in the most elaborate Aga(n) House puja s, and in their own phuki Aga(n) God worship, the tasting of alcoholic spirits by the Brahman priest as part of the five makara s is necessary. These spirits are specially prepared and purified, both physically and ritually. They are not called "aila ," "alcoholic spirits," but "Ga(n)ga jala " (app. 4), the purest of the various pure waters used in rituals, and considered in some contexts as amrta^[*] or nectar, and in others as Sakti herself. Furthermore, in some Taleju ceremonies and in their own Aga(n) God puja s, Brahmans must perform animal sacrifice. All this involves a genuine risk for the Brahman, not only in the usual Tantric sense that what is clearly a violation and a sin in an ordinary context must somehow become transmuted into a proper religious act but also because their behavior (like all Tantric behavior, but the Brahman has the most to risk) can be used as an attack against the status of participants by those who discount the validity of the Tantric ritual.^[11]