 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Khaṭvāṅga" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(November 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
| Khatvanga | |
|---|---|
 Khatvanga | |
| Devanagari | खट्वाङ्ग |
| Sanskrit transliteration | Khaṭvāṅga |
Akhaṭvāṅga (Sanskrit:खट्वाङ्ग) is a long, studded staff or club with a skull at the top. The weapon is found in the iconography ofTantricHindu as well asTibetianVajrayana Buddhism. It is variously described as "a skull-topped club, a skull-mounted trident, or a trident staff on which three skulls are impaled".[1]
Originally, the khatvāṅga was made of bones, especially the long bones of forearm or the leg of human beings or animals. Later, wood and metal were used. The khatvāṅga is a long club with skulls engraved on the body.[citation needed]
The Hindu deity Shiva is sometimes depicted carrying the khatvanga, thus referred by the epithetkhatvāṅgī. The weapon is referred inBhavabhuti'sMālatīmādhava andŚiva Stutī ofNarayana Panditacharya.[2]
Thekapalikas were originally miscreants who had been sentenced to a twelve-year term of penance for the crime of inadvertently killing aBrahmin. The penitent was prescribed to dwell in a forest hut, at a desolate crossroads, in acharnel ground, or under a tree; to live by begging; to practice austerities; and to wear a loin-cloth of hemp, dog, or donkey-skin. They also had to carry the emblems of ahuman skull as an alms-bowl, and the skull of the Brahmin they had slain mounted upon a wooden staff as a banner. These Hindukapalika ascetics soon evolved into extreme outcaste adherents of the "left-hand"Tantric path (Sanskrit: Vāmamārga) ofshakti or goddess worship.
In theVajrayana ofTibetan Buddhism, the symbol of the skull-topped trident (khaṭvānga) is said to be inspired by its association with theKāpālikas.[3]
Khatvanga is originally understood asTibetan Hayagriva's weapon. It evolved as a traditional ritualistic symbol inTibetan religions andTantric traditions likeVajrayana Buddhism, and in theVajrayana ofTibetan Buddhism. The khatvānga was also used as tribalshaman shafts.
AuthorRobert Beer states that "the form of the Buddhistkhaṭvāṅga derived from the emblematic staff of the early IndianShaiviteyogis, known askapalikas or "skull-bearers". The early Buddhist tantricyogins andyoginis adopted the same goddess ordakini attributes of thekapalikas. These attributes consisted of bone ornaments, an animal skin loincloth, marks of human ash, a skull-cup,damaru, flaying knife, thighbone trumpet, and the skull-topped Tantric staff orkhaṭvāṅga.[4]
Robert Beer relates how the symbolism of the khatvāṅga in the Vajrayana of Tibetan Buddhism, particularly theNyingma school founded byPadmasambhava, was a direct borrowing from the ShaivaKapalikas, who frequented places of austerity such ascharnel grounds andcrossroads as a form of "left-handed path" (vamachara)sādhanā.[4] In Padmasambhava's iconographic representations, the khatvanga represents his scribe, biographer and spiritual consortYeshe Tsogyal. The weapon's three severed heads denotesmoksha from the three worlds (Trailokya); it has a rainbow sash representing theFive Pure Lights of themahābhūta.