History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v1.c10.5

v1.c10.5

Not only Buddha's relics and Buddha's images, but even Buddhist monks were attributed superhuman powers And in this Hindu ascetics were not to be left behind. Such powers were believed to be attained by the practice of Yoga which both Buddhism and Hinduism had made their own and raised to the skies. Buddhist and Hindu Yoga practices were, however, not of a repulsive character. The practices of some devotees of Śiva were almost staggering and their beliefs indeed strange. They believed in a set of demons, who were the followers or companions of Śiva and who were to be propitiated by human sacrifices or by oblations of the flesh of the dead. Such Pāśupatas wore garlands of human skulls as described by even Hiuen Tsang. (Watters, Vol. I). The principal god of this terrible worship was probably Mahākāla of Ujjain and his lieutenant was Vetāla the chief of demons. He was to be propitiated by a sacrifice in fire kindled in the mouth of a corpse and on the burial ground and so on. Their highest aim was to obtain the condition of a Vidyādhara a supposed blessed being in attendance on Śiva. Harsha Charita (p. 161-6) relates how Pushyabhūti, the founder of the Vardhana family of Thanesar, assisted a Bhairavāchārya to attain to this state of being a Vidyādhara by such a revolting sacrifice, and thus himself attained eminence as a king. However imaginary such stories may be, they testify to the strange superstitions of the Śiva cult and their prevalence all over the country. This Tāntric Śiva worship appears to have come from the south, the Dravidians, particularly the Āndhras, being always spoken of as the chief priests in its rites*. (H. C. 214) The superstitious practices of the allied worship of Chandikā were not much better than those of the worship of Śiva and there-in too the Dravidians and the Āndhras were the worshippers. Whether the superstition came from the south or not it is clear that the Tāntrika worship was prevalent and its superstitions rampant at this time from Kashmir and Kabul to Bengal and to the southernmost point. From Hiuen Tsang's Records as well as from epigraphic evidence it appears that the worship of Śiva was most extensively spread. Its adherents were more numerous than those of Āditya or Vishnu both among the people as among the princes. Among other Hindu gods Kumāra and Chandikā were prominent, Ganapati† being rather scarcely mentioned.*