KURUKULLA: THE WRATHFUL QUEEN OF UDDIYANA
By Verónica Rivas
Appearances, including the animate and inanimate world, there is no inherent essence. This itself is the great body of reality.1
Introduction
From ancient times, mountains, caves, crossroads and charnel grounds are possibly the most frightening places but they are also strongly related to spirituality and with the attainment of supreme realizations. They also represent obstacles, moments of difficult decisions, and that put us face to face with facts we usually want to avoid: decay and death. But as liminal places they are also links with the sources of primordial energy from where our own existence constantly emerges. They are part of a cosmological conception in which death and life are just different aspects of a unique reality. Many paths and sages believe that this unique reality can be enunciated in a Mystic Law.
Among inhospitable mountains, deep in old caves, dwells an ancient tribal deity with a ferocious and captivating aspect. She was related to fertility and agricultural issues but, with her arrival in more complex societies and with her introduction into the Buddhist pantheon, she started to rule over other issues like subjugation, exorcisms, sexuality, love magic and witchcraft. She is known as Kurukulla: she who is the cause of wisdom. In my opinion, however, when she is invoked in the Hevajra Tantra2 as a subjugator, for instance, these attributions are not being newly granted but are, in fact, being rescued from all the characteristics and powers that she used to have before, when she was a deity of nomadic tribes.
As Kurukulla appears because of many kinds of experiences and interpretations of reality that could be classified as tantric, if we want to understand her role as a yidam3 or as a dakini4 in a spiritual path, we should try to elucidate what Tantra means. The task of defining Tantra is a very 1 Tantra of the Extensive Magical Net. (Cited by Dudjom Rinpoche in The Nyigma School of Tibetan Buddhism. Its Fundamentals and History.) 2 According to
Snellgrove, the Hevajra Tantra seems to have been written in the 8th century, but other scholars thinks that it could be originated among the 9th and 10th century. There is no consensus about its "bringers", but its seems to have been revealed by the deities to certain sages. It was written in Sanskrit. 3 Yidam is more or less the same as "tutelary deity" or "meditational deity". It is later considered to be the manifestation of the enlightened mind. As its represents the own nature of the practitioner as well as his needs, the yidam could be peaceful, wrathful or neither of the two. The practitioner generally discovers his yidam during his meditation practices or through other manifestations during his daily life.
4 The term dakini can be translated as "space voyager". The equivalent term in Tibetan is mkha'gro ma. The dakini is a messenger and also a facilitator. Among the Hindu tradition, they were inhabitants of charnel grounds, caves and cemeteries at the service of the Goddess Kali. They were considered as malevolent beings of wrathful appearances and evil purposes. With the introduction of these spirits into the Buddhist doctrines, they started to be linked
with the enlightened activity and with wisdom. They are the holders of the keys of the highest instructions. difficult one because Tantra alludes to a fluent and active practical philosophy that expresses that we are a microcosm emerging from a macrocosm, but our mind is clouded by the illusion of separation. In a Tantric view, reality is the way that our mind reacts to everyday events, and in this new context Kurukulla came to represent the source of the events, the source of our interpretation and the source of transcendence.
It is not the purpose of this work to focus on a deep analysis of the history and evolution of Tantra, but just to provide a background to situate the Kurukulla's practice. Historically it is believed that the first tantric treatise dated from the 1st century BC. Some scholars point that the origin of
Tantra can be traced to the Indus Valley Civilization, but the archaeological and historical evidence is not yet enough to prove this. What it seems to be clear is that, at the beginning, the word tantra was related to certain types of treatises, texts that reveal specific methods to obtain liberation. These kind of texts shows a way to approach certain deities in order to attain specific results. According to some interpretations, the word tantra not only alludes to the treatises but also to the method exposed in the treatise.
According to Herbert Guenter, the word tantra was introduced into the English language in 1799 in reference to certain treatises and practices discovered by Catholic missionaries in India. These practices and philosophies were considered immoral and depraved, against the moral codes and as a set of degenerated practices with no spiritual value. The missionaries witnessed practices and found treatises that talked about "special" ways of sexual intercourse, ritual sacrifices and the uses of fluids such as menstrual blood, semen, blood from specific parts of the body, among others, that were used as offering to what the missionaries considered to be savage deities.
As we said before, it is difficult to think about a general definition of Tantra because it has passed through an important process of expansion and evolution since its origins. Despites that, Tantra seems to be a practical philosophy that emerged in India, and for many more precisely in Bengal, with many characteristics that changed when it arrived in Tibet, for example. But why do we can call Tantra such diverse movements? What is the inner characteristic of Tantra? In order to get closer to this we should talk about continuity and purpose.
Before trying to get closer to a definition of Tantra it would be useful to pay attention to two expressions related to Tantra since it appeared in the West: "left-handed" in opposition to "righthanded". Because of the image of Tantra given by the Christian preachers and by the followers of the Brahamanic traditions, some scholars and practitioners, in an attempt of giving a better image of Tantra, started to differentiate the practices (which were considered transgressive) from the philosophical speculation.
In this way, the term "right-handed Tantra" refers to a kind of philosophical approach and thought on the Tantric treatises that try to break away from the practices itselves, that were considered transgressive, related to wild ways of worshiping indigenous deities. Those practices had a strong sexual and erotic component along many kinds of offerings like ritualistic sacrifices. Influential Western practitioners like Helena Blavatsky, founder of the Theosophical Society, catalogued practices with the component described previously as Black Magic, being considered to be savage and depraved, and classified them as left-handed. But something that people like Blavatsky forgot is that Tantra is itself a practical path and it is not a philosophical approach only. If we deny the practice of union, for instance, it cannot be considered tantric: a mere speculation is not Tantra at all.
The word "tantra" in its roots alludes to something that has continuity, as a kind of net that it is always weaving and is in constant growth. We can analyse the fact of continuity through two aspects: continuity related to the way the practices are carried out and continuity as related to time, alluding to the way of transmission and to the importance of the relation between master and disciple. It is what we call lineage.
When we talk about continuity related to the practices themselves we can say that, in general, a tantric practice has two well differentiated parts: generation and completion. They are interrelated moments and one do not exist without the other. In order to attain completion, we must focus on generation. Generation are the preliminary practices that have the objective of preparing our body/mind to experience different and new levels of energy and perceptions. They are also a kind of progressive and deep cleaning with the purpose of perceiving the different manifestations of the deity even in our own body. And this is because Tantra is a practical path in which the most important tools are our own body and our own perception of reality.
Once we have become one with what the deity represents, and we are able to invoke her/his presence without rituals or specific tools, we have attained completion. But when we can go beyond our own realization of the deity and beyond all physical manifestation or characteristics, we have attained the highest level of completion. And this is the ultimate goal of any tantric path.
The aspect of continuity has its foundation in that a tantric path should rely on initiations passed from master to disciple in an interrupted line. Tantra is a path of initiation. Initiation is given by a teacher or high-level practitioner, but the ultimate goal is the initiation received directly from the deity, called in this case yidam. The Vajrayana path is an example of this, where the first part called Ngondro is composed by practices given for the Lama through initiations processes and the second part correspond to Dzogchen where the direct contact with the yidam and other deities should be established.
But Tantra can be also the way of the solitary practitioner, based on study and the direct contact with the deities - it is also a matter of purpose. So, in this case Tantra refers to the way through which spiritual realization is attained. Tantra refers to the belief that everything emerges from a primordial, no-generated source and that through certain practices this source can be accessed in order to produce a complete union. The purpose of all tantric path is always the same: the complete union, the dissolution of the self, based on the fact that this purpose is not something to obtain, but something to discover and attain. Something existing in our everyday life, in every second of our existence but, because the way that our mind works, we are not able to perceive it. So, Tantra is the path but is also the method.
Another important idea among the tantric tradition is the divinisation of all existence. The world is considered a pulsating divine being, essentially feminine, and everything that surround us are only manifestations of this divinity. For this reason, the tantric practitioner ritualistically reproduces the generation of his body as a divine being, in union with the chosen divinity. For example, at a certain level, working with Kurukulla means the divinisation of feelings and emotions of wrath, lust and desire and their transmutation into intrinsic wisdom. Here we mean divinisation as a process in which the body is used as a divine ritualistic tool in order to attain liberation.
David Gordon White, in his attempt to define Tantra, says:
Tantra is that Asian body of beliefs and practices which, working from the principle that the universe we experience is nothing other than the concrete manifestation of the divine energy of the godhead that creates and maintains that universe, seeks to ritually appropriate and channel that energy, within the human microcosm, in creative and emancipatory ways.5
Gordon White, David. Tantra in practice
But as the author says in his work, this is just a "working definition" that could be considered incomplete and even rejected by some practitioners. It is important to consider that Tantra is not a unified corpus of belief and practices and its terminology varies from the Hindu practitioners to the Tibetan ones. For example, the Vajrayana school would change the expression "divine energy" for "enlightened consciousness". This school also makes emphasis in the "vajra intrinsic state of mind", which means the conception of the mind as a diamond that can be polished through specific ritualistic practices using mandalas, yantras and specially the recitation of mantras.
We can also say that Tantra is a healing path. We generally have a broken link between the way the physical world appears to us and the way we believe it should be. There is nothing unknown to discover, it is about realize the known. The Visvasara Tantra expresses something like: "what is here, is elsewhere and what is not here is nowhere"6. Tantra is also a kind of synthesis of matter and spirit and it is not a path of renunciation, but a path of acceptance of our own humanity and conditions, desires and feelings.
Kurukulla in the Uddiyana land: a historical approach
Some sources refer to Kurukulla as Red Tara Kurukulla, meaning something like “the one who emerges from Tara”. In this case they are giving to Tara certain characteristics of Kurukulla or assimilating both deities in order to facilitate the introduction of the deities in a new pantheon. In others, Kurukulla is considered as a fully enlightened dakini from the land of Uddiyana7, what gives her special and very specific characteristics.
The dakinis from Uddiyana are of wrathful and ferocious appearance and the colours associated with them are generally red and black. They are tricky, savage and dangerous. They represent the primordial wisdom in the most elemental manifestation. They are generally depicted wearing skull garlands, tiger-skin skirts, holding pots with menstrual blood and in sensual-dancing postures. Some of them are standing over a corpse or a couple having sexual intercourse and show a decapitated head in one of their hands.
Other sources point that Kurukulla has her origin as a local deity of small villages or among nomadic people. Many scholars believe that most of deities that today are worshiped as related to sexuality or death were ancient deities related to fertility, land and vegetation. Kurukulla could be an example of this, having her origin as a protector spirit of vegetation and animals who passed through a process of evolution turning her into a deity of fertility with lunar attributes. She was worshiped as a yaksini. The yaksas or the feminine yaksini were consider tribal deities related to agriculture and are examples of the most primitive ways of worshiping in the Himalayan land.
They were spirits venerated but feared too. They represented wildness and natural forces, what we cannot tame or challenge. Through time, these deities turned into chthonic deities ruling over death and sexuality. Something important to notice is that generally, in many cultures, deities who are
6 Woodroffe, Sir John. Sakti and Sakta. Page 259. 7 Uddiyana also known as Oddiyana, Udyan or Orgyen was a place of great spiritual importance and where the Esoteric Buddhism seems to have flourished. Many scholars point that many Tibetan tantras were originated is this place. Its seems to have been a place located in Swat Valley but there is no consensus about its exact location. The well-known "Seven Lines Prayer" to Guru Padmansambhava says: "in the northwest border of the country of Orgyen..."; that allows us to think that Uddiyana was in fact a country. Despite some scholars situate Uddiyana in south India, what seems to be clear is that this place was in the border of Tibet. related with sexuality and fertility are also related to death and restless spirits. For example, we can observe this characteristic among the Mesoamerican gods, where Tlazolteotl is a goddess of sexuality, sensuality and lust but also a goddess of death who dwells in the Underworld.
Many sources links Kurukulla with Uddiyana, not only those which characterize her as a dakini but also those that portray her as deity. According to many Buddhist sources, Uddiyana or Oddiyana is a very special place. The great yogi known as Guru Padmansambhava8, the father of the Vajrayana school of the Tibetan Buddhism, is said to have attained all his realizations in Uddiyana. Many texts, when they make reference to this important Master, call him “the One who came from Uddiyana”, “the Master of Uddiyana” or “the Son of Uddiyana”.
Some Buddhist tantras also refers to Uddiyana as Orgien or Urgyen, and many scholars point that all of them are references to the same place: a kind of magical land, the dwelling of beings of great knowledge and wisdom and that can be considered a pure land. The stories that link Padmansambhava with Uddiyana are very important because give us a good spectrum of the kind of practices, energies and spirits associated with this place, which is also the dwelling of deities like Kurukulla.
Considering Buddhist and non-Buddhist sources we can observe many discrepancies about Padmansambhava's life but also many points in common. He was a great scholar of many kinds of magical arts as well of different philosophical and iniciatic schools. He was considered a magician and a necromancer, having received his initiations in woods, caves, cemeteries and inhospitable mountains. Many of these initiations were given directly from the deities of Uddiyana. Some scholars believe that, indeed, the Buddhist aspects that today are associated with Padmansambhava were introduced lately. These authors point that he was just a tantric master who learned and attained the fully understanding of the ultimate reality, the mystic law that permeates everything.
Padmansambhava was also a skilful summoner and subjugator of every kind of spirits using tantric elements like mantras, mandalas, yantras, sigils and also magical weapons as dorjes, daggers, phurbas, bows, bells and different kinds of drums. His enlightened activity can be considered not as something that confront and annihilate, but as something that subjugate and transform. He was not trying to avoid or eliminate lust, anger, envy or wrath, but to use them as sources of enlightened wisdom. And this is the main feature of the way that Kurukulla exercise her activity too.
In a Padmansambhava's biography we read:
From the great master Thousand Tantras Great Magician he learned wrathful magic and miraculous swift travel and trained to become a translator of twenty-one languages. In the land of Oddiyana’s eight charnel grounds, He manifested as the eight classes of spiritual warriors, the grand ging, gave vows to gods and cannibal demons, and led vajra feasts. 9
Another mention that related Padmansambhava to Uddiyana and that highlights the special characteristic of this place is given by Yeshe Tsogyal10 when she expresses in several ways
8 Padmansambhava, also known as Guru Rinpoche, Padma Garwang, Padma Jungne among other names; was an Indian Master and Yogi that live approximately in the 8th century. According to Buddhist sources he is the founder of the Nyigma School and of the Esoteric branch of Buddhism. There are many mythical stories about him and many non-Buddhist scholars think that his inclusion in the Buddhist history belongs to a late period. 9 Zangpo, Ngawang. Guru Rinpoché: His life and times. Page 193. 10 Yeshe Tsogyal was one the most important Padmasambhava's consort and female disciple. She was a Tibetan princess. that her Master is not dead, but has just retired to Uddiyana, the land of the dakinis.11 Uddiyana seems to be the place where many tantric teachings were originated, but notice that we are not talking about the tantras as the writings itself, but the Tantra as method, as an specific way of teaching or attain knowledge and wisdom. And according to Buddhist sources, Uddiyana is the place where Dzogchen teachings were originated. The direction attributed to Uddiyana is the west as well as to Kurukulla.
We do not have clear and strong evidences to where Uddiyana was exactly situated. The most accurate sources called it also Swat Valley, in an area called Udyan from where the name Uddiyana probably derives. According to some scholars, this place was situated in actual Pakistan and, for others, in the south India. It is a place described as full of mountains and caves surrounded by lakes. To Uddiyana is also linked a story of a prostitute named Soukadhari who obtained great mystical and magical realizations in this land. This story is also linked with Kurukulla as being the source of all the accomplishments that the woman attained, but unfortunately, we just have sporadic mentions about this.
Kurukulla the yidam.... Kurukulla the dakini
Kurukulla emerges from the syllable "HRIH" that shows her fully enlightened qualities and nature. Her source is the pristine awareness and what she grants cannot be weakened or destroyed. She manifests her power through seduction and wild love and her enlightened activity transform all desire into wisdom. She is the embodiment of pristine awareness and primordial energy, and being a Kurukulla's practitioner is to attain the power or become one with what she is and represents. Maybe the words of a female tantric practitioner from the Middle Ages, registered in an anonymous treatise, could define what the path of Kurukulla really means:
Activities that are graceful, heroic, terrifying, compassionate, furious, and peaceful. And passion, anger, greed, pride, and envy... all these things without exception are the perfected forms of pure, self-illuminating wisdom.12
A yidam is the deity who correspond to our desires and our aspirations. It is the deity with which we feel a strong connection. It represents our mind in all manifestation and power and it also represents all our weakness and fears. For this reason, Kurukulla is the embodiment of the yidam and can manifests in this way. But she is also the unity of vacuity and wisdom, she is the holder of intrinsic knowledge. She travels through the different realms and dances with illusions, and for this reason she is also the dakini. Kurukulla can be seen as a Padma dakini from the west direction, from the land of Uddiyana.
There is a story in which a queen was very worried for having lost the affection and attention of her husband and asked her maiden for help. The maiden went to the market of the village where you can easily find certain kind of women known as “red enchantress”. She found one of these women, explained the problem to her and the enchantress gave her a food to be given to the king. She
In the Nyigma School she is recognised as a female Buddha. She can be considered as a dakini and a yidam and because of her great accomplishments she is considered as a fully enlightened being. 11 See Dowman, Keith. Skydancer. The Secret Life and Songs of the Lady Yeshe Tsogyal. 12 Shaw, Miranda. Passionate Enlightenment. Page had empowered the food with certain mantras. But the queen refused to give the food to her husband and threw it in a lake nearby. A Naga King ate the food and by the power of the mantras, looked for the queen and entered in her room. Immediately they burnt in passion one for the other, had sexual intercourse and the queen became pregnant. The mantras used for the empowerment were some mantras related to Kurukulla and the enchantress was a Kurukulla´s priestess. The story ends with the king bowing before the "red enchantress" and establishing the cult of Kurukulla in his court.
According to this story, Kurukulla was a deity related to love, passion, fertility and attraction. Her priestesses used to perform rituals for love, wealth and for any kind of women´s affairs. But many anonymous texts tell us about rituals that were considered as black magic. These rituals included banishment, subjugation, exorcism and rituals to cause destruction or even kill a person. Through this story we can also see the power of transformation and transmutation of the deity to turn an adverse situation into a successful one.
Many rituals link Kurukulla with mundane affairs as obtain money, recognition, love, among others, but when she entered the Buddhist pantheon, another characteristic started to be added and many of the previous ones started to be put aside. The scholar Miranda Shaw says that since Kurukulla was introduced into the Buddhist pantheon, she passed through a process of evolution. This process of evolution can be observed not only in the nature of the tasks associated with her but also in her importance among the vast number of deities in the Buddhist pantheon. As the author says, she was introduced as a dharani goddess13 ruling over rituals of love magic and bewitchment, but she progressively acquired the function of being the cause and source of wisdom.
Shaw describes Kurukulla as follows:
Her voluptuous body is bright, glowing red, the hue of passion and amorous desire. Glistening with ruby radiance, mistress of the art of seduction, Kurukulla displays the tools of her magical craft: the flowered bow and arrow with which she pierces the hearts of those she would enchant, the noose with which she binds them, and the elephant goad with which she draws them into her sphere of liberation. Kurukulla's weaponry is adorned with red lotus blossoms that send forth swarms of fierce red bees. The targets of her magic do not feel suffering. They are intoxicated by the fragrance of the lotuses, mesmerized by the buzzing of the bees, and bewildered by crimson clouds of rapture.14
During the process of introduction of Kurukulla into the Buddhist practices she was associated with the Goddess Tara, with the red manifestation of this goddess, and in this manifestation, she is known as Red Tara Kurukulla, as we previously mentioned. She is a wrathful manifestation of Tara and because of this association with Tara she started to be considered as a mother, as a yidam. But Tibet as well had strong traditions of rituals of incantation, subjugation and witchcraft and, for this reason, our goddess did not lose her original attributions.
Red Tara (Kurukulla) is the Goddess of Wealth whose mantra, if repeated 10,000 times, will bring about all one’s desires. She will bewitch the hearts of both men and women and is worshipped by unhappy lovers. Red is the colour of love in India and thus is the colour of her skin, clothing, lotus and crown. Her expression is ferocious, and she is often depicted dancing upon the demon Rahu. She wears a garland of heads and a skull may 13 The Dharani goddesses were deities related to the earth and also to wealth, fertility and abundance. They can be considered as an aspect or manifestation of a specific deity. 14 Shaw, Miranda. Buddhist Goddesses of India. Page 432.
be found in her crown. Two of her four arms draw the bow and arrow.15
But the Mahayana branch of Buddhism with a strong tantric element and, even more, the esoteric Buddhism known as Vajrayana, do not see mundane affairs as something that must be denied but something to be assimilated and transmuted. For this reason, the iconography displayed in Kurukulla's depictions was kept and re-interpreted in a different way. For the purpose of practice, symbolically she is represented as follow: her gross aspect is represented by her image, her subtle form is her yantra and her supreme form is her mantra. All this aspects are part of the process of generation of the goddess. She is the one who seduces, who call the attention with her voluptuousness and irresistible beauty. But she is also dangerous and wild, and her methods are not always easy and direct, they demand of us lots of attention, courage and clarity of mind.
About her most known depiction we read:
Kurukulla is yet another form of Vajrayogini , one that especially magnetizes passion and transforms it into wisdom. Like Vajrayogini she is depicted as red and blazing with flames, in dancing posture, holding in her hands the emblematic hooked knife and skullcup of amrita, together representing the union of bliss and emptiness. Her ornaments of bone and jewels are similar to Vajrayogini's, but she does not hold the khatvanga trident staff. In additional hands she draws a flower-bedecked bow set with an arrow and holds other weapons that indicate her unique identity. She shoots her victims with the arrow to infect them with passion, thereby subduing discursive thought; with the hook in her lower right hand she draws the practitioner close; the lasso in her lower left-hand trusses the practitioner's passion, transforming it into wisdom. She dances on the corpse of the self, signifying her selfless activity.17
In India, and also in Tibet, exist a long-lasting tradition of what can be called "mediumship". According to the nature and characteristics of these activities we prefer to call it here “spirit possession”. In these practices the person acts as a vessel for the spirit. The spirit can be an ancestor, a guardian, a demon, a nature spirit or a deity. One of the most required deities for this type of work is Kurukulla because of her characteristics and the long magical tradition that links her with exorcism, healing and witchcraft.
Many people believe that calling and working with a demonic being would make them obtain faster results; but most of the time this is an illusion. If we look closer into the Tibetan folklore we can see that the success in a magical operation depends on our level of understanding about the deity and that, sometimes, a demonic being is nothing more than the manifestation of a certain fully enlightened being. The Western concept of demon did not exist in ancient Tibet and even today the concept of demon among Eastern beliefs is different from the Western ones. They have just a wide variety of spirits with different attributions. So, there are people who devoted their lives to work with spirits and developed a strong contact and knowledge of the spiritual world in order to understand
15 Bennett Blumenberg. The great Goddess in India and Tibet (article). Page 69. 16 The cult of the Goddess Vajrayogini appeared in India between the 10th and 12th century approximately. Her name means something like "the blessed one". She is the embodiment of enlightenment and for this reason she is considered a female Buddha. The essence of Vajrayogini is passion; she transforms wild passion into wisdom. She is generally portrayed in dancing posture, with a skull cup of menstrual blood and a crescent-bladed knife in her other hand. As the chief of the dakinis, she represents the transcendence of ego. 17 Simmer Brown, Judith. Dakini's warm breath. The feminine principle in Tibetan Buddhism. Page 146. them.
The scholar Vincent Bellezza says:
In Upper Tibet, male spirit-mediums are commonly referred to as lha-pa (godcarrier/god-man), dpa’ bo (hero, also an epithet of sacred mountains), and lha ’bebmkhan/lha-babs-mkhan (god-descending-one). Female mediums are called dpa’ mo (heroine), lha-mo (god-woman) and klu-mo (water-serpent-woman). 18
In another places or villages in Tibet and Nepal the “spirit-mediums”, as Belleza expresses, have different names. For example, lha-kha means “god mouth” and they perform basically an oracular work. Lha´dzin means “god-possessed” and in this case their work is more related to healing rituals or exorcism. We also find the lha-zhon, which means “god-ridden”. And the word they use for those who are affected or suffering from a demonic possession is 'dre´dzin.
Generally, every ritual or spirit possession begins with the invocation of Padmasambhava, as a guide and protector, as the great subjugator, in order to assure the success of the magical operation. After that, many deities are invoked through prayers and offerings. They also pay homage to the guardian of the six directions and to the guardian of the Elements. The female deity most invoked is Tara in her different manifestations, especially in her red one. There are very specific rituals, directed to subjugations and exorcisms in which the “medium” calls specifically for Kurukulla as a deity. But these are very dangerous rituals not only because of the nature of the deity but also because of the spirits that could be involved. The person who can serve as a vessel of Kurukulla must be able to handle a very strong and special kind of energy, he/she must be very well trained, self-confident, capable of focus the mind to go over the obstacles and all the magical display. A great skill in meditation is needed.
But in some cases, what we can call mediumship is not only a practice in which the body act as a vessel for the spirit, like in the Kardecist view, but it is also a kind transcendental union. The deity introduces itself into the practitioner's body, as a kind of erotic union where emotions as passion, excitement, lust and all kind of emotions are absorbed in an erotic dance that ends in the transmutation of them into pristine wisdom.
Kurukulla is an ancient deity, she is not human, and she never was but, as a fully enlightened being, everything is accessible to her and her knowledge and understanding are absolute. Many Kurukulla practices were part of very specific rituals in some Buddhist monasteries but they started to be put aside because of the nature of deity. However, many mediums or people that can be called shamans, who claimed that they are Buddhist or followers of the Bon-po tradition, still performs those ancient rituals, working with Kurukulla in an "shamanic" style and very often they are the alternative when a Lama cannot solve a spiritual problem.
Final considerations
Working with Kurukulla includes the two phases that we mentioned before: generation and completion. The phase of generation can be divided into many phases according to the school that we are following or, if we are solitary practitioners, according to our own experience and 18 Vincent, Bellezza, John. Spirits-Mediums, Sacred Mountains and related Bon Textual Traditions in Upper Tibet. Calling down the Gods. Page 4.
understanding of the experience.
The tantric path is a very complex approach that confront us with our environment, and with the big amount of beliefs we inherited from our culture, from our ancestors and our fellows. To open our mind to new experiences is to open ourselves to a new way of dealing with our own life. The tantric path is not something that isolate us from the world, but a way of dealing with a reality full of hindrances, obstacles and where our inherent and pure essence emerges. The tantric path is not a path of renunciation, but a path of living and experiencing our own reality here and now.
Kurukulla herself represents all the stages that a practitioner pass through. She represents all the difficulties, all our everyday battles against ourselves and all our struggles, but she is the transcendence of all this. She is the wrathful and the pacific one, she is the lascivious woman who magnetize all appearances with her beauty, but she is also the welcoming mother, the saviour. She is our mirror and our proof that even experiencing the worst of ourselves, even when we are full of hate and resentment, the real essence of our mind, our real being, is always present and we can accomplish it in a twinkle of an eye.
Finally, as a way of expressing my gratitude and devotion to Kurukulla, I would like to share with the readers this short invocation of my authorship, hoping it will be of great benefit:
Tibetan Tangka Painting of Kurukulla
Homage to You: Queen of the Full Moon who dwells in darkness and emerges from light. Through my body, speech and mind,
I give homage to You, the One of the skull garland. Without doubt and hesitation I bow down before You!!
Oh Terrible and compassionate One subduer of all malevolent forces sovereign of the Pure Land, hear me now: grant me power and protection to achieve the Supreme Siddhi.
Great Master of the Red Lotus blood-drinker and flesh-eater, You of the vajra body and primordial wisdom. You of the lion roar: emptiness is your speech, vacuity is your body awareness is your mind.
Queen of mountains and charnel grounds, your breath melts the obscurations of my mind and your laugh make my enemies tremble. You are the source... the path... and the goal!
Lady of lust and luxury, Queen of the Great Bliss: your arrows turn weakness into power, hopeless into faith desire into enlightenment. Oh Splendorous and Magnificent One! Oh Great Kurukulla of Uddiyana, I welcome You!!
• Beyer, Stephan. Magic and Ritual in Tibet. The Cult of Tara. Ed. University of California Press. Delhi, 2001. • Bjerken, Zeff. Exorcising the Illusion of Bon “Shamans”: A Critical Genealogy of Shamanism in Tibetan Religions. (College of Charleston, USA) • Blofeld, John. The Tantric Mysticism of Tibet. Ed.: Arkana, Penguin Group. USA, 1992. • Blumenberg, Ben. The Great Goddess in India and Tibet. 1996. (article) • Cozort, Daniel. Highest Yoga Tantra. Ed.: Snow Lion Publications. USA, 2005. • Dowman, Keith. Skydancer. The Secret Life and Songs of the Lady Yeshe Tsogyal. Ed.: Snow Lion Publication. USA, 1996. • Dowman, Keith. The Power Places of Central Tibet. Ed.: Timeless Books. India, 1996. • English, Elizabeth. Vajrayogini. Her Visualizations, Rituals and Forms. Ed.: Wisdom Publications. Boston, USA, 2002. • Flood, Gavin. The Tantric Body. The Secret Tradition of Hindu Religion. Ed.: I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltda. New York. 2006. • Gordon White, David. Tantra in Practice. Ed.: Princeton University Press. New Jersey, 2000. • Guenter, Herbert. Chogyam Trungpa. The Dawn of Tantra. Ed.: Shambala Publications. USA, 1975. • Guenter, Herbert. The Tantric View of Life. Ed.: Shambala Publications. USA, 1976. • Guenter, Herbert. The Teachings of Padmansambhava. Ed.: Brill. Netherlands, 1996. • Kinsley, David. Hindu Goddess: Visions of the Divine Femenine in the Hindu Religious Traditions. Ed.: University of California Press. USA, 1988. • Kinsley, David. Tantric Visions of the Divine Femenine. Ed.: University of California Press. Delhi, 1997. • Monaghan, Patricia. Encyclopedia of Goddesses and Heroines. Vol. I. Ed.: Greenwood Press. USA, 2010. • Rinpoche, Dudjom. The Nyigma School of Tibetan Buddhism. Its Fundamentals and History. Ed.: Wisdom Publication. USA, 1991. • Shaw, Miranda. Buddhist Goddesses of India. Ed.: Princeton University Press. Oxford. • Shaw, Miranda. Passionate Enlightenment. Women in Tantric Buddhism. Ed. Princeton University Press. New Jersey, 1995. • Simmer Brown, Judith. Dakini's Warm Breath. The Feminine Principle in Tibetan Buddhism. Ed.: Shambala. USA, 2001. • Snellgrove, David. The Hevajra Tantra. Ed.: Oxford University Press. London, 1959. • Vessantara. A Guide to the Deities of the Tantra. Ed.: Windhorse Publications. Cambridge, 2008. • Vincent Bellezza, John. Divine Dyads. Ancient Civilization in Tibet. Ed.: Library of Tibetan Works & Archives. Dharamsala, 1997. • Vincent Bellezza, John. Spirits-Mediums, Sacred Mountains and related Bon Textual Traditions in Upper Tibet. Calling down the Gods. Ed.: Brill. USA, 2005. • Woodroffe, Sir John. Sakti and Sakta. Ed.: Celiphais Press. England, 2009. • Zangpo, Ngawang. Guru Rinpoché: His life and Times. Ed.: Snow Lion Publication. USA, 2002.
