Ganachakra - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

A gaṇacakra is also known as tsog, gaṇapuja, cakrapuja or gaṇacakrapuja. It is a generic term for various tantric

Tantra

Tantra , anglicised tantricism or tantrism or tantram, is the name scholars give to an inter-religious spiritual movement that arose in medieval India, expressed in scriptures ....

assemblies or feasts, in which practitioners meet to chant mantra

Mantra

A mantra is a sound, syllable, word, or group of words that is considered capable of "creating transformation"...

, enact mudra

Mudra

A mudrā is a symbolic or ritual gesture in Hinduism and Buddhism. While some mudrās involve the entire body, most are performed with the hands and fingers...

, make votive offerings and practice various tantric ritual

Ritual

A ritual is a set of actions, performed mainly for their symbolic value. It may be prescribed by a religion or by the traditions of a community. The term usually excludes actions which are arbitrarily chosen by the performers....

s as part of a sadhana

Sadhana

Sādhanā literally "a means of accomplishing something" is ego-transcending spiritual practice. It includes a variety of disciplines in Hindu, Sikh , Buddhist and Muslim traditions that are followed in order to achieve various spiritual or ritual objectives.The historian N...

, or spiritual practice. The ganachakra often comprises a sacrament

Sacrament

A sacrament is a sacred rite recognized as of particular importance and significance. There are various views on the existence and meaning of such rites.-General definitions and terms:...

al meal and festivities such as dancing; the feast generally consisting of materials that were considered forbidden or taboo

Taboo

A taboo is a strong social prohibition relating to any area of human activity or social custom that is sacred and or forbidden based on moral judgment, religious beliefs and or scientific consensus. Breaking the taboo is usually considered objectionable or abhorrent by society...

in medieval India, where the tantric movement arose. As a tantric practice, forms of gaṇacakra are practiced today in Hinduism

Hinduism

Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...

, Bön

Bon

BON, Bon, or bon may refer to:Places:* Cap Bon, a peninsula in Tunisia* Flamingo International Airport, Bonaire, Netherlands Antilles...

and Vajrayana

Vajrayana

Vajrayāna Buddhism is also known as Tantric Buddhism, Tantrayāna, Mantrayāna, Secret Mantra, Esoteric Buddhism and the Diamond Vehicle...

Buddhism.

Professor Miranda Shaw summarises the experience of a gaṇacakra:

The feast is an esoteric ritual that unfolds in many stages. The sacred space for the ceremony is demarcated by geometric designs drawn on the ground with powdered pigments, and an elaborate array of offerings and foods are laid out. The participants don special insignia like bone ornaments and crowns and use musical instruments of archaic design... for inducing heightened awareness. Practitioners sit in a circle and partake of sacramental (dry) meat and wine (often liquor) served in skull-cups
Kapala
A kapala or skullcup is a cup made from a human skull used as a ritual implement in both Hindu Tantra and Buddhist Tantra...

.The feasts also provide an occasion for the exchange of ritual lore, the ritual worship of women (sripuja), and the performance of sexual yogas. The feast culminates in the performance of tantric dances and music that must never be disclosed to outsiders. The revelers may also improvise "songs of realization
Songs of realization
Songs of realization are sung poetry forms characteristic of the tantric movement in both Hinduism and in Vajrayana Buddhism. Doha is also a specific poetic form...

" (caryagiti) to express their heightened clarity and blissful raptures in spontaneous verse.

Samual (1998: p.126) holds that:

...serious Tantric practice is generally seen as appropriate for a small minority only. The ancient Indian , the circle ritual...discussed earlier, is far in the past. In Tibetan practice it has long been replaced by the (Tibetan: tshogs), a considerably tamer affair, still involving a sacramental meal but normally performed indoors and without possession or dancing.

Origins

Sir John Woodroffe, writing as Arthur Avalon (1918) affirms that the Five Nectars

Panchamrita

Panchamrita is a mixture of five foods used in Hindu worship and puja, usually honey, sugar, milk, yoghurt, and ghee.-Etymology:Pañcāmṛta is a Sanskrit compound of two words:, 'five'....

of Tantra, Hindu and Buddhist traditions are directly related to the Mahābhūta

Mahabhuta

Mahābhūta is Sanskrit and Pāli for "great element." In Buddhism, the "four great elements" are earth, water, fire and air...

or Five Elements and that the Panchamakara

Panchamakara

Panchamakara, also known as the Five Ms, is a Tantric term referring to the five substances used in a Tantric puja or sadhana:...

is actually a vulgar term for the Panchatattva:

Worship with the Pañcatattva generally takes place in a Cakra or circle composed of men and women, Sadhakas and Sadhikas, Bhairavas and Bhairavis sitting in a circle, the Shakti being on the Sadhaka's left. Hence it is called Cakrapuja. A Lord of the Cakra (Cakreshvara) presides sitting with his Shakti in the center. During the Cakra, there is no distinction of caste, but Pashus of any caste are excluded. There are various kinds of Cakra -- productive, it is said, of differing fruits for the participator therein. As amongst Tantrik Sadhakas we come across the high, the low, and mere pretenders, so the Cakras vary in their characteristics from say the Tattva-cakra for the Brahma-kaulas, and the Bhairavi-cakra (as described in Mahanirvana, VII. 153) in which, in lieu of wine, the householder fakes milk, sugar and honey (Madhura-traya), and in lieu of sexual union does meditation upon the Lotus Feet of the Divine Mother with Mantra, to Cakras the ritual of which will not be approved such as Cudacakra, Anandabhuvana-yoga and others referred to later.

Sacred space

The ganachakra, or 'tantric feast', can be seen as a mandala

Mandala

Maṇḍala is a Sanskrit word that means "circle". In the Buddhist and Hindu religious traditions their sacred art often takes a mandala form. The basic form of most Hindu and Buddhist mandalas is a square with four gates containing a circle with a center point...

of sacred space. Pettit emphasises the importance of the gathered "group" (gana) or sangha

Sangha

Sangha is a word in Pali or Sanskrit that can be translated roughly as "association" or "assembly," "company" or "community" with common goal, vision or purpose...

to Vajrayana sadhana

Sadhana

and the creation of sacred space such as the Ganachakra:

The power of sacred bonding in a temporary or virtual sacred space
Sacred Space
Sacred Space is a prayer website which has achieved considerable fame since its foundation in 1999. It was created by two members of the Jesuit order, Alan McGuckian SJ and Peter Scally SJ, and was managed by the Jesuit Communication Centre, Dublin, Ireland, until June 2008. It is now being...

is an intrinsic, if normally invisible, component of a Vajrayana
Vajrayana
Vajrayāna Buddhism is also known as Tantric Buddhism, Tantrayāna, Mantrayāna, Secret Mantra, Esoteric Buddhism and the Diamond Vehicle...

community experience. The community is that experience, and ceases to exist without it. To dwell in that sacredness requires not only that one perceive it, but to maintain that perception requires discipline, faith and a profound sense of love and respect for members of the mandala
Mandala
Maṇḍala is a Sanskrit word that means "circle". In the Buddhist and Hindu religious traditions their sacred art often takes a mandala form. The basic form of most Hindu and Buddhist mandalas is a square with four gates containing a circle with a center point...

- that is, all living beings.

Pettit links the importance of the group or gana to the manifestation of the ganachakra and the sacred space or the mandala

Mandala

(in this sense cognate with chakra

Chakra

Chakra is a concept originating in Hindu texts, featured in tantric and yogic traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism. Its name derives from the Sanskrit word for "wheel" or "turning" .Chakra is a concept referring to wheel-like vortices...

) with the liturgical

Liturgy

Liturgy is either the customary public worship done by a specific religious group, according to its particular traditions or a more precise term that distinguishes between those religious groups who believe their ritual requires the "people" to do the "work" of responding to the priest, and those...

tools of mantra

Mantra

A mantra is a sound, syllable, word, or group of words that is considered capable of "creating transformation"...

, visualisation

Mental image

A mental image is an experience that, on most occasions, significantly resembles the experience of perceiving some object, event, or scene, but occurs when the relevant object, event, or scene is not actually present to the senses...

and sacred architecture

Yantra

Yantra is the Sanskrit word for "instrument" or "machine". Much like the word "instrument" itself, it can stand for symbols, processes, automata, machinery or anything that has structure and organization, depending on context....

The potential for sacred space to manifest spontaneously is nowhere higher than in Vajrayana Buddhist practice, which employs the use of mantra and visualization to create an experience of sacredness. Through liturgical performances, or amidst the activities of everyday life, a yogi is to experience, imaginately imaginatively or better yet spontaneously, the presence of divinity - Buddhahood embodied - in his or her own person, companions and environment. These constitute a mandala or sacred architecture which expresses the omnipresence of enlightenment, that is the ground of both "secular" and "sacred" experiences and activities that are never perceived apart from its all-encompassing confines. The invocation of divine presence of mandala is especially effective when undertaken by several people in a ritual context, and it is incumbent for practitioners to do so periodically with a feast-offering known as tsok or, in Sanskrit, ganapuja.

Pettit states that sacred space is created spontaneously wherever the Triple Jewel

Three Jewels

The Three Jewels, also called the Three Treasures, the Siemese Triples, Three Refuges, or the Triple Gem , are the three things that Buddhists take refuge in, and look toward for guidance, in the process known as taking refuge.The Three Jewels are:* BuddhaTaking refuge in the Three Jewels is...

(cognate with the Gankyil

Gankyil

The Gankyil[Tibetan:དགའ་འཁྱིལ་] is a symbol and ritual tool in Tibetan Buddhism, Bön, Himalayan Shamanism and Korean Buddhism. In Bön and Nyingma Dzogchen lineages, the Gankyil is the principal symbol and teaching tool: it is symbolic of primordial energy and represents the central unity and...

) is manifest and that this sacred architecture or mandala is not dependent upon the built environment

Built environment

The term built environment refers to the human-made surroundings that provide the setting for human activity, ranging in scale from personal shelter and buildings to neighborhoods and cities that can often include their supporting infrastructure, such as water supply or energy networks.The built...

of monolithic cultures:

...Sacred Space is created spontaneously wherever the Three Jewels - the Buddha or teacher, the Dharma teaching or its texts, and the Sangha community of practitioners - are found. A place that elicits reverence should be sacred, and wherever the Jewels are found, the pieties of lay and ordained Buddhists are bound to be expressed.

In Hindu tantra

In Hindu tantra, a ganachakra typically consists of five elements known as panchamakara

Panchamakara

Panchamakara, also known as the Five Ms, is a Tantric term referring to the five substances used in a Tantric puja or sadhana:...

or the "five Ms": madya (wine

Wine

Wine is an alcoholic beverage, made of fermented fruit juice, usually from grapes. The natural chemical balance of grapes lets them ferment without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes, or other nutrients. Grape wine is produced by fermenting crushed grapes using various types of yeast. Yeast...

), mamsa (meat

Meat

Meat is animal flesh that is used as food. Most often, this means the skeletal muscle and associated fat and other tissues, but it may also describe other edible tissues such as organs and offal...

), matsya

Matsya

Matsya was the first Avatar of Vishnu in Hinduism. The great flood finds mention in Hindu mythology texts like the Satapatha Brahmana, where in the Matsya Avatar takes place to save the pious and the first man, Manu and advices him to build a giant boat.-The Legend:According to the Matsya...

(fish

Fish

Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...

), mudra

Mudra

A mudrā is a symbolic or ritual gesture in Hinduism and Buddhism. While some mudrās involve the entire body, most are performed with the hands and fingers...

(rice or grain), and maithuna

Maithuna

Maithuna or Mithuna is a Sanskrit term used in Tantra most often translated as sexual union in a ritual context. It is the most important of the five makara and constitutes the main part of the Grand Ritual of Tantra variously known as Panchamakara, Panchatattva, and Tattva Chakra. Although some...

(Sanskrit for "union" and coition or yab-yum

Yab-Yum

Yab-yum is a common symbol in the Buddhist art of India, Bhutan, Nepal, and Tibet representing the male deity in sexual union with his female consort...

) a form of tantra

Tantra

Tantra , anglicised tantricism or tantrism or tantram, is the name scholars give to an inter-religious spiritual movement that arose in medieval India, expressed in scriptures ....

Ganachakra and the Mahasiddhas

Samual (1998: p.124) defines the ganachakra succinctly:

"Vajrayāna or Tantric Buddhism had its origin in India, where it seems to have been practised, at any rate in its earlier period, say the fourth to eighth centuries CE, by small initiatory cult groups. The central ritual of these groups was the , a night-time sacramental circle, usually outdoors, often in a cremation ground or similarly spooky and 'powerful' location, with distinctly antinomian elements. These included the ritual use of sexuality, although it is not clear how far this was performed literally and how far symbolically. The involved possession, dancing and singing, and also magical procedures. It was seen as an occasion to enter a non-ordinary state of consciousness."

Vajranatha (2007) associates the Ganachakra with the "higher tantras" or mysteries , the anuttarayogatantra, and associates a non-monastic origin and tributary of this Mystery Rite to the Mahasiddha

Mahasiddha

Mahasiddha is a term for one who cultivates those teachings that lead to becoming perfect. They are a type of eccentric yogini/yogi in both Sanatan Dharma and Vajrayana Dharma, given by Siddhartha. Mahasiddhi are those practitioners, or tantrikas who have gained sufficient understanding and are so...

tradition which has roots in a complex and coterie of esoteric traditions of numerous Siddha

Siddha

A Siddha सिद्ध in Sanskrit means "one who is accomplished" and refers to perfected masters who, according to Hindu belief, have transcended the ahamkara , have subdued their minds to be subservient to their Awareness, and have transformed their bodies into a different kind of body dominated by...

, Yogi

Yogi

A Yogi is a practitioner of Yoga. The word is also used to refer to ascetic practitioners of meditation in a number of South Asian Religions including Jainism, Buddhism, and Hinduism.-Etymology:...

, Sadhu

Sadhu

In Hinduism, sādhu denotes an ascetic, wandering monk. Although the vast majority of sādhus are yogīs, not all yogīs are sādhus. The sādhu is solely dedicated to achieving mokṣa , the fourth and final aśrama , through meditation and contemplation of brahman...

and holy peoples of Buddhist, Hindu and non-sectarian practices and views:

The Higher Tantras could not be a congregational practice of monks because Tantric sadhana, as well as celebrations of the High Tantric feast or Ganachakrapuja, required partaking of meat, wine, and sexual intercourse. At the very least the latter two would force a monk to break his vows. And so what came about in the eleventh century was a change in the external style of practice; the Anuttara Tantras, many of them freshly brought from India and newly translated into Tibetan, came to be practiced in the style of the lower Yoga Tantras. Although there is a great deal of ritual in the Yoga Tantras, there is nothing there that would require a monk to violate his monastic vows. The presence of a woman or Dakini is required at High Tantric initiation and also at the Tantric feast of the Ganachakrapuja, but in the eleventh century reform the actual Dakini physically present was replaced by a mind-consort (yid kyi rig-ma), a visualization of the Dakini. One did the sexual practice only in visualization, not in actuality. In this way the practices of the Higher Tantras could be taken into the monasteries and incorporated into the congregations practice and liturgy of the monks known as puja.

In Tibetan Buddhism

In Vajrayana

Vajrayana

Vajrayāna Buddhism is also known as Tantric Buddhism, Tantrayāna, Mantrayāna, Secret Mantra, Esoteric Buddhism and the Diamond Vehicle...

and Dzogchen

Dzogchen

According to Tibetan Buddhism and Bön, Dzogchen is the natural, primordial state or natural condition of the mind, and a body of teachings and meditation practices aimed at realizing that condition. Dzogchen, or "Great Perfection", is a central teaching of the Nyingma school also practiced by...

, it is traditional to offer a gaṇacakra to Padmasambhava

Padmasambhava

Padmasambhava ; Mongolian ловон Бадмажунай, lovon Badmajunai, , Means The Lotus-Born, was a sage guru from Oddiyāna who is said to have transmitted Vajrayana Buddhism to Bhutan and Tibet and neighbouring countries in the 8th century...

or other deities, usually gurus, on the tenth lunar day

Lunar day

In space exploration, a lunar day is the period of time it takes for the Earth's Moon to complete one full rotation on its axis with respect to the Sun. Equivalently, it is the time it takes the Moon to make one complete orbit around the Earth and come back to the same phase...

, and to a form of dakini

Dakini

A dakini is a tantric deity described as a female embodiment of enlightened energy. In the Tibetan language, dakini is rendered khandroma which means 'she who traverses the sky' or 'she who moves in space'. Sometimes the term is translated poetically as 'sky dancer' or 'sky walker'. The dakini, in...

such as Yeshe Tsogyal

Yeshe Tsogyal

Yeshe Tsogyal , was the consort of the great Indian tantric teacher Padmasambhava, the founder-figure of the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. Nyingma tradition considers her equal in realization to Padmasambhava himself. The meditational practices related to her, stress her enlightened...

, Mandarava

Mandarava

Mandarava is, along with Yeshe Tsogyal, one of the two principal consorts of Padmasambhava and is considered a female guru-deity. Mandarava, born a princess in Mandi, Himachel Pradesh, India in the 8th Century CE, renounced her royal birthright in order to practice the Dharma, and became a fully...

or Vajrayogini on the twenty-fifth lunar day. Generally, participants are required by their samaya

Samaya

The samaya , is a set of vows or precepts given to initiates of an esoteric Vajrayana Buddhist order as part of the abhiṣeka ceremony that creates a bond between the guru and disciple.According Keown, et al., Samaya may be defined as:*A particular system of teaching or...

"vow" to partake of meat and alcohol, and the rite tends to have elements symbolic of coitus. Traditions of the Ganachakra liturgy and rite extends remains of food and other compassionate offerings to alleviate the insatiable hunger of the hungry ghosts, genius loci
Genius loci
In classical Roman religion a genius loci was the protective spirit of a place. It was often depicted in religious iconography as a figure holding a Cornucopia, patera and/or a snake. There are many Roman altars found in Western Europe dedicated in whole or in part to the particular Genius Loci...

and other entities.

David Snellgrove

David Snellgrove

David Llewellyn Snellgrove is a British Tibetologist noted for his pioneering work on Buddhism in Tibet as well as his many travelogues.-Biography:...

(1987) holds that there is a tendency oft-promoted by Tibetan lamas who disseminate teachings in the Western world, to treat references to sexual union and to sadhana that engages with the "five impure substances" (usually referred to as the "five nectars") as symbolic. In the Twilight Language

The Twilight Language

Twilight language is a rendering of the Sanskrit term — or of their modern Indic equivalents ....

of correspondences and substitutions there is no inconsistency. Although, when modern tantric apologists and scholars employ the term "symbolic" as though no external practices were engaged in literally, they mislead and perpetuate an untruth. Snellgrove (1987) provides an amended translation of his earlier translation of the Hevajra Tantra (II. vii.5-13):

Placing the linga in the bhaga and kissing her again and again, so producing the experience of Great Bliss, the Adamantine One talked about feasting. Now listen, Goddess of wide open eyes, to the matter of feasting in the company-circle, where having feasted, there is such fulfillment (siddhi) which fulfills the substance of all one's desires. One should set about this feasting in a cemetery or a mountain cave, in a resort of nonhuman beings or in a deserted place. One should arrange seats there, reckoned as nine, in the form of corpses or tiger skins or shrouds from a cemetery. The one who embodies Hevajra should be placed in the center of the yoginis, whose places are known, as taught before, in the main directions and intermediate points. Then seated upon one's tiger skin, one should eat the "spiced food" of the sacrament, enjoying it, and one should eat with eagerness the "kingly rice." When one has eaten and eaten again, one should honor the mother-goddesses there and they may be mother or sister or niece or mother-in-law. One should honor them to a high degree and gain fulfillment in their company. The chief lady should offer to the master an unmarred sacred skull filled with liquor, and having made obeisance to him, she should drink it herself. She should hold it in her hands in a lotus-gesture, and present it with the same gesture. Again and again they make obeisance, those winners of fulfillment.

In the Tibetan Buddhist practice of Chöd

Chöd

Chöd , is a spiritual practice found primarily in Tibetan Buddhism. Also known as "Cutting Through the Ego," the practice is based on the Prajñāpāramitā sutra...

, a variation of the gaṇacakra has the practitioner visualizing offering their own body as a feast for the gods/demons invited to the feast.

Alcohol in Vajrayana

Crowley (1996) states: