the Mahavidyas per se, it provides a rather detailed outline of the stages of tantric worship, which can be adapted to any given deity. The ritual may be done almost anywhere, although the text does recommend cer-tain sites, such as a mouncer-taintop or a cave, and says that the ritual is more potent if done at a place sacred to whichever form of the goddess is be-ing worshiped. The ritual may be performed at any time and does not require a prje st. It is done by an individual by and for himself (let us imag-ine that the adept is a male in the following description, although the adept could be female). A physical image of the goddess is not necessary.
The ritual probably takes no longer than an hour and could be done in abbreviated form in considerably less time. The Kdlika-purana describes a continuous set of actions, but we can think of the ceremony as having four parts: (t) preparation, (2) meditation, (3) worship of the goddess her-self, and (4) concluding rites.
The opening rites of sdmanya piijd aim primarily at purification of the adept and the delimitation of an appropriate place within which to per-form the ceremony.SA The adept bathes, sips water (signifying internal purification), and asks the goddess to rid his mind of any impurities. He also recites certain mantras at this point to expel potentially harmful spirits.
The adept next purifies the place of worship by sprinkling water on the ground. He carefully inspects the items to be used in the ritual to in-sure that they are unblemished. Flowers to be offered, for example, should be free from insects. Items are also purified by means of mantras and wa-ter. The adept then draws a yantra (a schematic diagram) representing the particular goddess to be worshiped. In the case of the Mahavidyas, each has her distinctive yantra or mandala.
In the second phase of the ceremony, the adept performs a series of acts that are primarily mental to further purify himself. In general, this part of the rite aims at the adept's symbolic death and dissolution. The text says that the body is composed of impure elements—mucus, feces, urine, and so on—and as such is unfit to be an instrument of worship.
The adept's symbolic death is followed by his mental re-creation of the world and, m 0s t important, by the appearance of the goddess herself.
Assuming the correct posture and practicing breath control, the adept begins a ritual that releases his life force, hisjiva, from his body. He inag-ines his jiva passing through different stages, each connected with ai el-ement: earth, water, fire, air, and sound. Finally, identifying himselfwith space, he imagines his life force leaving his body through the top of his head. This signals his symbolic death.
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The adept then symbolically dissolves his body, which as a microcosm of the universe also represents the physical world as a whole. He imag-ines his body dissolving, then imagimag-ines it burning on a funeral pyre, then imagines the ashes blowing away, and finally imagines a shower of pure nectar cleaning the place where his body had lain and been burned. In effect, the adept has destroyed the cosmos and himself by reducing them to their elemental constituents. His ultimate purification is now complete, and he is ready to be reborn.
Re-creation of the cosmos, and the rebirth of the adept, begins with the adept pronouncing the seed syllable (bija) of the goddess. He then visualizes the different parts of the cosmos, often in the form of letters, syllables, or mantras. He completes the re-creation of the cosmos by vi-sualizing the goddess herself seated on a throne in the center of the world, which is imagined as her particular mandala. Next he identifies himself with the goddess by placing a flower that he has been holding in his hands on top of his head and saying: "I am this." The adept reinforces his de-ification with mudrds (hand gestures) and mantras that identify parts of the cosmos with parts of his body. Having provided himself with a new, divine body (actually identified with the goddess herself), he is now pre-pared to undertake worship of the goddess herself.
This begins with inward worship. That is, the adept imagines the god-dess and her attendants dwelling in his heart. He pictures the godgod-dess by reciting her dhydna mantra, which often describes her in great detail. He then transfers the goddess from his heart into the yantra he has drawn on the ground by exhaling through his right nostril onto a flower that h'e holds in his hand. Her transference to the yantra can also be done with mudrds, hand gestures with which the adept "catches" the goddess and places her in the yantra. The adept now praises the goddess with hymns and treats her as an honored guest by offering her various articles, phys-ically or mentally. The actions are similar to temple pujd, but in contrast to elaborate and costly temple pujd, in this ceremony the adept offers the goddess little more than purified water and flowers. The text instructs the adept, throughout this part of the ceremony, to constantly repeat the goddess's special mantra, which is said to be identical with the goddess herself.
Outward worship of the goddess in the mandala, who can be any of the ten Mahavidyas, closes with a final offering, usually consisting of rice or some other grain. The adept may also make a blood offering. An en-tire chapter in the Kdlika-purana suggests offerings appropriate to the goddess and the rewards that may be expected from them. Among the
T H E MAHAVIDYAS AS A GROUP
Mahavidyas, Kali, Tara, and Chinnamasta are fond of blood offerings, so these are recommended in their worship, while Mahavidyas like Ka-mala do not receive such offerings.
The adept now dismisses the goddess by circumambulating the flower that represents her and mentally visualizing her return to her normal abode: heaven, the adept's heart, or some particular holy place. If the god-dess is visualized as returning to the worshiper's heart, the adept smells the flower that represents her, inhaling her, as it were, and then places the flower on his head. W i t h the worship of the goddess complete, he finishes the ceremony by erasing the yantra or mandala and disposing of the remains of the offerings. The remains are considered especially po-tent and dangerous and must be handled with great care. Fierce goddesses are associated with these leftovers and must be propitiated before the cer-emony is complete.87
Samanya pujd is a ritual through which the worshiper is deified. After ritually undertaking one's own death and dissolution, one re-creates the world and oneself. In this act of re-creation, the goddess is identified with the worshiper. The two are declared essentially one. In this sense, samanya pujd is worship of one's own inner sacred essence as well as of a superior divine being. Or perhaps one could say that in samanya pujd, which is essentially tantric in nature, one reveres one's highest or most essential nature, which is identified with the goddess.
During samanya pujd, then, which is the likely setting for worship of the Mahavidyas, the emphasis is upon individual meditation and identi-fication with the goddess in question. Unlike temple worship, the goal is to inwardly realize the presence of the goddess in the aspirant. Although samanya pujd perceives the goddess in question to be both a superior be-ing who exists outside the sddhaka and an inward dimension or aspect of the worshiper, the emphasis, particularly in comparison to temple wor-ship, is on the latter.
The Mahavidyas are also worshiped in a format known as the left-handed (Vamacara) path in Tantrism. This type of worship is character-ized primarily by the panca tattva or panca makdra ritual, the ritual of the
"five forbidden things." According to the tantras, it is reserved for the few of heroic nature who are capable of undertaking it without harming themselves in the process. The sddhaka must partake of five things that are ordinarily forbidden or are highly polluting: meat, fish, wine, mudrd (a type of grain that may have hallucinogenic properties), and sexual in-tercourse with a woman who is not one's wife (the ritual is described from a male point of view). The ritual is done under the guidance of a guru.
T H E MAHAVIDYAS AS A GROUP 55 Individual texts differ over whether this rite is to be done alone or in a group. Texts devoted to the Mahavidyas often refer to the panca tattva ritual, indicating that at least some of the goddesses are worshiped in this context.
The logic or intention of this ritual appears to be related to perceiv-ing or intensely realizperceiv-ing the basic truth that all of reality, all thperceiv-ings, are pervaded by s'akti, the goddess herself, or brahman. By partaking of for-bidden things, one affirms that ultimately there is nothing that is not the goddess, that nothing is polluting, for she pervades all.8 8 Such distinc-tions as "pure" and "polluting" impose artificial qualificadistinc-tions on the man-ifestation of the goddess as the physical world. The panca tattva ritual seeks to abolish a mentality that perceives the world according to artificial hu-man constructs, that perceives the essentially unified world that is the goddess (or brahman, with which the goddess is often identified) as frac-tured and divided.
The precise connection between the Mahavidyas and the left-handed path, and the panca tattva ritual specifically, is not entirely clear. Their worship may include this ritual, but some may be worshiped by either the right- or left-handed paths. Perhaps the fierce or inauspicious qual-ities of some of the Mahavidyas that are worshiped according to the left-handed path relate to the logic of the panca tattva ritual, in which the adept is forced to confront and partake of forbidden things. Some of the Mahavidyas, particularly Kali, Tara, Dhumavatl, and Chinnamasta, are identified with such harsh realities as death, destruction, old age, and de-crepitude. By confronting these deities, and one's fears, one gains release from the inhibitions and constraints they can generate.