vamachara

See also: Vamachara

English

Alternative forms

• vāmācāra
• vāmāchāra
• Vamachara

Etymology

From Sanskrit वामाचार (vāmācāra, “left (-hand) path; left-handed attainment”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) /'vɑːmɑːtʃɑːrə/

Noun

vamachara (countable and uncountable, plural vamacharas)

1. (religion, tantric religion) A path to bliss through practices, including meat-eating, breaking social taboos and indulging in sex and intoxicants, that are sometimes considered immoral.
   • 1977, Saiva Siddhanta, volume 12, page 65:

     The other vamachara does indeed exist here with all its objectionable practices, in the name of the worship of innumerable petty female deities such as Mariyamman.

   • 2002, Vamachara, entry in James G. Lochtefeld, The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Hinduism: N-Z, page 736,

     Within the tantric tradiion itself there is a long-standing debate about the propriety of such acts, and whereas the vamachara practice uses these elements in their actual forms, in the dakshinachara ("right-hand") practice other items are substituted for the forbidden ones.

   • 2014, Om Swami, If Truth Be Told: A Monk's Memoir, unnumbered page:

     She also predicted the tantric sadhanas I would do in the future, both vamachara and dakshinachara.
     ‘Vamachara? I have no such plan, Mother.’
     'You will have to do lata sadhan, mahacheen kram, kaulik sadhana and mahamudra.'
     She laughed, for she had just named sadhanas that required a female consort.

2. (countable) Any such path, set of practices or individual practice.
   • 1981, Ca. Vē Cuppiramaṇiyan̲, S. V. Subramanian, Na Kaṭikācalam, editors, Literary Heritage of the Tamils, page 367:

     Side by side with popular saivism, which was being guided by tantras, including those of vamacharas, from a fairly earl[y] period […] .

   • 1994, H. Kumar Kaul, Aspects of yoga, page 201:

     […] he strongly reproves the yogic ideal of rejection of household life, indulgence in mortification of the body and the vamacharas for the realisation of so-called Mahasukha.

   • 2012, Stephen E. Flowers, Lords of the Left-Hand Path: Forbidden Practices and Spiritual Heresies, unnumbered page:

     It is said that one is born into one of the dakshinacharas, but that one must be initiated into any of the vamacharas.

Synonyms

• (tantric path): vamamarga

Coordinate terms

• dakshinachara

See also

• panchamakara