vamachara
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See also: Vamachara
English
[edit]Alternative forms
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From Sanskrit वामाचार (vāmācāra, “left (-hand) path; left-handed attainment”).
Pronunciation
[edit]- (Received Pronunciation) /'vɑːmɑːtʃɑːrə/
Noun
[edit]vamachara (countable and uncountable, plural vamacharas)
- (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.
- (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
[edit]- (tantric path): vamamarga