Khaṭvāṅga

A khaṭvāṅga () is a long, studded staff or club with a skull at the top. The weapon is found in the iconography of Tantric Hindu as well as Tibetian Vajrayana Buddhism. It is variiously described as "a skull - topped club, a skull - mounted trident, or a trident - staff on which three skulls are impaled".

Fabrication

Originally, the khatvāṅga was made of bones, especially, the long bones of forearm or the leg of human beings or animals. Later, wood and metal were used. The khatvāṅga is a long club with skulls engraved on the body.

Hinduism

The Hindu deity Shiva is sometimes depicted carrying the khatvanga, thus referred by the epithet ''khatvāṅgī''. The weapon is referred in Bhavabhuti's ''Mālatīmādhava'' and Śiva Stutī of Narayana Panditacharya.

Vajrayana Buddhism

In the Vajrayana of Tibetan Buddhism, the symbol of the skull-topped trident (''khaṭvānga'') is said to be inspired by its association with the Kāpālikas.

Khatvanga is originally understood as Tibetan Hayagriva's weapon. It evolved as a traditional ritualistic symbol in Tibetan religions and Tantric traditions like Vajrayana Buddhism, and in the Vajrayana of Tibetan Buddhism. The khatvānga was also used as tribal shaman shafts.

Author Robert Beer states that "The form of the Buddhist ''khaṭvāṅga'' derived from the emblematic staff of the early Indian Shaivite ''yogis'', known as ''kapalikas'' or "skull-bearers". The ''kapalikas'' were originally miscreants who had been sentenced to a twelve-year term of penance for the crime of inadvertently killing a Brahmin. The penitent was prescribed to dwell in a forest hut, at a desolate crossroads, in a charnel ground, or under a tree; to live by begging; to practice austerities; and to wear a loin-cloth of hemp, dog, or donkey-skin. They also had to carry the emblems of a human skull as an alms-bowl, and the skull of the Brahmin they had slain mounted upon a wooden staff as a banner. These Hindu ''kapalika'' ascetics soon evolved into extreme outcaste adherents of the " left-hand" Tantric path (Sanskrit: Vāmamārga) of ''shakti'' or goddess worship. The early Buddhist tantric ''yogins'' and ''yoginis'' adopted the same goddess or ''dakini'' attributes of the ''kapalikas''. These attributes consisted of; bone ornaments, an animal skin loincloth, marks of human ash, a skull-cup, ''damaru'', flaying knife, thighbone trumpet, and the skull-topped Tantric staff or ''khaṭvāṅga''".

Robert Beer relates how the symbolism of the khatvāṅga in the Vajrayana of Tibetan Buddhism, particularly the Nyingma school founded by Padmasambhava, was a direct borrowing from the Shaiva Kapalikas, who frequented places of austerity such as charnel grounds and crossroads as a form of "left-handed path" (vamachara) sādhanā. In Padmasambhava's iconographic representations, the khatvanga represents his scribe, biographer and spiritual consort Yeshe Tsogyal. The weapon's three severed heads denotes moksha from the three worlds (Trailokya); it has a rainbow sash representing the Five Pure Lights of the mahābhūta.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Khatvanga
Weapons of Shiva
Buddhist ritual implements
Weapons in Buddhist mythology