[Advaita-l] Advaitic Foods - Vedic ritual involving animal-killing

[Satish Arigela]

>From: Jaldhar H. Vyas jaldhar at braincells.com

>The practices followed in the North-East are base on vamachari tantric 
>principles and is condemned by >the Vedas.

The frequent claim of the vAmAchAri-s on the other hand is that their path is 
the essence of the veda. Additionally they say only one who adheres to the 
vaidika-AchAra can eventually graduate into their fold like finishing  high 
school to go to college. IMHO the claim is a bit stretched & exaggerated but not 
entirely baseless. But that is for another discussion.

>In vaidika dharma blood and the shedding of blood is considered polluting and 
>the sacrificial animals >were garotted with a noose not decapitated. 
>

? Arent there specific mantra-s used for making oblations of the fat, or other 
body parts of the animal?
I doubt the acuracy of the later part of the above statement. But of course 
blood is looked upon as polluting.

>In the tantras, the flow of blood is important precisely because it is polluting 
>hence the use of a knife or >sword.

This may not be entirely correct

>A Smarta may no more be involved in such tantrik worship than in Muslim or 
>Christian worship.

Perhaps you should say neo-smArta-s who were heavily influenced by the English 
morals of the Victorian era? :-)

>The Vamacharis in fact say it should be another woman involved.  The whole point 
>of their philosophy is >to be as transgressive of the norms as possible. 

This is only half true: Especially the later part applies only to some sects

It is good if another woman is involved. Here is the reason: The tAntrIka who is 
performing this ritual involving maithuna needs to have one very important 
quality: He should look upon all parastrI-s as his mother.

Since if wife is involved there is this extreme danger of momentarily the manas 
being occupied by lustful thoughts, they use a different strI. Since the 
qualification for this ritual is to look upon other woman without lustful 
thoughts, it is guaranteed now that the ritualist is safe-guarded from lustful 
thoughts entering the mind during the performance. As one can see it is not an 
easy thing to perform..which is the reason they say these rituals are like 
walking on the edge of a sword. A momentary loss of grip over the manas in such 
rituals is said to bring great disaster to the performer

>Less extreme tantriks say it should be with ones own wife and the dakshinacharis 
>who are more in tune >with the Vedic path say it is a symbolic concept only.

a dakShiNAchAri can perform it with his wife. Likewise a brAhmaNa when 
performing these vAmAchAra rites uses appropriate substitutes and the strI would 
be his own wife... but he should gave very good control over the manas. 


But one may ask why adopt some ritual containing elements outside the AchAra and 
then use substitutes?
They are multiple answers to this and none of them are simple to explain, I feel 
at the moment.