From the careful selection and
examination of skulls in accordance to all kinds of favorable signs and
circumstances, as well as their respectful treatment and use in serious
religious practice, we may draw the conclusion that Tibetan skull rituals have
to be the first understood in the light of the esoteric Tantric tradition.
According to the Tantric view and method every inner and outer phenomenon
regardless whether it is good or bad is to be used as a driving factor to
Enlightenment. Based on the recognition of qualities and awareness of obstacles
the Tantric path has means to integrate whatever occurs into process of ripening
towards enlightenment: then positive factors are used by remaining unattached to
them, negative forces are transformed into liberating wisdom.
Skulls are regarded as "karmic vessels" which contain the good and bad qualities
of the dead person. The karmic force of the dead is still alive in the skull and
thus will infect living beings on touch. Only with the proper religious
instruction and Tantric transmission one is able to make skillful use of the
power of skulls. Otherwise even the skull of a Bodhisattva may cause harm to the
inexperienced bearer.
The written sources on that subject indicate doubtlessly, that the use of skulls
in Tibetan rituals is strongly influenced by Indian practice, particularly in
its Tantric context. From ethnographic studies it is known that in ancient India
the influences of local popular forms of belief may have played an important
role for the origination of tantric cults; clearly recognizable is an affinity
to thoughts which have been already expressed in the Atharvaveda.
Without going further into studying the question of Tantric history in India,
Buddhist as well as Hindu, we rather have to ask how far this strongly Indian
influenced practice of skull rituals is rooted in the pre-Buddhist ideology of
Tibet.
What concerns the tradition of Bon, no such use is reported. In contrary, at the
famous debate of bSam yas about 792 the Bon pos explicitly argued that their
religion was "clean", because they do not make use of human bones and skulls for
their rites such as Buddhist do. Nevertheless the very elaborate "Knochenkunde"
which the Tibetans have developed within the frame of Buddhist Tantric thought,
indicates an influence obviously founded on local pre-Buddhist beliefs as well,
a hypothesis which still needs to be proven by revealing its underlying
ethnoreligous concepts. So far we can only take into consideration certain
points: The idea of the infectious forces of the skull remind the animalistic
concept of Mana and Tabu, the belief to regard objects which are considered to
be sacred or of sacral use, to be alive and capable of will power.
For hunters like the Jakutes, Buriats and other Siberian tribes the bones of
human and animals are considered as the last source of life which can recreate
at will. Also one of the main characteristics of bear-cults in Siberia is its
concept of equalizing bears with humans which includes sexual relations between
the two. Excavations in Siberia produced Paleolithic settlements entirely built
out of mammut and rhinoceros bones.
Human skulls have been there obviously used for shamanistic rites, as the skulls
of ancestors are "holy relics of the tribe - the source of mystic power, a
legacy for the well-being of the tribe". Eliade noted also the obvious
similarity between the shamanistic costumes and masks in Tibet.
Tantric Buddhism in Tibet has assimilated and integrated successfully many
aspects of regional popular beliefs. Therefore we can presume that the highly
developed "Knochenkunde" in Tibet which excels in accuracy, detail and
interpretation its Indian tradition, has been rooted in an already firmly
established tradition of entirely Tibetan origin. We may presume an influence
from Central Asia in connection with shamanism of hunting rituals, because a
similar process happened in other scientific fields, such as medicine and
astrology, where the local Tibetan tradition was enriched by the Indian and
Chinese systems. This, however, is only a projective view.
At present we are not able to determine in which way Tibetan skull rites are
rooted in popular local ideology. The excavations so far done in Tibet, have
produced only bone objects such as needles and spoons, dating back some 10,000
years. They are not evidence enough to substantiate theories about antiquity of
human skull rites in Tibetan prehistory. Unless archeological research in Tibet
has not produced clearer results, no further conclusion in direction of a
cultural history on human skull rites in Tibet can be drawn, a project which -
considering the material involved, "the cradle" of human thought - certainly
deserves more attention.