Shava sadhana

Shava sadhana (śāva sādhanā) is a Tantric sadhana (spiritual practice) in which the practitioner sits on a corpse for meditation. Shava sadhana is part of the Vamachara (heterodox, Left-hand path) practice of worship, which is followed by the esoteric Tantra.

Shava sadhana is regarded as one of Tantra's most important, most difficult and most secret rituals. Tantric texts as well as oral tales detail the process of the ritual and also tell its importance. The purpose of practicing the ritual range from knowledge, propitiating a deity, material motives, even dark objectives to gaining control over the spirit of the deceased. There are strict rules that need to be followed in the ritual, even in selection of a suitable corpse for the ceremony.

The following Tantric texts detail the ritual process: Kaulavali-nirnaya, Shyamarahasya, Tara-bhakti-sudharnava, Purasharcharyarnava, Nilatantra, Kulachudamani and Krishnananda's Tantrasara. The Kali tantra says that those who worship goddess Parvati without shava sadhana will suffer in Naraka (hell) until dissolution of the world.

An oral tale about the shava sadhana is told by the Tantrikas of Bengal. Vasudeva Bhattacharya of Tipperah (West Bengal) went to the Goddess temple of Kamakhya and worshipped the deity by Tantric means. A voice told him about the ritual and that he will gain moksha in his next life when he will be reborn as his own grandson Sarvananda. Vasudeva gave his servant Purvananda an engraved copper plate with a mantra. Purvananda, now an old man, now served Sarvananda, who he passed the secret of shava sadhana ritual, told by his former master. Purvananda volunteered to be used as the corpse for shava sadhana and Sarvananda performed the ritual, where ghosts tormented him; storms tried to interrupt his practice; beautiful dancers tempted him, until the Goddess gave him a vision. She blessed him with vak siddhi, the ability to make something happen by just saying it. She also revived the servant. Sarvananda became a siddha and the first tantrika to see the theophany of the Goddess' ten mahavidya forms. The Shakta poet Ramprasad Sen is also told to have performed the ritual and gained the vision of his patron, goddess Kali.

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Wikipedia