The Kapalikas (worshippers of Kapalin, the skull bearer, a name of Shiva) and the Kalamukhas (“Black-Faced,” so called because of the black mark, or tilak, customarily worn on their foreheads) were often conflated or mistaken for one another. Both were designated as mahavratins (“observers of the great vows”), referring to a 12-year vow of rigorous self-abnegation that was purported to follow the sacrifice of a Brahman or other high-ranking person. The Kapalikas performed their vow in imitation of Shiva’s act of severing one of Brahma’s five heads, which stuck to Shiva’s hand until he entered the city of Varanasi, where the skull fell to the ground at a spot therefore called Kapala-mochana (“The Releasing of the Skull”). Kapala-mochana was subsequently the site of a great temple. During the period of that vow, ascetics ate and drank from a skull (alleged to be that of the person they had sacrificed) and followed practices such as going naked, eating the flesh of the dead, smearing themselves with the ashes of corpses, and frequenting cremation grounds. Other Hindus, Shaivites in particular, were enraged by such practices.
Some otherwise puzzling sculptures on medieval Indian temples are sometimes explained as depicting Kapalika ascetics. An inscription at Igatpuri in Nasik district (Maharashtra state) confirms that the Kapalika were well established in that region in the 7th century. Another important centre was probably Shriparvata (modern Nagarjunikonda) in Andhra Pradesh. From there they spread throughout India. In an 8th-century Sanskrit drama, Malatimadhava, the heroine narrowly escapes being sacrificed to the goddess Chamunda by a pair of Kapalika ascetics. Successors to the Kapalikas in modern times are the Aghoris, or Aghorapanthis, although the latter do not follow all Kapalika practices.
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