Meaning of Vamachara | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A path to bliss through practices, including meat-eating, breaking social taboos and indulging in sex and intoxicants, that are sometimes considered immoral.
   countable, uncountable
2. A follower of the vamachara path.
3. Any such path, set of practices or individual practice.
   countable

Examples

“The Dravidians, mild inhabitants of India, worshipped Pitrus (forefathers) and other iconographic representations of deity, emphasizing the hierophantic side of worshipping idols, which included Vamacharas, left-hand practices of the Shakti cult, etc.”

“"The initiated Bhatta (Kashmiri Brahmin) bent upon taking liquor, being addicted to Vamachara by which the pride of his own clan has been set at naught, with a plate of fish in his hand, approaches the house of his teacher[…]."”

“The Aryanised socio-religious culture had degenerated into Vamachara Tantric practices, the cult of sex and palate.”

“The Dakshinacharas emphasised the male principle while the Vamacharas paid more attention to the female principle. But, both exalted sex to a religious principle.”

“Above all, in the medley of Aryans, Mongols and aborigines, which it created, it unconsciously led the way to some of the hideous Vamacharas.”

“The Vamacharas follow texts like Kularnava, Kamika, and the Parasurama agamas among others.”

“The other vamachara does indeed exist here with all its objectionable practices, in the name of the worship of innumerable petty female deities such as Mariyamman.”

“2002, Vamachara, entry in James G. Lochtefeld, The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Hinduism: N-Z, page 736, Within the tantric tradiion itself there is a long-standing debate about the propriety of such acts, and whereas the vamachara practice uses these elements in their actual forms, in the dakshinachara ("right-hand") practice other items are substituted for the forbidden ones.”

“She also predicted the tantric sadhanas I would do in the future, both vamachara and dakshinachara. ‘Vamachara? I have no such plan, Mother.’ 'You will have to do lata sadhan, mahacheen kram, kaulik sadhana and mahamudra.' She laughed, for she had just named sadhanas that required a female consort.”

“Side by side with popular saivism, which was being guided by tantras, including those of vamacharas, from a fairly earl[y] period[…].”

“[…]he strongly reproves the yogic ideal of rejection of household life, indulgence in mortification of the body and the vamacharas for the realisation of so-called Mahasukha.”

“It is said that one is born into one of the dakshinacharas, but that one must be initiated into any of the vamacharas.”

CEFR level