charnel ground

charnel ground

In India and Tibet, a charnel ground is a place where dead bodies are brought for cremation or exposure to be consumed by vultures. In early Buddhism, practitioners would come to these places to meditate on death and impermanence. In tantric forms of Hinduism and in Vajrayana Buddhism, these charnel grounds became an important gathering place for yogins, and a source of transgressive imagery for iconographies of tantric deities and the siddhas who embody these practices.