Horror and Wonder in a Putrid Trench: The Brahmayāmala’s “Rite of the Pit of Power” (siddhigarttāyāga)

This article presents a critical edition and translation of chapter 46 of the Brahmayāmala or Picumata, entitled “Rite of the Pit” (garttāyāga). The Brahmayāmala is one of the earliest surviving goddess-oriented (i.e. Śākta) tantras of the Śaiva Mantramārga, positioning itself within the Vidyāpīṭha (Wisdom-Mantra Corpus) division of Bhairavatantras. Its core chapters may have been composed between 650 and 750 ce. Chapter 46 belongs to a cycle of chapters (46–48) that exemplify mortuary (kāpālika) asceticism of an extreme variety: antinomian rituals with non-soteriological aims set in the cremation ground that entail intense engagement with impurity, ritual violence and the supernatural. This chapter describes a practice—the siddhigarttāyāga (“rite of the pit of power”)—in which the tantric practitioner constructs a pit filled with all manner of impurity and abides there, continuously incanting a mantra until various signs, visions and powers arise.