The corpse is washed and placed on tiger or deer skin or a bed of kusha grass. In Shakta ritual as described in the Tantrasara, the corpse is worshipped with flowers and invoked as a form of Bhairava (a form of Shiva) and the seat of the Goddess and requested to awaken to please the Goddess. Andre Padoux interprets shava sadhana as black magic which is done to accomplish evil motives. For Aghoris, the purpose is not spiritual, but simply to acquire the skull for rituals or gain power over the soul of the deceased so that he can act as a medium to other spirits or acquire powers to control them. It may also be conducted to placate a personal deity. The ritual is said to erase the fear of death from the practitioner's mind. Since it deals with directly encountering death, it is believed to lead to non-death, symbolized by longevity, wealth and power. The ritual is done using a corpse, considered a highly impure and inauspicious symbol in traditional Hinduism. The detachment leads to freedom from Samsara (the cycle of birth, death and reincarnation) and the adept goes beyond the orthodox concepts of purity and impurity auspiciousness and inauspiciousness. From a yogic or Tantric point of view, it signifies detachment from the physical world, and uniting with the Absolute, identified with the male god Shiva, the Divine Mother Shakti or the abstract Brahman. An aim of shava sadhana is to unite the Kundalini with Param Shiva. The purpose to do shava sadhana varies from person to person. The Shakta poet Ramprasad Sen is also told to have performed the ritual and gained the vision of his patron, goddess Kali. Sarvananda became a siddha and the first tantrika to see the theophany of the Goddess' ten mahavidya forms. She blessed him with vak siddhi, the ability to make something happen by just saying it. 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. Purvananda, now an old man, now served Sarvananda, who he passed the secret of shava sadhana ritual, told by his former master. Vasudeva gave his servant Purvananda an engraved copper plate with a mantra. 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 Bhattacharya of Tipperah (West Bengal) went to the Goddess temple of Kamakhya and worshipped the deity by Tantric means. An oral tale about the shava sadhana is told by the Tantrikas of Bengal.
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