The Kapalika tradition was a non-Puranic, tantric form of Shaivism in India, whose members wrote the Bhairava Tantras, including the subdivision called the Kaula Tantras. These groups are generally known as Kapalikas, the "skull-men," so called because, like the Lakula Pasupata, they carried a skull-topped staff (khatvanga) and cranium begging bowl. Unlike the respectable Hindu householder of the Shaiva Siddhanta, the Kapalika ascetic imitated his ferocious deity, and covered himself in the ashes from the cremation ground, and propitated his gods with the impure substances of blood, meat, alcohol, and sexual fluids from intercourse. The Kapalikas thus flaunted impurity rules and went against Vedic injunctions. The aim was power through evoking deities, especially goddesses.

The Kapalika tradition was a non-Puranic, tantric form of Shaivism in India, whose members wrote the Bhairava Tantras, including the subdivision called the Kaula Tantras. These groups are generally known as Kapalikas, the "skull-men," so called because, like the Lakula Pasupata, they carried a skull-topped staff (khatvanga) and cranium begging bowl. Unlike the respectable Hindu householder of the Shaiva Siddhanta, the Kapalika ascetic imitated his ferocious deity, and covered himself in the ashes from the cremation ground, and propitated his gods with the impure substances of blood, meat, alcohol, and sexual fluids from intercourse. The Kapalikas thus flaunted impurity rules and went against Vedic injunctions. The aim was power through evoking deities, especially goddesses.