vaishyas did all sorts of economic activ-
ity, from farming to animalhusbandry
to all sorts of trades and services.
Vaitarani
In Hindu mythology, a river flowing
through the underworld over which
souls must cross on the way to their
audience with the god Yama, the god of
the dead. For righteous people the
crossing is fairly easy, and they are widely
believed to get over by holding the tail
of a cow. For wicked people, on the
other hand, the Vaitarani is a river of
pus, blood, spit, and other polluting
substances, in which various ferocious
beasts lie in wait.
Vajapeya
Along with the Rajasuya, one of the
two most famous of the Vedic sacrifices.
The Vajapeya sacrificewas essentially
intended to provide an established
king with continuing strength and
vitality, magically rejuvenating him
after a long reign and in the face of
advancing age. In ancient times the
rite was elaborate and entailed the
sacrifice of animals; when it is
performed in modern times it is
performed in one day, and the animal
sacrificeis symbolic.
Vajra
Name for the thunderbolt, conceived
as one of the divine weapons. It has
two symmetrical sides, sometimes
pointed, with a handle in the middle.
The vajra is an enormously important
symbol in Buddhism, particularly the
tantric forms (i.e., secret, ritually based
religious practices) found in Tibet, but
it appears very seldom in Hindu
iconography. It is attested to be an
attribute of certain forms of the gods
Ganeshand Vishnu, but on the whole it
is not as important as some of the other
symbols. See also tantra.
Vajreshvari Devi
(“Goddess of the Thunderbolt”)
Presiding deityof the Vajreshvari temple
in Kangra,Himachal Pradesh, and the
only one of the nine Shiwalik goddesses
whose temple is in an urban center.
Kangra has a long tradition as a center of
Goddess worshipand may have been a
site for practitioners of tantra, a secret,
ritually based religious practice. The
charter myth identifies Vajreshvari Devi
as one of the Shakti Pithas, a network of
sites sacred to the Goddess, which
spreads throughout the subcontinent.
Each Shakti Pitha marks the site where a
body part of the dismembered goddess
Satifell to earth, taking form there as a
different goddess; in the case of
Vajreshvari Devi the body part was Sati’s
breast—certainly a highly charged part
of the female body, thus making it a
more attractive place for tantric practi-
tioners. Another indication of her possi-
ble connection comes from her name, in
which the image of the thunderbolt car-
ries associations with Buddhist tantric
practice. For further information see
Kathleen Erndl, Victory to the Mother,- See also pitha.
Vajroli Mudra
Yogic practice attributed to Nathpanthi
ascetics, as part of their effort to attain
physical immortality through the prac-
tice of hatha yoga. The dominant
metaphor used in describing the
process of gaining immortality in this
manner is the union of sunand moon,
in which the sun stands for the
processes of change and destruction,
and the moon for stability and immor-
tality. In some cases this union was
described in very abstract terms, as a
process in the subtle body, at other
times in the most concrete possible
fashion, for which the best example is
vajroli mudra. This is urethral suction
or the “fountain-pen technique,” in
which a man, having ejaculated into
his female partner, draws his semen,
now refined through contact with the
woman’s uterine blood, back into hisVaitarani