Entheogens in Buddhism

Summary

Crowley argues that entheogenic substances were used in Tibetan Buddhism, tracing their origins to the Indus Valley Civilization rather than the Indo-Aryan tradition. By analyzing ancient texts and myths, including the Vedic Churning of the Ocean and the Tibetan Buddhist Immaculate Crystal Garland, he shows that the Buddhist sacrament amrita is the same as the Vedic soma. He links features of Vajrayana deities to specific psychoactive mushrooms, such as the fly agaric and Psilocybe cubensis, and contends that soma traditions originated from the Indus Valley Civilization's sacramental practices.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Crowley uses his personal engagement with Buddhism and a review and analysis of ancient texts as a basis to address evidence for entheogenic substances in Tibetan Buddhism. Crowley provides a wide-ranging analysis of an idea that has gained increasing popularity—and controversy—that ancient Buddhist practices involved the use of entheogens. Crowley provides analyses of myth and ritual practices that reveal information regarding the identities of entheogenic sacraments of Buddhism and Hinduism. Crowley places his considerations of entheogen use in the context of the development of the Aryan peoples (Indo-European speakers) and the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC). In contrast to a longstanding view that the entheogenic soma traditions of the Vedas originated in the Indo-Aryan civilization, Crowley contends the Indo-Aryans obtained it from IVC. Depictions of ceramic strainers associated with soma ritual resemble much earlier artifacts of the Harappan civilization, indicating that the prototype Iranian haoma and Indic soma traditions derived from cultural transfer from the IVC sacramental practices. This interpretation is consistent with the lack of central psychoactive sacramental rituals among other ancient Indo-European cultures, the exceptions being the related soma of India and haoma in Iran. Further evidence of IVC origins of Vedic/Brahman deities comes from the Aryan deity Rudra, also identified with Agni (“fire”) and Soma. Rudra appears to have been derived from a Dravidian deity that entered the Aryan belief system after they arrived in the Indus Valley since the characteristic features (an archer with horns and a tail) are represented on IVC seals. This background and arguments are, however, largely incidental to Crowley’s main arguments. Crowley’s analyses focus on a central myths of a more recent phase (since 500 BCE), the period that gave rise to new gods and heroes expressed in the epics Mah abh arata and the R am ayan _ a and myths known as pur an _ as (“ancient tales”) that conveyed the beliefs of the nonAryan Indian populations and supported the emergence of Vajray ana Buddhism. The meanings behind these Vajray ana deities nonetheless came from Hindu myth and ritual, and it is the tracing of these similarities between the deities of Hindu and Vajray ana in their characteristics that provides the basis of Crowley’s arguments that Buddhist amr _ ita is the Vedic soma. Crowley’s analysis focuses on the Vedic myth called The Churning of the Ocean, a later account of the origins of soma sacrament. Here we learn of how the Vedic gods stole soma from the asuras, a group outside of the castes that represented the shamanic practitioners of the IVC. Crowley analyzes and compares the Vedic account with the Tibetan Buddhist Vajray ana text Immaculate Crystal Garland which recounts the principal events of the Churning of the Ocean myth, showing its origins in the earlier Sanskrit version. The parallels between Tibetan Buddhist accounts of the origin of amr _ ita as described in The Immaculate Crystal Garland and the origins of soma as related in The Churning of the Ocean reveals the origins of the Buddhist amr _ ita in the Vedic soma. While soma and amr _ ita are used interchangeably in Hinduism, the entheogen is only referred to as amr _ ita in Vajray ana Buddhism. Crowley links the features of various Vajray ana deities to the red cap or other features of the fly agaric mushroom or the purple-necked Psilocybe cubensis. Another significant entheogenic feature involves one of the fourteen “treasures” Kamadhenu (meaning, “desireJournal of Psychedelic Studies

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