Charnel ground

Sky burial (Tibetan: བྱ་གཏོར་, Wylie: bya gtor, lit. "bird-scattered") is a funeral practice in which a corpse is placed on a mountaintop to decompose while exposed to the elements, or to be eaten by scavenging animals, especially crows, vultures, bears and jackals. Comparable excarnation practices are part of Zoroastrian burial rites where deceased are exposed to the elements and scavenger birds on stone structures called Dakhma. Sky burials are endemic to Tibet, Qinghai, Sichuan, and Inner Mongolia, as well as in Mongolia, Nepal, Bhutan, and parts of India such as Sikkim and Zanskar. The locations of preparation and sky burial are understood in the Vajrayana Buddhist traditions as charnel grounds. Few such places remain operational today, as the practice was completely banned during the Cultural Revolution as a superstitious practice; in modern times, the practice is regulated by the Chinese Communist Party due to the ongoing decline of vulture populations.

The majority of Tibetan people and many Mongols adhere to Vajrayana Buddhism, which teaches the transmigration of spirits. In this tradition there is no need to preserve the body, as it becomes an empty vessel upon death. Birds may eat it or nature may cause it to decompose. The function of the sky burial is simply to dispose of the remains in as generous a way as possible (the origin of the practice's Tibetan name). In much of Tibet and Qinghai, the ground is too hard and rocky to dig a grave, and due to the scarcity of fuel and timber, sky burials were typically more practical than the traditional Buddhist practice of cremation, which has been limited to high lamas and some other dignitaries.

Kaula, also known as Kula, Kulamaarga ("the Kula path") and Kaulaachaara ("the Kaula tradition"), is a Tantric tradition which is characterised by distinctive rituals and symbolism connected with the worship of Shakti and Shiva that is associated with cremation-ground or charnel ground asceticism, found in Shaktism and Shaivism. Different types of Kulacharam were practiced in Assam, Mithila, Kashmir, Bengal, Tripura and Kerala as its primary worships.

Kaula preserves some of the distinctive features of the Kapaalika tradition, from which it is derived. It is subdivided into four subcategories of texts based on the goddesses Kuleshvari, Kubjikaa, Kali, and Tripurasundari respectively. The Trika texts are closely related to the Kuleśvarī texts and can be considered as a 'domesticised' part of the Kulamaarga. These subcategories emerged as cults with a wide range of practices—some with mild practices involving worship of Siva or Sadashiva as a householder deity while others involved worshiping ferocious goddesses with blood, alcohol and erotic offerings.