Knowra Ganachakra Ganachakra A tantric ritual feast in which practitioners make offerings, share consecrated food and drink, and engage in communal practice. It is also called a tsok in Tibetan Buddhism.
Tsok : A Tibetan Buddhist offering feast, commonly involving ritual offerings and the sharing of consecrated food. This Tibetan name is often used for the ganachakra ceremony.
Vajrayana : A form of Mahayana Buddhism that uses tantric methods, including mantra, visualization, and ritual. Ganachakra is a ritual practice within Vajrayana Buddhism.
Mahasiddha : A tantric adept in South Asian Buddhist and Hindu traditions, associated with realized powers and unconventional practice. Indian tantric adepts are associated with the ritual culture from which the feast developed.
Chöd : A Tibetan Buddhist practice involving visualization, ritual music, and symbolic offering of the practitioner’s body. Chöd ceremonies can include a ganachakra as a communal offering.
Pure and impure : A distinction used in religious and social systems to classify substances, actions, or states as clean or defiled. Tantric feast practice can challenge ordinary distinctions between pure and impure offerings.
Tantric vows : Commitments that guide conduct and practice in Buddhist tantra. The feast can renew or strengthen practitioners’ commitments within tantric practice.
Buddhist tantra : Buddhist systems of practice that use ritual, mantra, visualization, and initiation toward awakening. Tantric methods provide the ritual framework for the feast.
Cakrasaṃvara Tantra : A major Buddhist tantra centered on the deity Cakrasaṃvara and associated tantric practices. Its ritual tradition is one context for the development of tantric feast practices.
Drikung Kagyu : A major lineage of the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism. Drikung Kagyu communities perform feast offerings within their lineage practice.
Tantra : A family of religious traditions and methods using ritual, initiation, and esoteric teachings. The feast expresses tantra’s transformation of ritual substances into a path of practice.
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