The hourglass-shaped drum known in Sanskrit as "damaru" is a sacred instrument used in ritual shamanic performances in Mongolia, India and Tibet.
Its curved shape is a symbolic unification of yin and yang. Fashioned out of a human cranium, the drum is comprised of two skulls: a boy of sixteen and a girl of twelve. Monkey skins are stretched tightly over the skulls. One side is smeared with sperm, and the other side is decorated with a lotus blossom coated with a twelve year old girl's menstrual blood. The hide is then pierced with sixteen holes and attached to the drum with human hair. The whirling balls are made of the bones of a waterbird's foot and wrapped in wax and cloth.
The damaru drum is an ancient and spiritually potent symbolic medium for ritual music and magic used to communicate the intangible abstract other world through the senses.
In India, the damaru is so highly regarded as a spiritual instrument that everything to do with it is ritualized. It must even be correctly placed with the male skull to the musician's right and the female to his left in accordance with the traditional Yin Yang (masculine/feminine) order.
Sources
• The Rhythm of Music - A Magical and Mystical Harmony
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Posted Oct 24, 2006 - 07:14 , Last Edited: Oct 25, 2006 - 18:48
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