Sadhana

The Hindu Cainite vampires of India practice a form of blood sorcery, called Sadhana, which predates the prominent Tremere of modern nights by thousands of years. Sadhana is a Hindi word which literally translates as "[the] working", and is the analogous Hindi word for thaumaturgy (which itself means "working of miracles"). Both the mortal mages of India and the Cainite vampires of India, as speakers of the Hindi language, use the Hindi word sadhana to refer to their sorcery. The vampiric condition creates a unique relationship between the vampire and magical energy though, so while it does bear overlapping principles with mortal sadhana, vampiric Sadhana is by necessity the product of some distinctly vampiric principles, which meams that only a portion of the principles of the vampiric Discipline of Sadhana are interchangeable with mortal sadhana without modification. (The Nagaraja vampires, having once been mortal mages, have made significant contributions to the development of vampiric Sadhana.)

Prana is the life energy which vampires steal from the living via their blood, and via the methods of vampiric Sadhana the practitioner uses the stolen prana to enable him/her to alter reality according to mystical formulae learned from grimoires. The seminal thaumaturgic grimoires among Hindu Cainites are the unabridged versions of the Atharva-Veda and the Yajur-Veda.

Practitioners of sadhana know the three cosmic principles of Production, Preservation, and Purification. Rather than invoke the Hindu trinity of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva though, Cainite practitioners instead call upon the names of the analogous Shaivite trinity. Instead of invoking Brahma the Producer, Cainite practitioners call upon the Wyld-aspected Wyrm named Sadyojata; instead of invoking Vishnu the Preserver, Cainite practitioners call upon the Weaver-aspected Wyrm named Vamadeva; and instead of invoking Shiva the Purifier, Cainite practitioners instead usually call upon the self-referential Wyrm named Aghora. Hindu Cainites sometimes refer to their thirst for blood as "Vamadeva's thirst".

Practitioners: raktasadhu
A practitioner of vampiric Sadhana is called a raktasadhu, which means "blood worker". Some raktasadhu refer to their blood sorcery as Raktasadhana ("blood working") in order to differentiate it from the sadhana of mortal mages, but unfortunately due to tradition that clarified naming convention has not gained traction among the majority of raktasadhu.

The Cainite bloodlines with the deepest roots in India are the Daitya, Danava, Nagaraja, and Ravnos. Despite the fact that not every member of the Ravnos practices Sadhana, the term raktasadhu is still sometimes used to collectively refer to all Indian Cainites, largely because they have as of yet neglected to formalize their web of ephemeral allegiances into an actual Sect or Court. Those allegiances might not even have come into existence at all though if it were not for the opposition from the Cathayan vampires of the Infinite Thunders Court of southern India and the Golden Court of eastern India.

Knowledge is power, and the Daitya inherited a tremendous wealth of applicable theological and thaumaturgic knowledge from their Setite ancestors, and then they evolved their knowledge of Shiva beyond that of their ancestors. Daitya used their superior knowledge regarding Shiva as leverage to claim the majority of the positions of leadership among the raktasadhu of India. The Nagaraja, who wield Shiva's Oblivion as a weapon, probably could have assumed those leadership positions had they returned to India sooner, but by the time they did return they were too few in number and the Daitya were already too firmly entrenched.

Primary sourcebook: Blood Sacrifice: The Thaumaturgy Companion