Kamamudra or Karmamudra?

[Nirveda]

I've seen the tantric sexual practices referred to as kamamudra and karmamudra. Which one is correct?

Thank you.

[Will]

Karmamudra

[Tilopa]

Karmamudra

No it's kama mudra.

Kama = desire. As in kama loka - desire realm - and Kama Sutra.

[Will]

Karmamudra

No it's kama mudra.

Kama = desire. As in kama loka - desire realm - and Kama Sutra.

In Vajrayana it is karmamudra, as many tantric gurus have taught. Here is the first Panchen Lama for example:

When the practice has developed stability and you have arrived at the point where the knots constricting the heart chakra are ready to be released, take up the practice of karmamudra ["action seal"] with a qualified sexual consort, with you being the relier and the consort being the relied-upon, until the energies that support the final semblant clear light arise in the actual form of Heruka.

Another quote from your own namesake - Tilopa:

When serving a karmamudra, the pure awareness
of bliss and emptiness will arise:
Composed in a blessed union of insight and means,
Slowly send down, retain and draw back up the bodhichitta,
And conducting it to the source, saturate the entire body.
But only if lust and attachment are absent will that awareness arise.

Then gaining long-life and eternal youth, waxing like the moon,
Radiant and clear, with the strength of a lion,
You will quickly gain mundane power and supreme enlightenment.

[Tilopa]

Yes you are right, my mistake. Thanks.

[conebeckham]

It most certainly is Karma Mudra. In Tibetan it's translated as las.kyi.phyag.rgya or "Lay Kyi Chag Gya," meaning "Mudra (seal?) of Action/Activity (Karma)."