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Yoginī Shaman Hatley Department of Asian Studies, University of Massachusetts, Boston, MA, USA
Synonyms Yogeśī ; Yogeśvarī
Definition (1) A female tantric initiate or practitioner of yoga; (2) a kind of medieval tantric goddess, frequently therianthropic and endowed with flight, embodying myriad aspects of the cosmic creative power (śakti)
Introduction: Yoginīs and Their Yoga Yoginī is the feminine of Sanskrit yogin (i.e., yogi), “practitioner of yoga.” In both premodern and modern usage, yoginī may simply refer to a female yogi or tantric initiate. In the early medieval period, however, the word also came to designate a variety of goddess prominent in Śaiva and Buddhist tantric traditions and influential in popular religion as well. Temples dedicated to groups of yoginī s were constructed across India, mainly from the tenth to twelfth centuries, and yoginī s
also left their mark in religious and narrative literatures. This entry mainly concerns the goddesses known as yoginī s, rather than female tantric adepts or practitioners of yoga, though in some contexts the two are conflated. Indeed, one of many meanings of yoginī and closely related terms is “tantric sorceress” or “witch,” a notion carried into the modern world, sometimes with tragic consequences for the women so imagined [1]. The designation yoginī , and even more so the synonyms yogeśī and yogeśvarī, emphasizes the goddesses’ extraordinary yogic powers. Although yoga is typically associated with meditation, asceticism, and bodily praxis, newer scholarship emphasizes the extraordinary powers that have been equally constitutive of the category ‘yoga’ [2]. The yoginī embodies yoga in this sense of numinous power: supernatural attainments that, according to Patañjali’s Yogasūtra, unfold through perfect mastery of yogic discipline [3]. Explanations of the word yoginī emphasize this connection: the goddesses are so called because they possess and may bestow “the majestic powers of yoga” (yogaiśvarya) [4]. The classical view is that these comprise eight supernatural abilities, such as the power to become infinitesimally small, light, or gargantuan at will (aṇiman, laghiman, and mahiman, respectively) [5]. In some tantric traditions, these and other powers are a major focus in the own right. Chapter 20 of the Netratantra presents a distinctive vision of the yoginī s’ yoga, which includes disciplines by
# Springer Nature B.V. 2019 P. Jain et al. (eds.), Hinduism and Tribal Religions, Encyclopedia of Indian Religions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-1036-5_211-1
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which they sap the life force or even “liberate” souls from their bodies unwillingly, against which protective measures are required [6]. As with the ancient deities from whom yoginī s emerged, they are not always benign. While yoginī s defy simple characterization, a multifactorial or “polythetic” definition is possible on the basis of their literary and sculptural depictions [7]. First, yoginī s usually occur in groups, which vary both in number and in the deities’ individual identities. Sets of 6, 24, and 64 are particularly common. Second, yoginī s blur the boundaries between goddesses and women, for female adepts are viewed as potentially becoming yoginī s through sudden gnosis, or through perfection in tantric ritual. Third, yoginī s are organized into clans (kula), though some classifications are based on yoginīs’ domains of activity (terrestrial, aerial, particular sacred places, etc.). Fourth, yoginī s are therianthropic, distinguished by their animal forms and association with shapeshifting. Sculptural and textual representations endow some yoginī s with the heads of animals, from horses and lions to birds and snakes. Fifth, yoginī s are simultaneously associated with danger and impurity and commensurate powers. While linked by etymology to the eight “majestic powers” of yoga, tantric literature in fact provides vast lists of the magical abilities yoginī s both command and bestow, from the Six Acts (ṣaṭkarman) of tantric sorcery, such as driving away or killing enemies, to the preparation of magical elixirs, entry into subterranean paradises, or joining the ranks of the celestial wizards (vidyādhara). Sixth, yoginī s are attributed the dual roles of protecting and transmitting esoteric tantric teachings. Lethal to those who violate the tantras and the initiatory vows, yoginī s may also gift devotees the secret teachings of their clans. Finally, yoginī s are ubiquitously ascribed the power of flight, foremost among the magical attainments sought by their votaries [8].
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Mother-Goddesses (mātr) and the ˙ Yoginīs’ Historical Background Yoginī s first appear in textual sources of around the seventh century C.E. but have earlier antecedents. Their genesis is closely linked to another goddess typology: that of mātṛs, “Mothers” or “Mother-goddesses.” Nonelite goddesses of considerable antiquity, mātṛs appear in both the visual record and texts of the early first millennium, including the Kuṣāṇa-era sculpture of Mathurā, the Mahābhārata, and early medical literature. The yoginīs’ animal features, shapeshifting, multiplicity, martial roles, and simultaneous beauty and danger all find precedent in these early Mother-goddesses, as does their connection with flight. While taking on the mantric identities and powerful iconography of tantric deities, yoginī s have clear continuities with the Kuṣāṇa-era Mother-goddess typology. Their connections are even closer with a set of mātṛs known as the Seven Mothers (sapta mātaraḥ or saptamātṛkā). By the fifth century, public veneration of mātṛs increasingly centered on this newly emergent goddess heptad, comprised of Brāhmī, Māheśvarī, Kaumārī, Vaiṣṇavī, Vārāhī (or Yāmī), Aindrī, and their leader, the fierce and skeletal hag Cāmuṇḍā. An eighth, transcendent goddess sometimes joins the seven, especially in tantric sources. Tantric Śaiva treatises on “the characteristics of yoginī s” (yoginī lakṣaṇa) classify these goddesses as belonging to clans of the Seven or Eight Mothers, in whose natures yoginī s partake as “portions” or “partial manifestations” (aṃśa). The Seven or Eight Mothers are perhaps the most commonly occurring deities in yoginī sets, in both texts and sculpture [9]. While intimately tied to mātṛs, yoginī s have connections with other divine and semi-divine beings as well, such as yakṣī s (dryads). In their power of flight, they inherit the mantle of the vidyādhara and vidyādharī, the celestial wizards of early Indic myth. In their variegated, often wild appearances and martial prowess, they take after
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Śiva’s gaṇas – male deities who often, like their lord Gaṇeśa and many yoginī s, sport animalfaces. At their most malevolent, yoginīs have affinity with vampiric female spirits known as ḍākinī s, who are in fact often incorporated into yoginī taxonomies. Yoginī s have as their most direct antecedents the goddesses called yogakanyās (“yoga maidens”) in the Guhyasūtra of the Niśvāsatattvasaṃhitā, the earliest surviving Śaiva tantra. The cosmology of this source attests a variety of goddesses later brought within the rubric of the yoginī : multiple kinds of Mothergoddess, goddesses called the Sisters (bhaginī s), and yogakanyās, maiden goddesses possessed of yogic powers [10]. While yoginī s thus have ample antecedents and a traceable Indic genealogy, remarkable parallels in the ancient Persian and Greco-Roman worlds suggest the existence of a shared nexus of ideas concerning divine females and witchcraft across cultures. Furthermore, beliefs concerning yoginī s and related goddesses spread from India with Buddhism as far east as Japan. David White’s “Ḍākinī , Yoginī , Pairikā, Strix: Adventures in Comparative Demonology” provides a vivid hypothetical reconstruction of these processes of cultural transmission [11].
Yoginīs as Tantric Goddesses Tantric cults of yoginī s find attestation in the Vidyāpīṭha (“Wisdom Mantra Corpus”) division of Śaiva Bhairavatantras (“Tantras of Bhairava”), and in Vajrayāna Buddhist Yoginī tantras (“Tantras of the Yoginīs”) or Yoganiruttaratantras (“Highest Yoga Tantras”). Although much remains unknown about the dating and relative chronology of this literature, Alexis Sanderson makes a compelling argument that key Buddhist Yoginī tantras and their ritual systems are heavily indebted to Vidyāpīṭha sources and models [12, 13]. Regardless of the direction of influence, yoginī s and their cults are a key shared feature of these forms of Buddhism and Śaivism. Tantras of the Vidyāpīṭha, some of which may date to as early as the seventh century, feature largely female pantheons in which yoginī s, mātṛs, and related goddesses form the entourage
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of various forms of Bhairava and/or Bhairavī. The Tantrasadbhāva presents what might be the earliest reference to a pantheon of 64 yoginī s, a numerical configuration that came to be standard by the second millennium. These texts’ ritual systems are for the most part highly antinomian, drawing on older traditions of cremation-ground asceticism augmented by mantra-based magical rites, ritualized sexuality, and impure offerings (such as alcohol and meat). The iconography of the cult deities is replete with images of violence, death, and eroticism. One of the paradigmatic aims of ritual is attainment of power-bestowing encounters with the goddesses, referred to as yoginī melaka or -melāpa (“rendezvous with yoginī s”) [14]. Doctrinally, these sources conceive of yoginī s and related goddesses as manifold aspects of the supreme deity Śiva’s creative and grace-giving śakti (power). As such, they pervade the universe like rays, permeating the hierarchy of worlds, cycles of time, sacred geography, and even the human body, where they are present as deities of the bodily constituents (dhātu) and cakras of yoga [15]. The sophisticated nondualist Śaiva exegesis of Kashmir reconceptualizes yoginī s as the “rays of cognition” (cinmarīcayaḥ), union with which is the embrace of the cognizing subject and object of knowledge, where the duality of knower and known dissolves into the void of consciousness [16]. Yoginī s became increasingly integral to Tantric Buddhism from the eighth century, beginning with the Sarvabuddhasamāyogaḍākinī jālasaṃvara. They are especially prominent in the Laghucakrasaṃvara, foremost of the cycle of texts dedicated to Cakrasaṃvara and his consort, Vajrayoginī. In a departure from Śaivism, Buddhist Yoginī tantras use the terms ḍākinī and yoginī more or less interchangeably, notwithstanding the association of ḍākinī s with vampiric violence in most nonBuddhist sources. While the earlier Yogatantras organized deities according to clans (kula) of the five Buddhas of the Vajradhātu maṇḍala, texts such as the Laghucakrasaṃvara introduce new, matriarchal deity clans, much as Śaiva yoginī s were classified according to clans and subclans of the Mother-goddesses. Representations of ḍākinī s in
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Indian Buddhist sources tally well with Śaiva conceptions of yoginīs: the goddesses are fully representative of the yoginī typology described above, combining in their mortuary (kāpālika), therianthropic iconography images of power, mystery, and eroticism [17]. By the second millennium, sophisticated Vajrayāna scriptural and exegetical traditions gave yoginī s or ḍākinī s new roles and levels of meaning. A set of 36 yoginī s is integral to the elaborate maṇḍala and bio-cosmology of the Kālacakratantra, for instance [18]. Conceptions of ḍākinī s as mysterious wisdom goddesses remain prominent in Tibetan Buddhism’s rich living traditions [19].
Yoginīs, Women, and Goddesses A major interpretive problem surrounds yoginīs: the term can apply to both goddesses and female practitioners, the boundary between which is frequently blurred. This is partly because the yoginī represents a state of being attainable by women through perfection in tantric ritual. Taxonomies reflect this, bringing within the rubric of the yoginī not only powerful cult deities and minor goddesses of the skies, netherworlds, and places of pilgrimage, but also women of the town and village, any of whom might secretly be a yoginī . Female divinization is thus integral to tantric yoginī cults, and study of yoginīs is crucial to reconstructing women’s roles in tantric traditions. Scholarship has veered in different directions in navigating this issue, sometimes finding historical women where their presence is debatable, and at other times inadequately considering the degree to which depictions of yoginī s and women may converge. Recent studies of early Vidyāpīṭha sources suggest that the terms used for women reflect multiple ritual roles and statuses: while the expressions śakti and dūtī tend to mean “consort” – a female participant in sexual rites – the term yoginī is generally avoided in this context. In contrast, yoginī tends to signify comparatively independent female practitioners, counterparts of the male sādhaka, as well as divine beings [20, 21].
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Temples of the Yoginīs Veneration of yoginī s took on more public forms from the ninth century, when monumental temples dedicated to them began to be constructed across the subcontinent. Alongside yoginī s’ growing prominence in the Purāṇas, these temples mark the goddesses’ entry into a more public religious sphere. Prominent, well-preserved yoginī temples include those of Bheraghat, in Madhya Pradesh, and Hirapur village, near Bhuvanesvar, Orissa. Virtually unique to yoginī temples is that many are round and open to the sky. The enshrined goddesses most often number 64, and several temples feature a central image of Śiva as well as a smaller number of male and female guardian figures [22]. Suiting the aspirations of their elite patrons, these temples seem to represent an adaptation of tantric yoginī pantheons and rituals to a more public, calendrical liturgy performed in permanent structures. While evidence is limited, the rituals performed apparently included image worship, fire ritual, night vigils, and animal sacrifice, with a variety of aims reflecting the goddesses’ diverse identities. Tantric initiates may have had a strong presence at these sites, officiating over worship and perhaps conducting their own, more esoteric practices [23]. Constructed and maintained through at least the thirteenth century, these temples ceased to be in active worship many centuries ago, although more humble yoginī shrines remain in use here and there. The medieval temples lie largely in ruins, and scattered yoginī statuary may now be found in museums throughout the world [24].
Modern Legacies The figure of the yoginī and closely related ḍākinī have complex legacies in contemporary South Asia. In the living “high” śākta tantric traditions, yoginī s have relatively minor roles, appearing, for instance, among the goddesses in the pantheon of the śrīcakra of Śrīvidyā [25]. The legacy of tantric yoginī s is relevant to contemporary nonelite traditions as well, for example, to female religious specialists (jōgini, mātamma, etc.) in the villages
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of Andhra Pradesh [26]. Traditional beliefs concerning sorcery and witches remain influential, especially in rural communities; witchcraft and other forms of supernatural agency are regularly invoked as causes of misfortune and affliction, such as mental illness [27]. Cases of violence against women accused of being witches (ḍākī , ḍāin, etc.) still come to light from time to time [1]. Belying the awe and fear they evoke in some rural societies, yoginī s have had something of a revival in more urban and urbane circles. Though long abandoned, temples of the yoginī s have received renewed attention as tourist attractions, sites for cultural revival and the performing arts, and as places of active worship. For some, both in and beyond India, the yoginī has re-emerged as a potent feminine spiritual ideal [28, 29]. The transnational flowering of yoga, including its tantric forms, has engendered renewed fascination with yoga’s enigmatic flying goddesses.
Cross-References ▶ Kāpālikas ▶ Kaula ▶ Śaivāgamas ▶ Śākta Āgamas ▶ Saptamātṛkā ▶ Tantra ▶ Yakṣīs ▶ Yoga
References 1. Macdonald HM (2009) Handled with discretion: shaping policing practices through witch accusations. Contrib Indian Soc 43(2):285–315 2. Jacobsen K (ed) (2012) Yoga powers: extraordinary capacities attained through meditation and concentration. Brill, Leiden/Boston 3. Sarbacker S (2012) Power and meaning in the Yogasūtra of Patañjali. pp 195–222 in ibid 4. Hatley S (forthcoming) Yogaiśvarya. In: Goodall D, Rastelli M (eds) Tāntrikābhidhānakośa. Dictionnaire des terms techniques de la littérature hindoue tantrique, vol 4. Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna
5 5. On yogaiśvarya as an eightfold set of powers, see for instance Skandapurāṇa 30.20cd. (2004) In: Bakker HT, Isaacson H (eds) The Skandapurāṇa, volume IIA. Adhyāyas 26–31.14: the Vārāṇasī cycle. Egbert Forsten, Groningen 6. White DG (2009) Sinister yogis. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago/London, pp 162–164 7. Hatley S (2013) What is a Yoginī? Towards a polythetic definition. In: Keul I (ed) ‘Yogini’ in South Asia: interdisciplinary approaches. Routledge, London/New York, pp 21–31 8. White DG (2003) Kiss of the Yoginī: “tantric sex” in its south Asian contexts. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pp 188–218 9. Hatley S (2012) From Mātṛ to Yoginī : continuity and transformation in the south Asian cults of the mother goddesses. In: Keul I (ed) Transformations and transfer of Tantra in Asia and beyond. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 10. Hatley S (2015) Śakti in early tantric Śaivism: historical observations on goddesses, cosmology, and ritual in the Niśvāsatattvasaṃhitā. In: Olesen B (ed) Goddesses in tantric hinduism: history, doctrine, and practice, Routledge studies in tantric traditions. Routledge, New York/London, pp 16–32 11. White DG (2013) Ḍākinī, Yoginī, Pairikā, Strix: adventures in comparative demonology. Southeast Rev Asian Stud 35(2013):7–31 12. Sanderson A (1994) Vajrayāna: origin and function. In: Buddhism into the year 2000. International conference proceedings. Dhammakaya Foundation, Bangkok, pp 87–102 13. Sanderson A (2009) The Śaiva age. In: Einoo S (ed) Genesis and development of tantrism, Institute of oriental culture special series, no. 23. Institute of Oriental Culture, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, pp 41–350 14. Hatley, S (2007) The Brahmayāmalatantra and Early Śaiva Cult of Yoginīs. PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania 15. Hatley S (forthcoming) Yoginī. In: Goodall D, Rastelli M (eds) Tāntrikābhidhānakośa. Dictionnaire des terms techniques de la littérature hindoue tantrique, vol 4. Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 16. Shāstrī MK (1923) Vātūlanāthasūtra with the Vṛtti of Anantaśaktipāda, Kashmir series of texts and studies, no. 39. Nirnaya Sagar Press, Bombay. See sūtra 5 and commentary thereon 17. Hatley S (2016) Converting the Ḍākinī: goddess cults and tantras of the Yoginīs between buddhism and Śaivism. In: Gray D, Overbey RR (eds) Tantric traditions in transmission and translation. Oxford University Press, New York, pp 37–86 18. Wallace VA (2001) The inner Kālacakratantra: a buddhist tantric view of the individual. Oxford University Press, Oxford/New York
6 19. Simmer-Brown J (2001) Ḍākinī’s warm breath: the feminine principle in tibetam buddhism. Shambhala, Boston 20. Törzsök J (2014) Women in early Śākta Tantras: Dūtī , Yoginī and Sādhakī . Cracow Indol Stud xvi (March):339–367 21. Hatley S (forthcoming, in press) Sisters and consorts, adepts and goddesses: representations of women in the Brahmayāmala. In: Eltschinger V, Mirnig N, Rastelli M (eds) Tantric communities: sacred secrets and public rituals. Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 22. Dehejia V (1986) Yoginī cult and temples. A tantric tradition. National Museum, New Delhi 23. Hatley S (2014) Goddesses in text and stone: temples of the Yoginīs in light of tantric and Purāṇic literature. In: Fleming B, Mann R (eds) Material culture and Asian religions: text, image, object, pp 195–225. Routledge, London/New York 24. Kaimal P (2012) Scattered goddesses: travels with the yoginis. Asia past & present: new research from AAS, no. 8. Association for Asian Studies, Ann Arbor
Yoginī 25. Padoux A with R-O Jeanty (2013) The heart of the Yoginī: the Yoginīhṛdaya, a Sanskrit tantric treatise. Oxford University Press, Oxford/New York 26. Vijaisri P (2013) Invoking the erotic mother: the outcaste priestess and the heroic men. In: Keul I (ed) ‘Yogini’ in South Asia: interdisciplinary approaches. Routledge, London/New York, pp 163–176 27. Dwyer G (2003) The divine and the demonic: supernatural affliction and its treatment in North India. Routledge, London/New York 28. Keul I (2012) Reconnecting to what? Imagined continuities and discursive overlaps at Tantrapīṭhas in central and eastern India, pp 195–214, in Transformations and Transfer of Tantra in Asia and Beyond, ed. István Keul. Berlin, Walter de Gruyter 29. Y Royo AL, (2013). Performing hirapur: dancing the Śakti Rūpa Yoginī. In: Keul I (ed) ‘Yogini’ in South Asia: interdisciplinary approaches. Routledge, London/New York, pp 226–234