Yogini Cult

The Kaulajñananirnaya (KJN) embodies the most esoteric teachings of the Tradition of the Yogini Kaula School and its sculptural translation.  In this study I raise questions about the literal interpretation of the tantric scripts.  In the spirit of the Kaulajñananirnaya, the discussion goes beyond preconceived ideas in order to open windows for a more subtle understanding of the tantric alchemy.

Quienes eran las Yoginis?

El estudio de esta corriente espiritual y esotérica se desarrolla dentro de un aura de misterio. No se sabe exactamente los orígenes de los templos dedicados a diversos grupos de diosas llamadas Yoginis. Sin embargo, el antiguo texto del  Kaulajñânanirnaya expresa en cada capítulo ser la esencia del conocimiento de las Yoginis.
Los templos tradicionales en la India son muy distintos a los templos de Yoginis. Aunque preciosos y fascinantes, los templos de las distintas sectas que llamamos hinduismo (los dedicados a Vishnú y sus diversos avatares, los templos a Shiva y los templos a la Devî -Durga, Kali, etc.-) el dios o la diosa tutelar están en el Sanctus Sanctorum. Estos altares son pequeños y recluidos, donde sólo el sacerdote tiene acceso. Los devotos pasan y dejan sus ofrendas de flores, frutas o dinero. Los templos no son lugares donde el devoto se detiene a dialogar con las divinidades. Los dioses y diosas dan su darshan, que es la oportunidad de ser contemplados por un corto instante. En cambio, los templos de Yoginis con sus formas geométricas, a cielo abierto, invitan al devoto a comunicar, a meditar y dialogar con el grupo de diosas. El dios Bhairava a veces está en el centro del templo o a la entrada.
Durante siglos los templos de Yoginis en la India cayeron en el olvido,  pero en los últimos quince años han reconquistado fama y respeto. Artistas, bailarinas, místicos, maestros, eruditos y otros han re-imaginado posibles ritos y prácticas  que hubieran podido tener lugar en estos espacios sagrados.
Lejos de la India, en las Américas construimos un templo dedicado a las energías expresadas en formas femeninas, las Yoginis.

Here is the English translation of the Sanskrit manuscript of the original text of the Kaulajñānaniṇaya published by ADITYA PRAKASHAN, New Delhi:
THE KAULAJÑĀNIRṆAYA
The Esoteric Teachings of Matsyendrapāda (Matsyendranātha)
Sadguru of the Yoginī Kaula School in the Tantra Tradition
Edited and translated by Pandit Satkari Mukhopadhyaya in collaboration with Stella Dupuis.

The work sheds light on the perception of Kālī and Yoginīs in the medieval treatise called the Yoginī Tantra proclaiming the latter to be born in hair follicles of the former “[by] tens [and] tens [of] millions.” The revelation of Kālī, Yoginīs, and their nature occurs during the legendary battle between Śakti and Ghora.

Rather than studying various manifestations of the “divine feminine” in Hindu tantric texts, this paper proposes to examine the ritual role of women in the earliest (seventh to ninth centuries CE) scriptural sources that teach the cult of goddesses and other divine females (yoginīs). Women have three main ritual roles in these sources, which often overlap: they may be (1) consorts in sexual rites (dūtī/ śakti), (2) witch-like semi-divine yoginīs, who transmit the doctrine and help practitioners to obtain supernatural powers, and (3) female practitioners (sādhakī/bhaginī), who are initiated in the same way as male ones. Concerning the last category, it is shown that women had the right to receive full initiation according to early śākta scriptures (which was not the case according to mainstream śaiva Tantras) and were able to practice the same rites for the same purposes as men.

This was my thesis for my Masters of Divinity at Harvard Divinity School. It was a comparison of Tibetan and Japanese tantric Buddhism, with a particular focus on the question of whether there might be some influence stemming from the Yoginī-tantras in Japanese Buddhism.

Il libro è dedicato a lei, alla Dea Madre e ai suoi mille volti, a quell’energia femminile, ora più che mai necessaria per creare una nuova condizione di pace. Questa particolare ‘guida di vi-aggio’ enfatizza lo sguardo femminile presente in ogni creatura vivente. Il libro si concentra sull’Eros e il Tantra, incontrando le misteriose Dakini e il loro potere penetrante e creativo, nei luoghi più segreti dell’India, e non solo. Anche Yogini, Apsaras e altre mille creature ci guideranno negli angoli più remoti della natura, in quel tempo ove il cielo era una parte della terra, e la terra era fusa con tutti gli elementi…

Across cultures and continents dance and music has always been part of the human celebration and also a way to transcend the profane to achieve divine joy, bliss.  In some parts of the world dance remains imbedded in sacred rituals. I have participated in such ceremonials in the area of the Golf of Guinee. Drums and dance are methods of invocation, and ways to celebrate the encounter with the divine. In Cuba the Santeria kept some of those elements. In India, the pujas to Kali or other divinities are a vivid testimony of celebrating the encounter with the divine through sound and dance .
In this paper I would like to analyze different sources of information that we have regarding the Divine Dancing Celebration. (I am not speaking about the Indian classical dance roots, even though they may have many communalities as probably both in some contexts were seen as a religious path .) My intention is to bring forth the dynamics of the sculptural expression of rapturous dance that convey transformation and bliss like the one performed by Śiva Naṭarāja combine with the heroic and also ecstatic dances that maybe give immortality as describe in the Rig Veda when Indra is the dancer ...”the immortal dances forth his hero exploits”.  During centuries in India, in sacred or profane literature as well as in visual arts, the stories have a recurrent theme that revolves around dramatic fights between heroes or heroines against obstacles depicted as demons. After a general introduction to the studies of the mātṝkās, I would like to focus on the dance imagery of groups of goddesses that were depicted during the period when all the spiritual streams were influenced by the Tantras.

Este artículo está dedicado a los practicantes de yoga y tantra que desean descifrar el lenguaje esotérico que lleva a la esencia del conocimiento del estado de Unidad.
Forma parte del libro que contiene la transcripción sánscrita y la traducción al español de este antiguo manuscrito.

Although Anamika Roy’s Sixty-four Yoginis is a meticulously researched book, its effect is somewhat mitigated by a similar display of scholarly repetition or redundancy. One of the main themes of this book, which recur in several chapters, is the positing of cultic and tribal origins of Yoginis.

Readers of historical literature are familiar with this rhetoric of tribal origin, which has been redeployed and reinforced for the religious traditions that were esoteric in nature and were not part of popular religion. Once a religious practice is concluded to have a tribal origin, it can easily be designated as cultic, marginal and sometimes also superstitious. Thus, such religious traditions become exotic, primitive, and, therefore, rather non-intriguing to academics. Academics, thereafter, just have to construct a paradigmatic sociopolitical context within which associated motifs of deities and rituals can be appropriated.

Este trabajo forma parte de la traducción del manuscrito del Kaulajñānanirṇaya, libro que fue publicado en la India por la casa de edición Aitya Prakashan. Esta traducción se hizo bajo la supervisión del gran lingüista y erudito Pandit Satkari Mukhopadhyaya.

Identification of rearly depicted Vajrayana deities

#Chattisamatha  #Thyasaphu #Yab-Yum, #Animal headed #Animal face #Esoteric #Chakrasamvara #sixty-four #Samvaragama
#Flaming hair #Hevajri #ganachakra #bicolored deities #dakarnava #Armor_deities #Charya_Nritya #Vajravarahi #Vajracharya #Vāruṇī #Vidyādharī #Aṣṭamātṛkā.

In the sixteenth Āhnika of the Tantrāloka, Abhinavagupta sets out to harmonize two apparently conflicting views on the nature of the ideal candidate for ritual sacrifice, the “six times reborn victim.” The problem can be stated quite simply by juxtaposing the two inherited scriptural teach- ings generating this conflict:

1. Sacrifice liberates the sacrificial victim, uniting it with Śiva.
2. The ideal sacrificial victim has been reborn *as a sacrificial victim* six times before.

Evidently, if [1] holds and the victim is liberated by sacrifice, then it should not be reborn, making the occurrence of [2] an impossibility.

(This is an unpublished paper I wrote in 2010)

By focusing on Eliade’s early life and writings (1921–1936), and specifically on his work on Yoga, I address in this paper a question that is frequently asked about the problematic relation between personal belief and scholarship in fields such as the history of religions. Eliade’s interest in Yoga showcases his own personal spiritual quest, of course. But it is also informed by his earlier readings of, and reflections on, two polar aspects of the religious experience: the magical and the mystical. For Eliade, these two categories provide not only a key to unlocking the conceptual and pragmatic dimensions of Yoga, but also the impetus for charting a systematic theory of religion. The last major expression of these early ideas can be seen in Yoga: Essai sur les origines de la mystique indienne (1936). Eliade’s thoughts on Yoga and religion then took different paths, reaching their full expression in works published in Paris after 1945. In his later books on Yoga – Techniques du Yoga (1948), Le Yoga: Immortalité et liberté (1954) – the twofold schema of the magical and the mystical no longer plays a key hermeneutical role. Nonetheless, understanding this early phase of his work is crucial if we are to provide a comprehensive account of the development of his thought on Yoga. This early phase in his scholarly career and experiential transformation, marked by his trip to India, is also very important in terms of understanding the further developments of his ideas on history of religions, as well as to evince the ground on which Eliade built his own – never confessed – private religious belief.

La présente traduction en français des Notes de Voyage des Temples de Yoginîs en Inde diffère des précédentes versions en anglais et en espagnol car pendant les dix années qui séparent ces éditions j’ai continué à approfondir ce thème et à découvrir de nouveaux sites.
(Première partie, Introduction & Orissa)

Nell’India medioevale le yoginī sono figure elusive: al contempo donne e dee, ritratte con seducenti corpi femminili ma con volti animali, si manifestano in luoghi ai confini della natura selvaggia, spesso a seguito di rituali trasgressivi. Appaiono in gruppo, se non adeguatamente propiziate sono terribili, ma possono elargire la conoscenza suprema ai loro devoti.
Il culto delle yoginī, oggetto di studi indologici solo da tempi relativamente recenti, fiorisce attorno al VII-VIII secolo nell’ambito di tradizioni legate al dio Śiva e strettamente associate al fenomeno tantrico. Queste ambivalenti figure divine rivestono infatti un ruolo decisivo in diversi testi dell’antica letteratura tantrica śaiva. Grazie al patrocinio dei sovrani, per tali dee furono eretti in tutto il subcontinente indiano templi in pietra dalle caratteristiche uniche: privi di tetto e a pianta circolare, sono per noi monumentali attestazioni dell’importanza e dell’estensione del fenomeno.
Questo libro indaga la forma composita delle yoginī, che accosta tratti umani e animali in una singola figura. Avvalendosi di fonti testuali e iconografiche, in una peculiare prospettiva di studio sinora mai adottata, esplora le valenze e i significati del teriomorfo: perché le yoginī sono così frequentemente concepite e raffigurate con tratti ferini, con volto animale e splendido corpo femminile o, più raramente, in forma totalmente animale? Travalicando nella loro stessa morfologia un cruciale confine tra due diversi regni del vivente, le yoginī esprimono la tensione a esplorare territori normalmente preclusi agli umani. Infatti, in contesto tantrico, la loro più importante funzione è la trasformazione dell’adepto.
Nella sua accezione più ampia l’indagine può essere letta come studio di un caso specifico nell’ambito di un più vasto orizzonte. Gli abitanti dell’India classica e medioevale vivevano infatti in un mondo permeato da narrazioni e immagini dove elementi umani e animali erano costantemente e strettamente intrecciati a rappresentare esseri sovraumani. L’insieme delle divinità composite umano-animali nella religiosità hindu è un tema parimenti poco studiato in proporzione alla sua rilevanza. L’analisi di questo tassello, per quanto particolare, del variegato mosaico può offrire elementi preziosi per lo studio dell’intero quadro.

According to the śākta-tantra literature, the temple of Kāmākhyā (1565 CE) on Nīlācala (Blue mountain), Assam, is the most revered śākta pīṭha (seat of the goddess), because it preserves inside its garbhagṛha (womb-chamber) the yoni (vulva) of the Goddess ever since her lifeless body was dismembered. The present paper aims to highlight the transcultural aspects of this site by considering both the Hindu-Tantric and Tribal roots of the yoginīs at Kāmākhyā through the interrelation of inter- and intra-textual data with artistic and ritual practices.
Vidya Dehejia suggested that the temple of Kāmākhyā was an ancient yoginī centre, although it is neither circular in plan nor hypaethral, formal characteristics shared by most of the yoginī temples. The yoginīs are semi-divine female beings—often represented as theriomorphic/theriocephalic—an aspect that grounds their roots in the Tribal substratum. Their cult was systematised within the Hindu-Tantric tradition through the Kaulajῆānanirṇaya, a text compiled in Assam during the ninth-tenth century, which preserved the cult’s Tribal traits. Thus, the temple of Kāmākhyā mirrors the cross-cultural negotiations between Tribal and Hindu traditions, which resulted in the worship of the yoni through blood sacrifices and secret sexual rites.
According to the Kālikāpurāṇa—a śākta text compiled during the tenth-eleventh century in Assam—the yoginīs were the protectress of the yoni, a role corroborated through their sculptural representation around the outer-wall of the garbhagṛha. Therefore, the genesis of yoginīs derived from the yoni and its splitting into more pieces when fell down on Nīlācala—which alludes either to the multiplication of generative power or to the dismemberment of the Goddess’s body.

The article discusses irregular typology in Indian sacred architecture  — round temples with an open courtyard,
dedicated to Chausath Yogini. They are localized geographically and the time of their construction is limited to the
period 900–1200. First, the author provides some examples of the best preserved buildings with their brief descriptions. She also substantiates the thesis that the structure of the temple is due to the requirements of the Liturgy.
The following are examples of round centric buildings in the region — mainly the reconstructions of early Buddhist
sanctuaries. Also the round structures without ceiling in Hindu architecture are mentioned. As a related phenomenon, the round sanctuaries of mother-goddesses, common in folk ritual practice, are considered.

This article written by Renata Duran was published as Foreword of the book Experiencing the Goddess, On the Trail of the Yoginīs by Janet Chawla, Nilima Chitgopekar, Anamika Roy, Seema Kohli and Stella Dupuis.
RENATA DURAN (María Victoria Durán). Colombian writer, lawyer and traveller. She has lived much of her life in Europe.
As a diplomatic she served in Paris at the UNESCO, in Brussels  at the Colombian Mission to the European Union and in Rome at the FAO. She also worked as a consultant for the International Cooperation in the European Union and at USAID. Since young age she felt a particular attraction for Asia.
She has written numerous articles and books: Muñeca Rota, Colcultura 1981; Oculta Ceremonia, EMECE 1985; Sombras Sonoras, Museo Rayo 1986; Poemas Escogidos, Colcultura 1993; Los Ojos del Agua y Relatos de Plinio El Mago, Trilce Editores 2001; Signos y Espejismos, Universidad Externado de Colombia 2007; Cuatro Mujeres Imprescindibles, Ediciones B, 2011; some of her works have been  translated into French and published in the America Cahiers, Publications de la Sorbonne  Nouvelle 1989; Editions La Porte 2006; Chroniques Errantes, Journal des Poètes; L’Atelier de l’Agneau, etc.

The presence of Apabhraṃśa in tantric Buddhist texts has long been noted by scholars, overwhelmingly explained away as an example of "Twilight language" (saṃdhā-bhāṣā). However, when one looks closer at the vast number of Apabhraṃśa verses in this canon, one finds recurring patterns, themes, and even tropes. This begs for deeper study, as well as establishing a taxonomy of these verses based on their place and use. This paper focuses on a specific subset of Apabhraṃśa verses: "goddess songs" in maṇḍala visualization rituals. These verses are sung by yoginīs at specific moments in esoteric Buddhist ritual syntax; while the sādhaka is absorbed in enstatic emptiness, four yoginīs call out to him with sexually charged appeals, begging him to return to the world and honor their commitments to all sentient beings. When juxtaposed with other Apabhraṃśa verses in tantric Buddhist texts, these songs express an immediacy and intimacy that stands out in both form and content from the surrounding text. This essay argues that Apabhraṃśa is a conscious stylistic choice for signaling intimate and esoteric passages in tantric literature, and so the vast number of Apabhraṃśa verses in this corpus should be reexamined in this light.