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demonstrate the power of threshold and boundary situations and conceptions,
such as processes of death and rebirth, or initiation, as found in the context of
the cemetery and other places on the periphery of society, culturally and spa-
tially.19 The Hindu tradition appears to first and foremost have placed these
divinities within the realm of the terrible and horrific. In literary sources such
as the Uttamacaritrakatha\naka, Ra\jataranægini, and Kathasaritsa\gara, vio-
lence and dread surround the images of both classes of deities they possess
the power to move about in the air, consuming or reanimating corpses, steal-
ing children, inhabiting cemeteries, and clad in skulls and glowing with a halo
of light.20 Yoginês represent many levels of humanity and divinity, from the
role of consort in maithuna rituals of tantric practitioners such as the Kaulas
to ogresslike witches and demonesses to the highest manifestations of óakti.21
Perhaps the most notable characteristic of the roles of yoginês in Indian reli-
gious and cultural life is their liminal character. In contemporary popular
Indian folk belief, there still remains a certain degree of fear and suspicion
about yoginês and their cultus. De"a\kinê figures appear to be secondary in the
Hindu tradition, similar to the yoginê image of the graveyard spirit. How-
ever, the representations in the yoginê temples of northern India demonstrate
an array of yoginê figures carrying at times classical representations of divini-
ties and at other times strange and grotesque animal heads and other unusual
forms reminiscent of Tibetan de"a\kinê lore, demonstrating their hybrid and lim-
inal nature.
The Vajraya\na representations of Vajrayoginê appear closely related to the
depictions of the yoginê figures of eighth-century and later Indian temple art.
In Vajrayoginê, we have a broad set of terminological identifications that indi-
cates relationship if not identity among a number of female deities. Among
these are the goddesses referred to as Vajrayoginê, Sarvabuddhade"a\kinê,
Traditions in Transition 121
and Vajravara\hê. Vajrayoginê is called Naropa s Dakini in the Tibetan tra-
dition on the basis of her identification as the consort of Naropa. Sarvabud-
dhade"a\kinê is representative of the consorts of all of the buddhas, and
Vajravara\hê as the consort of Cakrasame"vara, while Vajrayoginê proper is
sometimes identified as the consort of Heruka. Vajravara\hê could possibly be
an extension of a tantric Yoginê that bears the name of Vara\hê, and even more
distantly the ever-present member of the Matre"kas called Vara\hê. With the
specific term de"a\kinê, Janice Willis demonstrates key characteristics that show
a parallelism, if not an identity, of the Buddhist de"a\kinê with the Indian Yoginê.22
Delineating the dynamics of the human and divine de"a\kinê figures and their
benevolent and malevolent images, she places the de"a\kinê in an equivalency
relationship with the Yoginê. She narrates the stories of numerous significant
Vajraya\na lineage founders and their relationship with the de"a\kinês, such as
Naropa, Tilopa, Padmasambhava, and so on. Clearly the term de"a\kinê is con-
sidered equivalent to the term yoginê in the primary sense of a tantric consort,
along with its other specific uses in conjunction with particular buddhas, bod-
hisattvas, and deities. These Maha\ya\na conceptions of yoginês and de"a\kinês and
their integration into the greater Buddhist pantheon represent the integration
of the liminal and peripheral dimensions of tantric practice with the highly
systematic and syncretic approaches of Maha\ya\na monasticism.
VAJRAYOGINë IN THE SA\DHANAMA\LA\
The Sa\dhanama\la\ is a particularly useful work for understanding the charac-
ter of the goddess Vajrayoginê in Indian Vajraya\na Buddhism and in the
Tibetan traditions that grew out of the Indian traditions. The Sa\dhanama\la\
demonstrates the tension between Maha\ya\na monasticism, exemplified by the
vinaya and samaya precepts, and the more peripheral Vajraya\na culture that
contains a tension between representations of wrathful and peaceful deities.
Composed of the sa\dhanas of numerous authors, the Sa\dhanama\la\ presents a
panoramic view of the diversity of Vajraya\na images available to tantric prac-
titioners around the turn of the first millennium C.E. In the edition edited by
Bhattacharya, which was based on eight different manuscripts, there are a
total of 312 individual sa\dhanas.23 Realizing the limitations of the accuracy of
Bhattacharya s edition, we can nevertheless find much use in examining the
representation of Vajrayoginê and similar deities.24 Numbers 232 238 of Bhat-
tacharya s text contain Vajrayoginê as a central figure in their sa\dhanas. In
these sa\dhanas we find two primary images of Vajrayoginê, namely, the
a\lêde"ha-posture, Vajrayoginê, and the Vajrayoginê with detached head, that is,
Severed Headed Yoginê, surrounded by two attendants. The references that
are explicitly devoted to Vajrayoginê, numbers 232 238, demonstrate an overt
122 Sama\dhi
identification of Vajrayoginê as sharing a number of different namesakes.25 In
numbers 232, 233, 234, and 236, Vajrayoginê is hailed as sarvabuddhade"a\kinê,
consort of all of the buddhas. In nearly all of the sa\dhanas, Vajrayoginê also
is identified as vajrade"a\kinê, Vajra De"a\kinê, órêde"a\kinê, Auspicious De"a\kinê,
or simply de"a\kinê. A clear identification between iconography and Vajraya\na
theory is exemplified in mantra formulas such as those that appeal to the
trika\ya theory, invoking the sequence of the dharmaka\ya, same"bhogaka\ya, and
nirma\ne"aka\ya, or truth body, enjoyment body, and manifestation body,
respectively.26
The Vajrayoginê images that are presented in these sa\dhanas are of two
kinds, as Bhattacharya has noted, a Vajrayoginê accompanied by two atten-
dants, with an apparently self-decapitated head in one hand (thus the popular
phrase Severed-Headed Yoginê ), and another, alone and bearing the
khaèva\næga staff.27 The first figure is represented thus:
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