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Prof. David G. White - Before they were foxy ladies, they were lady foxes

Prof. David G. White explores the transformation of yoganīs and dākinīs in tantric Shakta traditions, focusing on their ritual, metaphysical, and soteriological roles.

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Key Takeaways

  • Yoganīs and dākinīs evolved from terrifying, violent beings to complex ritual figures in tantric practice.
  • Tantric initiation involved both violent and erotic elements, reflecting deep metaphysical symbolism.
  • The Kaula Reformation reshaped yoganī initiation into a more accessible, eroticized form.
  • Yoganīs retained autonomy in esoteric rituals, holding the power to initiate male aspirants.
  • Animal symbolism, especially jackals, is crucial to understanding yoganī iconography and mythology.

What the video covers

  • Introduction to Prof. David G. White and his expertise in South Asian religions, tantra, and Shakta studies.
  • Discussion of the early tantric cremation ground practices involving yoganīs and dākinīs as fearsome supernatural beings.
  • Examination of the transformation of yoganīs from violent, flesh-eating entities to erotic initiators in tantric rituals.
  • Analysis of the Kaula Reformation and its impact on the perception of yoganī initiation as an erotic encounter.
  • Description of the yoganīs’ role in tantric metaphysical and soteriological systems, including their autonomy in esoteric rituals.
  • Exploration of the Natura Tantra and its teachings on the three yogas, highlighting the yoganīs’ central role.
  • Identification of yoganīs with animal forms, especially jackals, and their symbolic significance in South Asian tantra.
  • Connection of yoganīs to demonology and their depiction as shape-shifting female predators in tantric texts.
  • Insight into the ritual and symbolic significance of sexual fluids as a medium of tantric gnosis.
  • Presentation of the historical and cultural context of yoganīs and dākinīs in both Hindu and Buddhist tantric traditions.

Chapters

  1. 00:00Introduction and Overview of Prof. David G. White
  2. 03:19The Kaula Reformation and Erotic Initiation by Yoganīs
  3. 06:57Tantric Explanations of Evil and Death
  4. 10:15Yoganī Rituals and Symbolism in Hindu Tantra
  5. 13:22Animal Symbolism and the Jackal in Yoganī Iconography
  6. 19:44Yoganīs as Fox Maidens and Their Transformations
  7. 22:55Human Sacrifice and Rituals Involving Jackals
  8. 29:06Tantric Gnosis and Artistic Representations of Yogis

Answers

Questions about this video

Who is Professor David G. White and what is his area of expertise?

Professor David G. White is the Mayor's Professor at the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He specializes in South Asian religions, particularly tantra, yoga, and the tantric Shakti tradition.

What is the significance of yoganīs and dākinīs in tantric traditions?

Yoganīs and dākinīs are supernatural female beings who play a central role in tantric rituals and metaphysics. They are known for their shape-shifting abilities and their power to initiate male aspirants through both violent and erotic means.

How did the Kaula Reformation change the perception of yoganī initiation?

The Kaula Reformation transformed yoganī initiation from a violent practice involving being consumed by these beings into an erotic encounter where yoganīs appear as beautiful, flying women who transmit teachings through sexual fluids, making the practice more accessible and appealing.

Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

00:10
Speaker A
Hey everybody, and welcome to our first lecture of the second chapter tradition online lecture series called Contributions to a Growing Field of Shakta Studies. Today, it is my pleasure to introduce Professor David Gordon-White, who is the Mayor's Professor at the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Professor White specializes in South Asian religions, and he has done important and groundbreaking work on topics such as tantra, yoga, the alchemical body, and immunology. His publications include Yoga and Practice, Sinister Yogis, and Kiss of the Yogini: Tantric Sex in the South Asian Context. Professor White is an important and inspirational researcher, and his studies in the tantric Shakti tradition play an essential part in our understanding of these today. Therefore, it is my pleasure now, without further ado, to pass the word to Professor White.
00:25
Speaker A
department of religious studies at the university of california santa barbara professor wyatt specializes in south asian religions and he has done important and groundbreaking work on topics such as tantra yoga the alchemical body and immunology and so his publications
00:43
Speaker A
Thank you for inviting me to speak before you today. I'm sorry I can't be with you in person, but you know the reason why that's not possible. Personally, when the organizers of this lecture series first approached me about contributing to it, I explained to them that I was no longer carrying out new research on Shakta and tantric traditions, that my interests had turned elsewhere for the past few years. So, full disclosure, my talk today includes material that I've lectured out of for the past several years, including at Oahu's University, and as of about two months ago, material that I've also published. The last slide that I'll show you today at the end of my talk will provide bibliographic information on that published article, as well as on a forthcoming book on demonology, which, while it's not specific to South Asia, does engage with Shakta and tantra traditions in several places.
01:00
Speaker A
these today and therefore it is my pleasure now without further ado to pass the word to professor white thank you for inviting me to speak before you today i'm sorry i can't be with you in person but you know the reason why
01:14
Speaker A
Over the past several decades, a great deal has been written and said about so-called tantric sex, probably too much of it by me. And while there can be no doubt that the sacramental use of fluids produced from sexual intercourse was an integral part of the tantric synthesis, relatively little attention has been paid through traumatic violence such as that shown on this image. A decapitated goddess is collecting her own blood in a skull chalice on a charnel ground that features jackals feeding on severed human heads. One of the earliest forms of cremation ground practice undertaken by tantric yogis involved venturing alone into these fearsome landscapes in the dead of night to offer up their bodies to the yoganese.
01:46
Speaker A
for the past few years so full disclosure my talk today includes material that i've lectured out of for the past several years including at oahu's university and as of about two months ago material that i've also published the last slide that i'll show you today
02:04
Speaker A
And documents noisy hordes of nocturnal flesh-eating creatures that preyed on the living and the dead. Following the advent of tantra in South Asia, the relationship between the yoganese and dakinis and humans underwent a transformation as these ravening female shape-changers became integrated into new ritual, metaphysical, and soteriological systems. The earliest tantric, the early tantra scriptural record, which features males voluntarily offering themselves up for possession and consumption by these ferocious supernatural creatures, offers a window onto the unique tantric appropriation of a pre-existing South Asian, if not pan-Eurasian, demonological substratum, which is the topic of my forthcoming book.
02:21
Speaker A
places over the past several decades a great deal has been written and said about so-called tantric sex probably too much of it by me and while there can be no doubt that the sacramental use of fluids produced from sexual intercourse
02:43
Speaker A
A description found in the Tantra Shiva A Surfa, an 8th-century Hindu tantra from Kashmir, encapsulates the modus operandi of the yoganese: a female being who, for the purpose of shape-shifting, continually drinks the fluids of living beings after extracting them by witchcraft, and who, after obtaining their fluids, slaughters her victims. She shall be known as a Shakini. As you know, the wild female yoganese and dakinis were grouped into kulas, a term frequently translated as clan or lineage, but for which, according to no less than authority than Abhinava Gupta, Pak or swarm may be more accurate denotations. In spite of their metaphysical subordination to the tantric high gods, these hordes of yoganis and dakinis remained autonomous in matters of esoteric ritual, since it was they alone who had the power to initiate male aspirants into their respective clans or, if you prefer, packs.
02:59
Speaker A
features jackals feeding on severed human heads one of the earliest forms of cremation ground practice undertaken by tantric yogis involved venturing alone into these fearsome landscapes in the dead of night to offer up their bodies to the yoganese
03:19
Speaker A
Following what Alexis Sanderson long ago termed the Kaula Reformation, initiation by the yoganese came to be cast as an erotic encounter, with the gruesome practice of being eaten by yoganese sublimated into the more attractive option of having sex with yoganese, the foxy ladies of my lecture title. Taking the form of live beauties possessed of the power of flight, the yoganese initiated and transmitted transformative teachings to male humans through their sexual emissions as fluid gnosis. However, the earliest esoteric tantras, both Hindu and Buddhist, tell a quite different story. In these, initiation was a violent affair in which yoganese and dakinis would only offer tantric gnosis and initiations after having been gratified with flesh and blood offered to them by male aspirants.
03:40
Speaker A
became integrated into new ritual metaphysical and soteriological systems the earliest tantric the early tantra scriptural record which features males voluntarily offering themselves up for possession and consumption by these ferocious supernatural creatures offers a window onto the unique tantric
04:05
Speaker A
The Hindu texts frequently evoke the two alternatives faced by humans with regard to these female predators. While most were doomed to become food for the yoganese, the viral hero, the vira, could instead become the darling of the yoganese. However, in some cases, one could only become the darling of the yoganese by first passing through their digestive systems. A proof text for the incorporation of the yoganese into tantric metaphysical and soteriological systems is the Natura Tantra, whose 20th chapter is devoted to three types of yoga. The Natura is a Hindu tantra compiled in Kashmir around the year 825. It was considered to be a foundational text for several centuries. We know this because Shema Raja, Abhinava Gupta's 11th-century disciple and a great scholar in his own right, wrote an extensive commentary on it. I found his commentary to be quite helpful in translating the 75 verses of this 20th chapter of the Natura, which are devoted to what this text calls the three yogas.
04:31
Speaker A
for the purpose of shape shifting continually drinks the fluids of living beings after extracting them by witchcraft and who after obtaining their fluids slaughters her victims she shall be known as a shaking as you know the wild female yoganese and
04:52
Speaker A
At the heart of the Natura's three yogas are the yoganese, the female ones who yolk. In medieval India, yoganese were not viewed as women with yoga mats. Rather, they were supernatural human female beings who could morph into or possess any creature, whether human, animal, or vegetable, who could fly through the air like witches and who were sometimes identified with those witches, and who were empowered to transmit the tantric gnosis to male initiates through their sexual fluids. This, the yoganese erotic side, is something I won't have much to say about here today. Rather, it's their predatory nature that the Natura Tantra's 20th chapter explores and explains.
05:16
Speaker A
yoganies and dakinis remained autonomous in matters of esoteric ritual since it was they alone who had the power to initiate male aspirants into their respective clans or if you prefer pacs following what alexis sanderson long ago termed the kaula
05:36
Speaker A
29b to 10a reads: By means of the three types of yoga, the yoganese yolk pursuant to Shiva's command. They yoked by means of supreme yoga, subtle yoga, and the third, gross yoga. The Natura presents its three yogas in descending order, starting with supreme para yoga, being eaten by yoganese, and then continuing to subtle yoga, the practice of taking over other people's bodies, and finally the lowest form of yoga called gross yoga, which is stula yoga, which comprises various forms of sorcery. Today, I won't have much to say about sukshma or yoga, instead concentrating on the richly documented practice of supreme yoga.
05:58
Speaker A
possessed of the power of flight the yoganese initiated and transmitted transformative teachings to male humans through their sexual emissions as fluid gnosis however the earliest esoteric tantras both hindu and buddhist tell a quite different story in these initiation was a violent
06:20
Speaker A
This is a painting I photographed about 20 years ago at the Chinnamasta Temple in the city-state of Patan in the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal. It's an active shrine, and people I spoke to there explained this painting to me in the following way: The old crone in the front is a witch, a bukshi. The woman behind her is her daughter, an aspiring witch, and she is leading by a rope her husband, who has in every respect the look of a pashu, a victim, which is what he's about to become. She will only be initiated after she sacrificed her husband to her fellow bukshis, her fellow witches. So, you know your marriage is heading south when your mother-in-law is a witch and your wife is about to sacrifice you as their next victim.
06:38
Speaker A
female predators while most were doomed to become food for the yoganese the viral hero the vira could instead become the darling of the yoganese however in some cases one could only become the darling of the yoganese by first passing through their digestive
06:57
Speaker A
Supreme yoga may be read as a tantric explanation for the problem of evil, that is, why people die, but more importantly, why death at the hands and teeth and claws and stomachs of...
07:19
Speaker A
8 25. it was considered to be a foundational text for several centuries we know this because shema raja abhinava gupta's 11th century disciple and a great scholar in his own right wrote an extensive commentary on it i found his commentary to be quite
07:39
Speaker A
helpful in translating the 75 verses of this 20th chapter of the nature which are devoted to what this text calls the three yogas at the heart of the nature's three yogas are the yoganese the female ones who yolk in medieval
07:58
Speaker A
india yoganese were not viewed as women with yoga mats rather they were supernatural human female beings who could morph into or possess any creature whether human animal or vegetable who could fly through the air like witches and who were sometimes
08:17
Speaker A
identified with those witches and who were empowered to transmit the tuntric gnosis to male initiates through their sexual fluids this the yoganese erotic side is something i won't have much to say about here today rather it's their predatory nature that
08:35
Speaker A
the nature of tantra's 20th chapter explores and explains 29b to 10a reads by means of the three types of yoga the yoga needs yolk pursuant to shiva's command they yoked by means of supreme yoga subtle yoga and the third gross yoga
09:03
Speaker A
the nature presents its three yogas in descending order starting with supreme para yoga being eaten by yoganese and then continuing to subtle yoga the practice of taking over other people's bodies and finally the lowest form of yoga called gross yoga
09:22
Speaker A
which is stula yoga which comprises various forms of sorcery today i won't have much to say about sukshma or yoga instead concentrating on the richly documented practice of supreme yoga this is a painting i photographed about 20 years ago at the chinamasta
09:45
Speaker A
temple in the city-state of patan in the kathmandu valley of nepal it's an active shrine and people i spoke to there explained this painting to me in the following way the old crone in the front is a witch a
10:00
Speaker A
bukshi the woman behind her is her daughter an aspiring witch and she is leading by a rope her husband who has in every respect the look of a pashu a victim which is what he's about to become she
10:15
Speaker A
will only be initiated after she sacrificed her husband uh to her fellow bulgies her fellow witches so you know your marriage is heading south when your mother-in-law is a witch and your wife is about to sacrifice you as their
10:32
Speaker A
next victim supreme yoga may be read as a tantric explanation for the problem of evil that is why people die but more importantly why death at the hands and teeth and claws and stomachs of yoganese is a supreme path
10:49
Speaker A
to salvation this is why it's called supreme or transcendent para yoga as i'll show supreme yoga is synonymous with another term frequently found in the hindu tantric record violent consorting the nature 20th chapter opens with the goddess asking shiva
11:13
Speaker A
why the yogany's mothers and other supernatural female beings are ferocious and without mercy when they kill and shiva's rather surprising response is that he purposely created human beings the term he uses is pashus which also means victims for the
11:31
Speaker A
expressed purpose that they be sacrificed and that the yoganis and their terrifying sisters are simply playing their part in his greater plan so here are passages from nature verses 20 verses chapter 20 verses 5 through 23.
11:53
Speaker A
the yoganis rightly slaughter the victims of the god of gods for the purpose of sacrifice they do not uphold the order of the very fearsome bhairava out of confusion or to do harm or indeed out of the desire to slay
12:08
Speaker A
it was to that end that creatures were all together voluntarily created by svayambu shiva creatures are used for sacrifice to the lord and not otherwise and it is out of grace that they the yoganies release those victims from their sin
12:27
Speaker A
they cut away those heaps of sin the victims that have been eaten by them go to the highest place for all time then shiva explains the relationship of the yoganese to himself referring to himself he says the supreme
12:47
Speaker A
master the source of all that exists who dwells inside every creature who is the source of all grace those immaculate tireless yoganis are entrusted to him alone having attained the status of oneness with him they are in no way
13:04
Speaker A
separate from him but rather are absorbed into his energy they abide in the form of the energy of desire they are agitated by the yoking of victims to the sacrifice and impelled by shiva to sacrifice those victims and by virtue of their attachment to him
13:22
Speaker A
those feminine forms of shiva shiva rupa are unsullied by their sacrifice of victims to him they the yoganese crunch the fetters of their victim as a result of which his body is destroyed liberation that is realized by means of
13:43
Speaker A
the destruction of the body is assuredly not killing here i want to dwell on the expression these feminine forms of shiva from nature 2015.
13:57
Speaker A
while it's not stated explicitly here several other sources identified the yoganese as shiva's a word that means both feminine form of shiva and jackal the animal which brings me to this beautiful miniature painting dating from 1630 to 1635
14:18
Speaker A
ce this work is attributed to a north indian artist named piog who was employed in the service of the imperial mobiles like his illustrious brother the painter balchan was a hindu and clearly he or the person who commissioned this work
14:36
Speaker A
had some familiar familiarity with hindu tantra while the metropolitan museum of art in new york has labeled this the goddess bharavi devi with shiva i believe it can and should be read in another way in the light of the netra 20's
14:53
Speaker A
discussion of supreme yoga as well as that of other textual and iconographic sources here i'll argue that this image portrays the ideal outcome of transacting with these powerful and dangerous yoganese by becoming their victim the tantric yogi becomes a second shiva
15:13
Speaker A
possessed of the supernatural powers they offer up to him in exchange for his supreme yoga his offering of flesh and vital fluids also in this painting the many yoginis are decanted into the one heavily armed goddess bharavi and i will argue that the jackals in the
15:36
Speaker A
foreground and also the background of this miniature painting are just as important as the human and divine figures the reason for this may be found in art historical as well as textual sources cremation or journal grounds which were
15:53
Speaker A
the natural habitat for such carrion feeders and predators were also the haunts of the tantric yogis as well as the shape-shifting kamarupani yoganese or darkanes in their various forms as the tantrashiva passage i read to you earlier indicates
16:11
Speaker A
these female beings could transform themselves instantly from animal or avian forms into lithe human beauties with those transformations being fueled by feeding on the bodies living or dead of animal or human victims more than any other the most common
16:34
Speaker A
mammalian form taken by the yoganese and dakones of south asia was the jackal for which a sanskrit term was shiva which as i said may also be read as feminine form of shiva the three images on the left are all of
16:50
Speaker A
chamunda who is said to ride a jackal on the right lower right is a yogany from the hirapura yogani temple and on the upper left a jackal with a severed arm in its mouth that i'll come back to
17:03
Speaker A
later in some cases the identification of yoganese with jackals is explicit as in this passage from the turdamani tantra which says assuredly the person who does not worship the goddess in some lonely place in her mammalian jackal form
17:23
Speaker A
[Music] has everything he has ritually accomplished immediately destroyed upon hearing the howl of a jackal the jackal grabs them and uttering a curse she goes off to wail in a solitary place with the feeding of but a single jackal
17:40
Speaker A
a person gains the favor of all the shaktis the animal shakti the human shakti and also the avian shakti are thereby worshiped and the ritual action which had so far been unsuccessful becomes effective the practitioner who was anxious about the auspicious
17:58
Speaker A
and inauspicious consequences of a given matter should bring an offering with the words take o goddess almost fortunate one o jackal o thou who art the embodiment of the fire of time take your offering one of the earliest representations of a
18:22
Speaker A
yogany as a jackal headed creature is this image from kathmandu where the goddess on the right has been identified as shiva duty a name that could be construed to mean female jackal messenger and this is supported by the matsuya purana which describes
18:40
Speaker A
the god as shiva duty as having the face of a jackal shragala vadhana unlike the kathmandu shivaduti this image from central india unequivocally unequivocally represents jackal-headed yoganese who in this case appear to be powdering their noses closely related to if not synonymous
19:06
Speaker A
with the yoginis and dakanis are the mothers matris and female caesars grahams as this image from western china indicates this was a cosmopolitan tradition which was exported from kashmir into inner and east asia toward the end of the first millennium
19:25
Speaker A
of the common era in the case of this specific manuscript the images are based on the ashtanga samgraha's chapter on the bala grahas the child caesar's ayurvedic text from india when these traditions reach china and japan where there are no native jackals
19:44
Speaker A
their documents came to be identified as fox maidens and these are the lady foxes of my lecture title here a set of figures from an 11th century ritual guide belonging to the japanese tendai school illustrates the three transformations of a demonis
20:05
Speaker A
which tantric monks could exercise through the ritual of the six syllables in this line drawing reproduced by michel strickmann in his chinese magical medicine the human figure is identified in the text as a demonis the figure to her right is identified as
20:24
Speaker A
a terrestrial fox while the birds of her left is not as one would expect identified as a raptor in this case a kite but rather as a celestial fox these were called the animal shakti the human shakti and the avian shakti from
20:41
Speaker A
the kalatrudamini tantra passage i read you a moment ago the dakotas of buddhist tantra are said to act in the same way as the hindu yoginis described in the natura tantra's 20th chapter eating their victims in order to remove
21:01
Speaker A
remove all their sinful impediments to wisdom and salvation the fourth book of the circa eighth century mahabharatantra a tantric buddhist work from india explains that when men enter into their death throes the balconies will go to them and eat
21:20
Speaker A
their livers by virtue of that men will in their death rows be able to reach true understanding thereby permitting them to be reborn in the pure land if the dakotas were not to eat their livers they would not be able to reach
21:35
Speaker A
true understanding here the pure land is of course a buddhist paradise and the message is clear the sole path to salvation passes through the bellies of the dakones and this is but one of a number of buddhist tantric references to
21:51
Speaker A
this practice and protocol by the 12th century we can see that darkness three types of manifestation as a powerful warrior goddess like the bhairavi of our miniature and a flesh-eating land mammal and a bird all collapsed into a single
22:08
Speaker A
image a weapon-wielding winged tantric goddess riding a white fox this is an image held by the los angeles county museum of art in tibet where wolves are more common predators than jackals or foxes we find an analogous representation
22:31
Speaker A
here the dakones have the form of birds being written by their wolf-headed mistress chondroit sumo so returning to our 1630 mughal painting i would argue that multiple goddesses are represented here the beautiful humanoid for on virally with their entourage of
22:55
Speaker A
yoganese in the form of shiva's jackals down here back here there's some other somewhere in this picture actually the picture is also framed by a beautiful frame that i cut away and the frame contains jackals all around this identification is supported in
23:18
Speaker A
several textual sources including a sanskrit poem by the 11th century kashmiri poet shimendra which can be read in either of two ways through the poetic device known as shleisha it can be read as a description of a man being taken in
23:33
Speaker A
erotic embraced by his female lover or of a human corpse being eaten by a jackal this poem again points us to the two ways in which it was possible for a male to relate to the yoganese he could
23:48
Speaker A
either become food for the yoganese a body being torn apart by flesh eating jackals and birds that would be hatha melaka analogous to para yoga violent consorting or he could be the lord and lover of their live naked humanoid bodies
24:09
Speaker A
the darling of the yoganese in affectionate consortium priya melaka the lovely body of biterly from our miniature would represent that form of the yoganese and their humanoid aspect jackals that devour their human victims are brought to the fore
24:31
Speaker A
in a tantric rite described discussed in two of the earliest extant hindu tantric scriptures which likely predate the nature by a century or so these are the circa 8th century jayadurata yamala and with tantras rather than referring to this practice as supreme yoga
24:51
Speaker A
these call it consorting with yoganese yogini melaka which of course has these two forms priya and hakta however the process and transcendent results are the same as those of supreme yoga the brahmana yamala tells us that by being eaten by
25:09
Speaker A
yoganese a yogi is reborn as their leader of their circle but once again the benefits of becoming food for the yoganese only accrue after they have eaten you and what appears to be a modern-day survival of certain aspects
25:28
Speaker A
of this practice a festival celebrated in kathmandu on the dark of the moon in early spring features a simulated human sacrifice to the chantry goddess but salah in which a jackal god and a jackal king figure prominently and it is on the wall
25:47
Speaker A
of her temple that you have this image of a jackal with an arm in its mouth as excel michaels describes it the night comes to a glorious end as the jackal king the tantric priest channeling the jackal god
26:03
Speaker A
howls like the jackal in the three days that follow a series of processions and animal sacrifices takes place these however mask a lost tradition of human sacrifice to what salah in which jackals played a leading role the nepali chronicles repeatedly report
26:21
Speaker A
that butts allah once demanded humans and several chronicles refer to the loud cries made by the man jackal as mikhail surmises presumably the human sacrificial victims were given to the jackals of which there were many in the area around the
26:39
Speaker A
vatsalat temple as suggested by the chronicles which relate that the jackals held so loudly that the people became deaf even today the site of the funeral pyre there is called jambu dipa literally the light of or the life for
26:56
Speaker A
the jackals the legacy of these practices may be viewed to this day on the eastern wall of the temple in that image i showed you of the shackle with the arm in its mouth the jayadrata yamala's discussion of yogini melaka
27:13
Speaker A
recently analyzed by olga bayeva is longer and more detailed describing as it does the conditions under which yoganis interacted with yogis on cremation grounds on lonely mountain tops in the dark of the moon and the dead of night
27:31
Speaker A
their yogis would offer themselves up in sacrifice yielding up their bodies to the yoganese in what was termed the practice of hatha melaka violent consorting as ceba eva notes in the practices described here the yogany with which the yogi
27:49
Speaker A
interacted was a blood-drinking non-human entity the text describes them as making bizarre sounds with their mouths and filling the night with the cries of great birds of kites chilla orabam of jackals shiva ravam and of other predators for certain male track practitioners it
28:11
Speaker A
was possible to become both food for the yoganese and the darling of the yoganese an account from the 1148 ce kashmiri raja taramgini chronicle describes how a noble royal minister unjustly put to death and devoured by wolves that is by yoganese and human god
28:31
Speaker A
and animal guys on a cremation ground then had his body put back together again by the same yoganese next drawing the wandering soul of the dead man back into his body they reanimated him and serially enjoyed him as their lover
28:49
Speaker A
until the night was at its end in the tantric scriptures this scenario is encapsulated in the concept common to both hindu and buddhist traditions of the person who was a man for seven lives a source of supernatural powers the
29:06
Speaker A
flesh of such a person was highly attracted to yoganies and daughters as well as to their male victims here each rebirth brought him closer to a god-like state of being and with each rebirth his own body became charged
29:21
Speaker A
with increased transformative power that was transferred to any yogany who happened to kill eat or even touch or talk to him like packs of animal predators smelling fresh blood they would converge on him to drain his body of its viral essence
29:41
Speaker A
such persons and the powers that eating them in part are described in the hindu jayat ratha yamala as well as buddhist chakra sambhara tantra and hebatra tantra commentaries bearing in mind that the advanced tantric practitioner the darling of the yoganese
29:57
Speaker A
was originally initiated through supreme yoga or violent consorting in which he was food for the yoganese we may safely say that these tantric transactions were mutually beneficial the yoganese would enjoy him many times over enhancing their own supernatural
30:15
Speaker A
powers in the process while the yogi received tantra teachings access to the yoganese and dakone's inner circles and the pleasures offered by them as consorts in the light of these data a number of other iconographic details appear to fall into place
30:41
Speaker A
according to kukuri sorry according to taranatha's early 17th century history of buddhism in india kukuripa a siddha took the form of a dog and had a consort who looked like a [ __ ] these mandalas which predate taranata by
30:59
Speaker A
a few hundred years place kukuripa in the eastern cremation ground and what is it that we see is this an illustration perhaps of affectionate consorting note the tale on the dog here it's the bushy striped tail of a jackal
31:16
Speaker A
that is portrayed and not that of a dog let us now consider the male figure in this mughal miniature the metropolitan museum of art labels him as shiva i believe he can debut as a human yogi who has obtained identity with shiva
31:36
Speaker A
through his violent consorting or supreme yoga that is by having been eaten by yoganese in the form of jackals i say this for two reasons with his two arms this is clearly a human yogi even if the god shiva is in his
31:53
Speaker A
wandering ascetic form his big shot and a morty portrayed iconographically with two arms this is a human yogi who is emulating or embodying the god shiva as indicated by his regalia his ash smeared body trident two-headed domino drum and
32:11
Speaker A
garland of skulls however he's lacking the god's third eye and fabulous hair the second reason is the small tongue of flame issuing from the yogi's mouth this is an artistic representation of the fact that he's uttering a tantric
32:30
Speaker A
spell in mantra while blowing outward something called pumka challana in modern hindi shiva the supreme god of hindu tantra has no need to pronounce mantras mantras are spells used by human practitioners in the practice of gross yoga for example
32:48
Speaker A
so is it his mantra that's caused the yogany to manifest in her beautiful human form as virally or is it his offering of his own or another victim's body that has attracted her to him let us now return to
33:06
Speaker A
the topic of supreme yoga in the nature of tantra which tells us that through supreme yoga the male practitioner who has offered himself up as food for the yoganese realizes identification identity with shiva by means of the yoking i.e the yoga
33:24
Speaker A
of the yoganese our yogi has apparently succeeded in his imitation day since we can also see that his head is ringed by a halo in which a crescent moon is inscribed this has been an essential element of shiva's iconography since no later
33:42
Speaker A
than the 4th century ce so what we may be seeing in this painting is the image of a yogi who has succeeded in his practice of supreme yoga or violent consorting with the yoganese through his use of a mantra combined
33:59
Speaker A
with his heroic charnel ground practice he has compelled a goddess or yogany to abandon her predatory animal form or forms to manifest as a beautiful humanoid goddess which he as a second shiva may enjoy either may enjoy as a consort
34:18
Speaker A
either through his use of a mantra or because he's already been eaten alive by her in one or several of her animal forms now it must be noted that offering one's body up to be eaten by packs or flocks
34:35
Speaker A
of predatory females is the most unusual path to salvation among all the possible ways to transcend the human condition and realize union or identity with god this surely ranks among the strangest did the hindu and buddhist tantric yogis
34:53
Speaker A
really invent this soteriological system out of whole cloth or did they take their inspiration from some earlier or perhaps foreign tradition i raised the question in part because in in hindu india the compilers and custodians of these sacred traditions
35:13
Speaker A
were nearly always brahmanas who were very conservative in their respect for scriptural precedent like the american supreme court with its practice of judicial review the priestly compilers and commentators were keen to justify the new in terms of the old to cloak modern
35:33
Speaker A
innovation in the garb of ancient tradition so was there a precedent for this tantric practice and its soteriological rationale hyenas are not jackals however a number of tantric sources also identify yoganese with these predators now this classical sanskrit term for
36:04
Speaker A
hyena is however as stephanie jameson has shown on the basis of a curious vedic myth dating from no later than 1000 bce the earliest term for these creatures may have been shala ricka literally house wolf or more properly
36:21
Speaker A
speaking shalom ki since the term only appears in its feminine form in vedic mythology recall here that the most common sanskrit term for jackal is shiva also a feminine term what was it about hyenas and jackals that made them
36:39
Speaker A
culturally feminine creatures in south asian traditions jackals like hyenas are said to be possessed of the power of speech they laugh they howl they talk and one finds references from throughout the world to hyenas whose moans draw unsuspecting victims into their
36:58
Speaker A
lairs in order to eat them but the perceived femininity of hyenas goes beyond their power of seductive deceptive speech so for example the rigveda states that quote there are no friendships with women they have the hearts of hyenas
37:17
Speaker A
hyena behavior and physiology also play a role here as jameson notes in hyena societies is the females that dominate with dens being inhabited by the alpha female and her cubs and older males largely shut out to fend for themselves in the wild
37:36
Speaker A
among spotted hyenas the females are larger than the males and their clitoris looks exactly like a penis in addition to which according to an animal physiologist the female has a sham scrotum that looks very masculine indeed male or female hyenas are formidable
37:53
Speaker A
predators they have massive heads and the jaws of the spotted hyena are the most powerful of any mammal on the planet all hyenas are able to crush the biggest bones of their prey to extract the marrow in the vedic myth analyzed by jameson
38:14
Speaker A
indra the champion of the gods himself takes the form of a female hyena a chalabriki to feed her male cubs what indra as female hyena feeds her cubs is of particular interest she feeds them yatis who were the yatis
38:33
Speaker A
before the term yogi entered into the sanskrit lexicon the itinerant male ascetics of ancient india were known as yatis wanderers as such this vedic tradition of yetis and ayinas may have been the scriptural precedent for supreme yoga the tantric yogi's
38:52
Speaker A
self-sacrifice to the shape-shifting yoganese and dachanese in my talk today i hope to have accomplished two objectives the first and more obvious has been to recover an archaic stratum of practice grounded in asian demonology as well perhaps as in vedic
39:13
Speaker A
precedent that was adapted into south and east asian tantra before becoming sublimated into so-called tantric sex the second concerns the data that have grounded tantric scholarship in the west since its origins in the writings of sir john woodruff
39:32
Speaker A
scholars who interpret south asian tantra are nearly exclusively endologists that is textualists who apply the presuppositions and methods of the study of the ancient greek and roman classics restricting their scope to philology textual criticism and manuscriptology however as art historians of inner and southeast
39:56
Speaker A
asia of tibetan and quran in particular have shown iconography is also a precious data source for the reconstruction of the history of tantra the images i've shown you today attest to the continuity of a body of practice seldom mentioned in the scriptural
40:16
Speaker A
record archaeological epigraphical and toponymic data are also useful as alexis sanderson hansbacher and other members of the leiden based scunder purana project have shown finally popular literature and modern ethnography can also contribute to our understanding of medieval practice
40:38
Speaker A
as i've indicated in my use of axel me kyle's description of the jackal sacrifice to the kathmandu goddess but salaam here i'm repeating an argument that i made in the first pages of my 2003 book kiss of the yogany today
40:56
Speaker A
very few have taken my serious my suggestion seriously besides me and in these two titles you will see me taking myself seriously yet again approaching tantra and related topics from the standpoint of a history of a historian of religions rather than that
41:14
Speaker A
of an indologist thank you
Topics:David G. WhiteShakta StudiestantrayoganisdakinisKaula ReformationSouth Asian religionstantric initiationNatura Tantratantric sex

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