In different stages in the history of South Asian religions, the term yogini has been used in various contexts to designate various things: a female adept of yoga, a female tantric practitioner, a sorceress, a woman dedicated to a deity, or a certain category of female deities. This book brings together recent interdisciplinary perspectives on the medieval South Asian cults of the Yoginis, such as textual-philological, historical, art historical, indological, anthropological, ritual and terminological.
The book discusses the medieval yogini cult, as illustrated in early Saiva tantric texts, and their representations in South Asian temple iconography. It looks at the roles and hypostases of yoginis in contemporary religious traditions, as well as the transformations of yogini-related ritual practices. In addition, this book systematizes the multiple meanings, and proposes definitions of the concept and models for integrating the semantic fields of yogini.
Highlighting the importance of research from complementary disciplines for the exploration of complex themes in South Asian studies, this book is of interest to scholars of South Asian Studies and Religious Studies.
1. Introduction: Tracing Yogins: Religious Polysemy in Cultural
Contexts Part 1: Yogin: Definitions and categories
2. What is a Yogin?
Towards a Polythetic Definition
3. The Category of the Yogin as a Gendered
Practitioner Part 2: History, cosmography, hagiography
4. The Abode of the
Pańcamudrs: A Yogin temple in Early Medieval Vrnas
5. The Presence of
Yogins in Madhya Pradesh: An Epigraphic Study
6. Cosmographic Buildings of
India: The Circles of the Yogins
7. Relationships and Visions: The Yogin as
Deity and Human Female in Tantric Buddhism Part 3: Art history
8. Yogins in
Stone: Auspicious and Inauspicious Power
9. The Goddess Hinghalja of the
Yogin Shrine at Khajuraho
10. The Yogins of the Bayon Part 4: Ethnography
11. Yogins in Bengali Religious Traditions: Tribal, Tantric and Bhakti
Influences
12. Alternative Yogins with Alternative Powers: Singing the Blues
in the Causatt Yogin Dev Mandir of Vrnas
13. Invoking the Erotic
Mother: The Outcaste Priestess and the Heroic Men Part 5: Possession,
sexuality, dance
14. Yogin Possession in Early aiva Tantras
15. Can
Encounters with Yogins in the Jayadrathaymala Be Described as Possession?
16. The Yogin and the Tantric Sex Rite, or How to Keep a Secret
17.
Performing Hirapur: Dancing the akti Rpa Yogin
Istvįn Keul is Professor in the Study of Religions at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway. His main field of interest is South Asian religion, and he has previously published on the Hindu deity Hanuman.
