– Roger R Jackson
The Yōginī Tantras, which include the Hēvajra, Samvarōdaya, Chaṇdamahārōṣaṇa, Mahāmudrātilaka, Vajrakīlaya, Chatuhpīṭha, Buddhakapāla, and Kālacakra Tantras and texts related to them, are one of the very last literary developments in Indian Buddhism, probably appearing no earlier than the eighth century and gaining importance only in the ninth and tenth centuries. They are related to, but distinguishable from, other late Indian Buddhist tantric textual traditions, including those of the Guhyasamāja, Yamāri, and Vajrapāṇi Tantras, which frequently were designated Mahāyōga Tantras. Taxonomists of Tantra sometimes assigned the Mahāyōga and Yōginī Tantras to separate classes and sometimes placed them together in a single, “highest” class of Tantra, the Unsurpassed Yoga Tantra. The Yōginī and other “higher” Tantras are part of the broader class of Buddhist tantric texts, which began to appear in about the seventh century. All Tantras purport to have been spoken by the Buddha in one or another form (most often the form for which the Tantra is named), and Tantras — along with their voluminous subsidiary literature — quickly began to form an important subset of the Mahāyāna Buddhist canon. By the end of the first millennium, Tantra increasingly had come to dominate Indian Buddhist life and practice and, for that matter, to affect life and practice in nearly all Indian religious communities.
Thus, when Buddhism began to make significant inroads in Tibet in the eighth century, Tantra already was an inescapable part of Indian Buddhism, and Tibetans regarded the Adamantine Vehicle of tantric practice, the Vajrayāna, as the most advanced of all the Buddha’s teachings. All Tibetan Buddhists consider the Yōginī Tantras to be at or near the pinnacle of the Tantric path. The “old” translation school, the Nyingma, focuses primarily on Tantras translated into Tibetan before the Yōginī Tantras first arrived in Tibet in the tenth and eleventh centuries, but when it does incorporate aspects of the Yōginī Tantras into its characteristic nine-vehicle taxonomy of Buddhist texts and practices, it generally places them in the penultimate category, Anuyōga—beyond the practices of the Disciple and Solitary Buddha paths, standard Mahāyāna, and various lower Tantras but still below the apogee of the scheme, Atiyōga, whose texts and practices are the basis of the quintessential Nyingma system, the great perfection. While secondary in the Nyingma, the Yōginī Tantras and their commentarial traditions are crucial to the tantric systems of latter-day (post-1000) Tibetan translation schools like the Kagyu, Sakya, and Gelug. Of Yōginī Tantra texts and practices, the Kagyu tends to emphasize those related to Chakrasamvara (including the female Buddha Vajrayōginī), the Sakya focuses above all on Hēvajra, and the Gelug concentrates on Chakrasamvara and Kālacakra. Whatever their preferences, all three traditions classify the Yōginī (or “Mother”) Tantras—along with such “Father” (i.e., Mahāyōga) Tantras as the Guhyasamāja—among the Unsurpassed Yoga Tantras that are the highest of the four sets of tantras recognized in their taxonomies (the others being Action, Performance, and Yoga Tantras).
Whatever their classification, and despite considerable differences among them with respect to both the outlines and details of theory and practice, the Yōginī Tantras are characterized by a number of distinctive features, some of which are unique to them but many of which they share with other highly advanced Tantras; with “lower” tantras; with Mahāyāna sūtras, commentaries, and treatises; with Buddhism in general; and with non-Buddhist Indian yogic traditions, including certain schools of Hindu Tantra.
The Yōginī Tantras have a number of ideas that are distinctive to them:
1. In practices related to re-envisioning the cosmos as a sacred realm, or maṇḍala, an important and sometimes centra place is given to wrathful, naked, cremation ground–inhabiting female deities, most often called yōginīs or ḍākinīs. These figures are associated both with profound gnostic wisdom and extraordinary bliss—and the fusion of the two, in reality, the mind, and tantric practice. The importance of these figures and their symbolism helps to explain why the Yōginī Tantras are named as they are, and also are known as ḍākinī Tantras or Prajñā (i.e., wisdom) Tantras.
2. In advanced yogas within the “subtle body” made of channels, winds, and drops, a number of different “seals” (mudrā) are identified that help to confirm and deepen one’s practice. There are various listings of seals relating to various phases of practice; the most significant set, perhaps, refers to three major procedures: sexual yoga with a flesh-and-blood partner (karmamudrā), engagement with a visualized partner (jñānamudrā), and non-dual contemplation of the nature of reality (the great seal, or mahāmudrā). In some Yōginī Tantra systems, all are required, while in others only some or one may be applied.
3. A major function of subtle body yogas is to induce a sequence of up to four ecstasies (ānanda), which are linked to a variety of other fourfold patterns, for example, four tantric initiations, four moments on the path, four Buddha bodies, and so on. These ecstasies culminate in an enlightened awareness or gnosis—often referred to as “the innate” (sahaja) or the great seal (mahāmudrā)—in which the mind’s natural purity and luminosity, its non-dual realization of emptiness, and an experience of great bliss or ecstasy are indissolubly interfused.
The Yōginī Tantras share a number of ideas with other highly advanced Tantras:
1. Enlightenment only is possible through confronting and transforming such basic human emotions and events as passion, anger, death, and rebirth, and one must begin to do so during four highly demanding, profoundly symbolic, and in some cases sexually charged initiations received from one’s Guru, to whom one pledges absolute obedience.
2. The locus for real spiritual work is the human body, and more specifically the subtle body (sūkṣma-śarīra) that interpenetrates and is the basis of our coarse physical bodies. This body consists of seventy-two thousand channels (nāḍī), five to ten major breath-related energies (prāṇa), and a number of hormonal “drops” (Bindu) inherited at conception from one’s parents.
3. The work of transformation requires overcoming dualistic aversion to notions of pure and impure, a willingness on occasion to transgress conventional moral norms, and skillful manipulation of one’s mind and energies so as to bring them to a standstill within certain nodes or centers (chakra) within the central channel of the subtle body. In order to harness one’s energies, one must be willing on occasion to ingest “impure” substances such as alcohol, semen, and blood, and engage in sexual yoga practices, sometimes within the context of a tantric feast or “family circle,” a gaṇacakra. The result of controlling one’s energies is the production—or revelation—within the central channel of blissful, enlightened gnosis.
The Yōginī Tantras have certain ideas in common with other Buddhist tantras:
1. One must practice here and now as if one were the Buddha-deity one someday will become, “making the goal the path” by reconstituting oneself out of one’s fundamental emptiness as a sacred syllable, which becomes an enlightened being at the center of one’s divine, deity-filled abode, the mandala. Through this procedure, one lays the basis for overcoming the three “existential events” at the heart of samsara—death, intermediate existence, and rebirth— and for achieving the dharma, enjoyment, and transformation “bodies” (dharmakāya, sambhōgakāya, and nirmāṇakāya) of a Buddha.
2. One must employ a wide variety of ritual and meditative methods, including mantras, supplication prayers, material and immaterial offerings, and the practice of the extraordinary degree of one-pointed concentration required for seeing oneself and the cosmos in an entirely different way.
3. Tantric practice only is possible after initiation and instruction from a qualified guru, who is the key to one’s access to tantric Buddha-deities, and to the lineage of gurus who have taught the practices that lead to persons’ actually becoming those Buddha-deities.
The Yōginī Tantras have a number of ideas in common with a broad range of Mahāyāna Buddhist movements:
1. The purpose of human (and all sentient) existence is to attain fully enlightened Buddhahood—consisting of dharma, enjoyment, and emanation bodies—at the culmination of the path of the “enlightenment hero,” the Bodhisattva, who sets out on an arduous spiritual journey motivated by compassion for the sufferings of all sentient beings, and the aspiration to free them all (bodhicitta).
2. In progressing toward enlightenment, one must employ a wide range of religious methods (upāya) for developing compassion toward all living beings, assisting beings with their worldly and spiritual problems, pleasing a multitude of powerful Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, and cultivating one’s own visionary experiences of those beings within their Buddha fields, or “pure lands.”
3. One must cultivate an approach to the wisdom that emphasizes that the nature of all entities and concepts is non-duality, sameness, or, above all, emptiness (śūnyatā). This crucial term may variously (and sometimes simultaneously) be understood to mean that things simply lack any substantial, permanent, independent nature (as taught in the Mādhyamaka school); that perceived phenomena cannot be differentiated from the mind that perceives them (as taught in the Yōgācāra school); and/or that the naturally stainless and radiant mind behind all things is devoid of any of the defilements that appear to blemish it (as taught in the literature on the Tathāgatagarbha, or “Buddha nature”).
The Yōginī Tantras share a number of ideas with Buddhist traditions in general:
1. The essential human problem is repeated rebirth (samsāra), which is prompted by ignorance of the nature of things, a selfish craving for pleasure, and unskillful actions bearing inevitable effects (karma)—but which is capable of elimination (in a condition of peace, knowledge, and bliss called nirvāṇa) through proper conduct, the mastery of techniques of meditation, and direct insight into reality.
2. Those who seek spiritual freedom must begin by going for refuge to the Buddha, the doctrine he taught (dharma), and the spiritual community he founded (sangha). Buddhist life usually involves both active participation in a community of like-minded seekers and avoidance of the religious ideas and practices followed by outsiders to the community.
3. It is axiomatic that, in the opening words of the universally revered verse collection the Dhammapāda, “all that we are is a result of what we have thought: it is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts.” The implication of this is that as we see, so shall we be.
Finally, the Yōginī Tantras share a number of perspectives with non-Buddhist Indian yogic traditions:
1. The samsāra-nirvāṇa cosmology is an accurate picture of a lot of all beings everywhere in the universe.
2. Through a combination of personal discipline, virtuous conduct, proper meditation, and correct insight one may transcend the vicious circle of samsāra and attain the transcendent, gnostic bliss of nirvāṇa (or, in Hindu terms, mōkṣa).
3. The best context in which to pursue spiritual liberation is a supportive community, ideally one built around an experienced and skillful Guru.
More specifically, and quite importantly, the Yōginī Tantras share with a number of more or less contemporaneous Hindu tantric traditions, whether Kashmiri or Bengali, a considerable number of terms, deities, yogic procedures, and social perspectives.