Dakini

A dākinī (Sanskrit) or khandroma (Tibetan; mkha'- 'gro-my; མཁའ ་ གྲ ་ མ ་) is a female deity of the Hindouisme and Bouddhisme Vajrayāna, important in the tantric practices Tibetans. In Chinese it is called kōngxíngnǚ (空行女) and in Japanese dakini-ten . In its courroucée form, it typically has the aspect of a nude woman in an attitude of dancer or warlike (pratayalidha), collar of craniums and hair scattered, pressing with the feet a corpse and holding a scraper (sk. kartika , tib. tri gug ), a cut-cranium filled of blood or a flask, sometimes a fork-three-pronged fork (khatvangha) on the shoulder.

The Hindu dākinīs (and their male equivalents, dākas) move in the sky, which translates their Chinese name and Tibetan ( mkha , sky; gro , displacement; my , woman). This faculty is a magic achievement (Siddhi), occults the dākinīs in the case of known as fashionable , or spiritual for the dākinīs known as of wisdom . In this last case, the sky is the Buddhist symbol of wisdom inherent in the vacuity fondamementale, and to be driven there represents the skilful means (Upāya S) implemented for the universal Awakening (Bodhicitta).

Generally the dākinī term seems to come from the root of daksha , meaning capacity, ability. However, other interpretations were proposed. For some, dak- would mean “to call while shouting or while striking” and would refer to the drums or chants of women Shaman S. With the Bengal and in current the Bengladesh, area of origin of the missionary Atisha and the Mahassidha S Tilopa and Naropa, where the worship of the dakinis was formerly widespread, dakh means “pure” or “incomparable”. It is there the origin of the name of the town of Dhâkâ and that of the Dhakeshwari goddess who has a temple there. The village of birth of Atisha names besides Vajrayoginī, name of large a dākinī Buddhist.

The dākinīs are composite characters in whom one foresees the silhouette of divinities of worships former to the tantrism or Buddhism, of spirits of nature, witches or female demons Indian or Himalayan. In Buddhism Tibetan, they can be subjugated fashionable deities, female and courroucées forms of Bodhisattva S or Bouddha S, or of the historical or legendary personalities, partners of Mahāsiddha S or mahasiddhas themselves. Khandro is an honorary title for the yoginīs or the nuns.

India

Sometimes assistants of a large divinity like Kālī or Chandi (Durgā), parèdres wild of Shiva, the Indian dākinīs have a terrible aspect, sometimes several faces, are carnivorous and warlike, and claim animal sacrifices. As the goddesses whom they serve, they put their aggressiveness at the service of the gods or those which return a worship to them. Messengers and psychopompes, they haunt the battle fields and the cemeteries. Perhaps they draw their origin from the protective goddesses of the villages (grama devati), or of indigenous worships of the East of India, as one proposed for Kālī. The belief that certain women leave their house the night to meet in the forest where they dance naked with the spirits and the wild animals still exists at the Sandals of the district of Mayurbhanj (Orissa). The worship of the sixty-four dākinīs (eight principal accompanied each of eight assistants) seems to have been widespread in the East and the Center-North of India of IXe in XIIIe century. One can still see five their temples in correct state of conservation (two in Orissa, one in the Uttar Pradesh, one in the Madhya Pradesh and one in the Tamil Nadu). They are temples with open sky, perhaps because of the fact that the dākinīs move while flying. Were requested they to obtain the supernatural capacities of Iddhi, the control of nature or health. The term dākinī also designates in Hindi an old witch, a demon female or a ghoule.

Tibet

Natural forces

In Himālaya, the dākinīs merge sometimes with local spirits, as the five Tseringma sisters that Padmasambhava subjected and transformed into protective Dharma. According to the oral tradition, when black and white clouds appear together in the sky, these are two groups of dākinīs which clash. On the Zari mount in the south of Tibet, one shows a plate where, for the period of the great pilgrimage of the years of the monkey which must prevent a spirit from going down to harm to the inhabitants of the valleys, Simhamukha with head of lion faces others dākinīs with the failures.

The Black Cap of Karmapas

The Karmapa S of Tibet are the holders of the Black Cap (Tib. cod-side) which one says that it was woven by the dākinīs starting from their hair and was offered to the Karmapa in recognition of its spiritual realization. Because it could have perceived this cap Zhwa-nag , the emperor of China Yongle of the Ming offered to the 5th Karmapa Deshin Shekpa (1384 - 1415) a crown materializing it. It is currently preserved at the monastery of Rumtek to the Sikkim, seat of the 16th Karmapa in exile.

The 15th Karmapa, Khakyab Dorje (1871 - 1922), was the first of the line of the Karmapa S which Maria. He lives in a dream that to prolong his life, he was to take for wife an emanation of the dākinī Yeshe Tsogyal, Urgyen Tsomo, born in a family close to Tsourphou. It been able to prolong the life of 15th Karmapa during 9 years.

Mahāsiddhas

The dākinīs have a privileged relation with the yogis and the Mahāsiddha S which they put to the test. If they are shown with the height, they will visit their paradise (Khechara). They reveal the secrecies, as the dākinīs which guided the envoys in the search of Atisha, or the prophetess which announced to him that its stay in the country of Snows would be advantageous with Buddhism, but that its life would be curtailed by it several years. They help with discovered termas, texts hidden or revealed. Senge Dongma, dākinī with head of lion, reveals with Padmasambhava the Mantra of Avalokiteshvara. Padmasambhava would have entrusted its oral teaching to Yeshe Tsogyal, princess of Kharchen, her partner Tibetan, who transcribed it in writing of dākinī and dissimulated it for the centuries to come. Thus, Yeshe Tsogyal wrote the Bardo Thodol, the Book of Dead the Tibetan composed by Padmasambhava. The writing of dākinī is a fantastic writing that the Tertön, discoverer of the text-treasures , must interpret before retranscribing it in Tibetan. Large the yoginīs historical is regarded as incarnations of dākinīs, like Yeshe Tsogyal or Machik Labdrön (or Machig Gyalmo), contemporary of Milarepa.

Tantric practices

Female form, the dākinī represents the wisdom and the spirit of the practitioner. Like all the tantric Déité S, there are several types and several levels: fashionable or waked up, Yidam S or Dharmapāla S, Bodhisattva S or Bouddha S. Indeed, if they are in the beginning courroucées female forms, they can be regarded as emanations of other deities, and in certain representations appear in a more serene form. The place and the function of same a dākinī can vary according to the traditions and the practices. In some, the dākinī is one of the three refuges known as extraordinary of the tantrism: Guru, yidam and dākinī or Dharmapāla, called three roots. They can also play the part of Parèdre virtual, called jñanamudrā, in visualizations of yab-yum, a real parèdre being a karmamudrā.

Some dākinīs

Vajravārahī (Dorje Phagmo), one of the parèdre of Chakrasamvara, more terrible form of Vajrayoginī; the five partners of Padmasambhava, in particular Yeshe Tsogyal, are comparable for him: the latter is its word, Mandarava (originating in Zahor) its body, Belmo Sakya Devi (Nepal) its spirit, Belwang Kalasiddhi (Nepal) its nature, Mangala or Monmo Tashi Khyeudren, its actvity;

Simhamukha (Simhavaktra) or Seng Dongma with head of lion; in the tradition Nyingma it is the initiator of Padmasambhava, or that of its emanations which represents secret teaching; in the other traditions it is parèdre of Chakrasamvara;
Sarvabuddhadākinī or Narodakini, initiator of Naropa;
Maitridākinī, initiator of Maitripa, one of the Masters of Marpa;
Sukhasiddhi : Naljorma Dewa Ngodrub Chenpo, yogini of Xe-XIe century, is comparable for him;
Niguma, initiator of Chungpo Naljor; Vimalashri, sister or partner of Nāropa, are comparable for him;
Machik Labdrön (Machig Drepay Drolma or Machig Gyalmo), matriarche of the Chöd, which conferred the initiation of Tchenrézi (Avalokiteshvara) on Rechungpa, one of the two principal disciples of Milarépa;
eight Kerima Dākinīs (rNam-shes brgyad-kyi ye-shes mkha'- 'gro bzhi), parèdres of the eight Heruka S, forms courroucée of the eight bodhisattvas. They have the shape even more terrible with head of animal called Phramenma.
four dākinīs guardians of the doors of the Mandala (sgo my bzhi);
five dākinīs associated with the Buddhas of meditation (Ye-shes mKha- 'gro lnga), emanations of Vajravārahī, or Vajrayoginī;

The groups of dākinīs appear during the period of the bardo between death and the rebirth.

Iconography

The nudity of the dākinī symbolizes the natural and wild state, and according to Buddhist interpretation the absence of ego or mental obstacle, revealed clean nature. Its wild aspect and its accessories point out the figures of Kālī or Durgā: the cranium filled with blood that it glossy sometimes with drinking evokes the episode where Kālī drank the blood of the Raktabeeja demon, the flask which replaces it sometimes the elixir of life and force of Durgā; the knife-scraper is used to separate the flesh from the bones and means according to Buddhist optics the examination of the ego and ignorance. The three-pronged fork (khatvangha) is in the beginning one of the emblems of Shiva, homologous masculine of Durgā and Kālī, and divinity related to the tantric practices. Often, on its pole three heads are threaded, which are upwards: a coldly cut head (blue), a head in state of decomposition (red) and a cranium (white); according to the tantric interpretation of Buddhism they represent the future, the present and the past, or the Nirmānakāya, the Sambhogakāya and the Dharmakāya; the three colors are associated with the syllables ohm , a' has and ' hong .

Others

With the Ladakh, the dākinīs are ritually invited to the marriages; it is thought that they carry happiness to the future couple.
the 25e day of each lunar month is devoted to the dākinīs, 10th with the male dākas, their counterparts.
With the Japan the principal form of dakini (daîkini ten) introduced by the current tantric Shingon was mixed with a divinity Shinto Inari (Japanese divinity) represented by a fox.

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