Sixty-Four Yoginis: Cult, Icons and Goddesses

摘要

This book provides an overview of goddesses known as Yoginis within scholarship about Ancient India. The author, Anamika Roy, traces the origin, history, sculpture and architectural representation of Yoginis based on pre-modern Tantric and Natha texts. She, however, separates Yoginis from other contemporary Hindu goddesses, such as Matrikas. While Roy accepts that Yoginis and Matrikas are mentioned together in various texts (p. xxii), she continues to treat Yoginis as epistemically separate. She argues (Chapter 4) that Yoginis are accorded primacy as individual goddesses in Tantric literature and are only linked to Matrikas in sculptures (p. 75). She does not, however, explain why she valorises Tantric text over sculptural evidence. Neither does she explain why she does not accord primacy to other texts that treat Yoginis and Matrikas together.