ḍākiṇī

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Ḍākiṇī (Skt., ‘female witch’; Tib., mkhaʾ.ʾgro.ma, ‘Female one who moves through the sky’). A class of Goddesses in Tibetan Buddhism attendant upon yogins. Historically, ḍākiṇīs were known in India as flesh-eating attendants of Kālī, and as the sexual partners of yogins. Iconographically, ḍākiṇīs are usually consorts of other deities, but it is only iconographically that they correspond to the Hindu śaktis: the ḍākiṇīs are associated with wisdom, not with power, for which reason they are referred to as prajñas (wisdoms).

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