Yoginīs, Revelation, and Hidden Knowledge in Tantric Śaivism

This paper examines the roles of goddesses and divinized women in Shaiva Tantric revelation, focusing on the figure of the yoginī, a category bridging the divine and the human. The early goddess-centered or Shākta Bhairavatantras and later Kaula traditions transformed Shaiva conceptions of revelation, giving new roles to yoginīs and siddhas (‘perfected’ yogins) as agents of its transmission and positing the Goddess as its ultimate source. As this paper demonstrates, yoginīs’ transmission of knowledge is typically framed as the bestowal of “lineage teachings” (sampradāya): oral instruction or coded communication too esoteric to set be down in conventional textual forms.