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Concept
Dakini
Summary
A ḍākinī (डाकिनी; ; хандарма; ; alternatively 荼枳尼, ; 荼吉尼, ; or 吒枳尼, ; Japanese: 荼枳尼 / 吒枳尼 / 荼吉尼, dakini) is a type of female spirit, goddess, or demon in Hinduism and Buddhism.
The concept of the ḍākinī somewhat differs depending on the context and the tradition. For instance, in earlier Hindu texts and East Asian esoteric Buddhism, the term denotes a race of demonesses who ate the flesh and/or vital essence of humans. In Hindu Tantric literature, Ḍākinī is the name of a goddess often associated with one of the six chakras or the seven fundamental elements (dhātu) of the human body. In Nepalese and Tibetan Buddhism, meanwhile, 'ḍākinī' (also wisdom ḍākinī) can refer to both what can be best described as fierce-looking female embodiments of enlightened energy and to human women with a certain amount of spiritual development, both of which can help Tantric initiates attaining enlightenment.
In Japan, the ḍākinīs – held in the East Asian Buddhist tradition to have been subjugated and converted to Buddhism by the buddha Vairocana under the guise of the god Mahākāla (Daikokuten in Japanese) – were eventually coalesced into a single deity called Dakiniten (荼枳尼天, 吒枳尼天, or 荼吉尼天), who, after becoming syncretized with the native agricultural deity Inari, became linked to fox (kitsune) iconography associated with the latter.
The Sanskrit term is related to , "to fly", as in (meaning "flight"). The Tibetan khandroma (), meaning "sky-goer", may have originated from the Sanskrit (of the same meaning), a term from the Cakrasaṃvara Tantra. The masculine form of the word is , which is usually translated into Tibetan as pawo, "hero" ().
In Chinese, is transcribed mainly as 荼枳尼 (), 荼吉尼 (), or 吒枳尼 (); other less common alternative transcriptions include 陀祇尼 (tuóqíní), 吒祇尼 (zhāqíní), 吒幾爾 (zhājǐěr), and 拏吉尼 (nájíní). It is also translated as 空行母 (), a calque of the Tibetan term. In Japanese, these transcriptions are all read as dakini (katakana: ダキニ; also ダーキニー, dākinī).
Official source
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