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The ''Yogini Tantra'' is a 16th- or 17th-century tantric text by an unknown author either from
Assam Assam (; ) is a state in northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . The state is bordered by Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh to the north; Nagaland and Manipur ...
or
Cooch Behar Cooch Behar (), or Koch Bihar, is a city and a municipality in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is the headquarters of the Cooch Behar district. It is in the foothills of the Eastern Himalayas at . Cooch Behar is the only planned city in the ...
: "One of the most explicit descriptions of Tantric sexual rites occurs in Yogini tantra, a sixteenth-century text from Cooch Behar, immediately adjacent to Assam" and is dedicated to the worship of
Hindu Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism.Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...
goddesses
Kali Kali (; sa, काली, ), also referred to as Mahakali, Bhadrakali, and Kalika ( sa, कालिका), is a Hinduism, Hindu goddess who is considered to be the goddess of ultimate power, time, destruction and change in Shaktism. In t ...
and
Kamakhya Kamakhya, a mother goddess, is a Shakta Tantric deity; considered to be the embodiment of ''Kama (desire)'', she is regarded as the goddess of sex. Her abodeKamakhya Temple is located in the Kamarupa region of Assam, India."Seated on top of ...
. Apart from religious and philosophical themes, this voluminous
tantra Tantra (; sa, तन्त्र, lit=loom, weave, warp) are the esoteric traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism that developed on the Indian subcontinent from the middle of the 1st millennium CE onwards. The term ''tantra'', in the Indian ...
contains some historical information. The text is especially important for the ''
vamachara ''Vāmācāra'' ( sa, वामाचार, ) is a tantric term meaning "left-hand path" and is synonymous with the Sanskrit term ''vāmamārga''. It is used to describe a particular mode of worship or '' sadhana'' (spiritual practice) that is ...
'' form of tantric worship. The Northeast Indian ''Yogini Tantra'' manuscript referenced here should not be confused with a classification of
Vajrayana Vajrayāna ( sa, वज्रयान, "thunderbolt vehicle", "diamond vehicle", or "indestructible vehicle"), along with Mantrayāna, Guhyamantrayāna, Tantrayāna, Secret Mantra, Tantric Buddhism, and Esoteric Buddhism, are names referring t ...
Tantras known as Anuttarayoga Tantras which include a sub-class known as the Mother Tantras which includes a further sub-classification known as the Yogini Tantras.


Date and Place

The Yogini Tantra was written in Assam or Cooch Behar in the 16th or 17th century. The date is determined from the reference to the 16th-century
Koch dynasty Koch may refer to: People * Koch (surname), people with this surname * Koch dynasty, a dynasty in Assam and Bengal, north east India * Koch family * Koch people (or Koche), an ethnic group originally from the ancient Koch kingdom in north east In ...
(''kuvacha''), who are said to have been born to a
Mech In science fiction, or mechs are giant robots or machines controlled by people, typically depicted as humanoid walking vehicles. The term was first used in Japanese (language), Japanese after shortening the English loanword or , but the mean ...
woman. Some authors place it in the 17th century.


Published Versions

There are contemporary published versions of the entire ''Yogini Tantra'' in Sanskrit, and there are versions that include Hindi language translations. There are no known published English language translations at this time. There is a partial English language summary of the contents of the ''Yogini Tantra'' available online and the Sanskrit language version includes an English language Preface and Introduction with important details about the manuscript including other published versions in Indic languages.''Yogini Tantra''. Biswanarayan Shastri, ed. Delhi: Bharatiya Vidya Prakashan. 1982. Pp. v-x and xi-xliv.


Notes


References

* * * * * Hindu tantra Works of unknown authorship {{Hindu-theo-stub