Book review: Anamika Roy,Sixty-Four Yoginis: Cults,Icons and Goddesses

The book is an addition to growing repertoire in the study of Tantric traditions and understanding the location and functions of ‘lesser known deities’ that form a part of the Great Tradition. ¹ The monograph is divided into 4 parts and 10 chapters and has numerous plates of Yogini sculptures. The author claims that she has gone beyond the study of Yoginis within Tantric traditions and brought into focus ‘contemporary literature, the Sanskrit texts and Puranas’ (Introduction, p. xx) using a new investigative approach. One does, however, get a little flummoxed at the distinction of textual material: how do Sanskrit texts form a source category distinct from Puranas, when Puranic literature is largely in Sanskrit as are many Tantric texts?

Clearly Roy’s effort is to push her analysis beyond the confines of a historical study into the space of cultural anthropology. To that extent, she takes up the study of Yogini temples at many sites and also explores contemporary practices in a bid to ‘remove the veil of secrecy that seem to shroud the reality of Yoginis’. She has also sought to distinguish between ‘Yogini Cult and Yoginis of temples’ (Introduction, p. xxi).

Roy’s academic approach is a mix of that of an art scholar, cultural anthropologist, and a historian who often blurs theoretical distinctions of each; moving easily from one discipline to the other. At times, she betrays sensibilities of a postmodernist too. Roy’s project appears to be like a response to issues raised by other scholars. For instance, the very first chapter, ‘Why Yoginis Dance?’, is a take-off from Fabri’s work (1974) where he wondered if there was a connect between dancing Yoginis and the devadasi cult. She argues that, ‘the dancing yogini images are manifestations of rituals where Joganis or devadasis or women in the roles of goddesses danced as a part of magico-religious practices to regenerate or fertilize earth’. But we are still left wanting for some nuanced historical–sociological explanations. For instance, when did the practice of dancing Yoginis become popular? At what time in the history did these practices gain currency in the Rani–Jharial region? Could this be related to the fact that a forest belt was being converted into an agrarian tract and hence dance (erotic dance) would convey fertility connotations? Were/are the dances performed in the beginning of harvest season? What are the current myths that correspond to sculptural depictions? Why should Puranic imagery become popular in Hirapur area and not in Ranipur–Jharial? Why should a warrior pose be popular in Ranipur–Jharial (p. 145) and that of yogini Chinnmatsa in a self-sacrificing genre in Hirapur? How many such myths are preserved in the Puranas and how much of these are a part of social memory? Distinctions on these lines would help both students of history and anthropology.

Another problem that a reader grapples with is that while Tantric and Puranic sources are given and can be referred to, simplistic references to ‘popular texts and popular memory (p. 7) leave her/him perplexed about source verification. It would have been easier for a reader to locate sources easily, if the author had placed all these at the beginning, segregated the historical from the popular and placed them on a timeline and within spatial bracket. Thus, all statements would have become self-explanatory and fluctuations over time and space could have been easily read. It would be incorrect, however, to state that sources are not given; some are discussed in the introduction, whereas others are scattered in other chapters. Putting all together under one head, would have saved moving back and forth between pages.

Roy’s critique of Great Traditions is well taken. She rightly questions whether the process of Sanskritisation implied a total absorption of little traditions and complete substitution of symbols and iconography. There is logic in the argument that within regional specificities, the local aspects may continue to dominate. She also draws our attention to simultaneous existence of religious traditions of elite and that of commoners. So far, the argument holds tenacity, but the distinction between the Puranic and Tantric needs some elaboration. The sentence ‘Tantra is not different from the Puranic religion, it only crosses Puranic religion’ (p. 69) begs further questions. If the assertion implies that Puranic is Brahmanical and hence elite and Tantra is the popular and that both are essentially same, although approached in slightly different ways by distinct groups, then it may be worth adding that Puranic in its genesis is also an amalgamation of Vedism and local popular traditions, finally accommodated by Brahmanism. Thus, the exercise of absorption and amalgamation is a continuous one and takes varied forms. In fact, dissimilarity in Yogini practices and cults across the country can be easily explained by variations in these amalgamative processes. What is important is to study the contexts in which the developments are taking place, tensions amongst different traditions as well as other socio-economic and cultural factors that influence such processes.

Roy anticipates the question that many readers might have in mind while going through any work associated with female divinities: Did worship of goddesses (of any kind) ever translate into social empowerment of women? Roy does reiterate that ‘feminism’ is a western concept and may not justifiably apply to historical societies of India and critiques Thomas Coburn’s assumption that a work such as Devi Mahatmya actually holds, ‘all women as portions of Devi’ (p. 218). But her own response to the issue of gender empowerment is confounding. On the one hand, she states, ‘Goddess worship has always been there in the society and there was no inherent advocacy that a powerful symbol like goddess be translated into the question of gender’ (p. 224), on the other, while focussing on the Goddess (Devi), she also states that ‘her emergence in AD 600 had brought the marginalized goddesses into focus. The attributes of tribal goddess were merged into one great goddess. Because of the acceptance of tribal rituals and customs. Shaktism was liberal towards women in general and of low origin in particular. It was owing to the political need that suppressed voices were brought to centre’ (p. 224). Were, then, the female deities, including Yoginis, not playing some roles in empowering female followers in whatever little way they could, even as they remained largely located within patriarchies of different kinds? After all, bringing female voices and that too of low origins to the centre was a social act that contained transformative potential. Her work clearly shows agency of some kind and even if we were to point out the absence of ‘modern’ equivalence of ‘feminism’, presence of powerful female divinities facilitated shifts within existent social frameworks and these can be traced historically. It would have been useful if Roy had given some thought to this and moved her work into this historical/anthropological sphere—or at least raised pointers that other scholars could pursue.

The author has done extensive field work with numerous photographs and interactions with Yogini temple acharyas. There is a genuine attempt to bring about an intersectionality between historical Tantric and Puranic texts and current myths that celebrate Yogini worship within the temple complex. The linkages between the Yogini worship, Shakta and Shaiva traditions, are also looked into. At least three chapters seek to understand worship in three different contexts: Yogini in Tantric tradition (see Chapter 4), Yogini in folklore (see Chapter 5) and Yogini as tribal deities (see Chapter 6). These clearly cut across historical, geographical and anthropological domains to reveal the pervasiveness of traditions of Yogini worship. There is also an attempt to look at patterns of purported political patronage (see Chapter 8) that are never explicitly cited but still explain both the prosperity associated with some temples (such as Khajuraho) and sustainability of the cult too. The mystique of the Yogini worship is cited to be the reason of royal silence of their support in the epigraphs. The architecture of some of the temples is also studied in detail in the seventh chapter and Roy also highlights the concept of the ‘travelling’ goddess, that is, the movement of goddess from one tradition to another.

Though Roy’s sincerity is not in doubt, one cannot ignore the absence of theoretical rigour and nuanced construction of arguments. For instance, there could have been a theoretical explanation of differences between cultic practices and institutionalised ones that would have come up with the attempt to explore the difference between Yogini cults and Yoginis of the temple. The issues of institutionalisation of the practice, absence of temples from regions of Assam and Bengal, and distant political patronage are all not really explained in terms of concrete historical rationale; these are rather assumed to be an offshoot of some inexplicable mystique associated with Yoginis. Here was a chance to evolve much nuanced postulations on religious practices that could have been situated in social formations of distinct social groups—tribal, varna based or based on communities (Buddhist, Jain) apart from their location in diverse ecological zones that would have borne direct influence on cultic/institutionalised practices both historical or current.

Without doubt, the work is rich and based on sincere anthropological and textual research but we wish that Roy had pushed academic trajectory beyond collection of empirical information alone and developed her argument into a more fruitful intellectual rumination. Some of the latest works on Yogini cult could have been included as the one by Keul (2013). Finally, the author should have been careful about checking typos and diacritics.