Vajrayogini in Buddhist Tradition

This nineteenth-century Tibetian painting is of a well-known deity in the Tantric Buddhist tradition, named Vajrayogini. Unlike some other Buddhist traditions which have neither Gods nor Goddesses, the Vajrayana Tantric tradition has both, as we can see here. Vajrayana Buddhism differs from many other religious traditions in its elevation of the female. The eleventh-century Tantric scripture known as “Candamaharosana Tantra” records: “women are heaven, women are the teaching (dharma)/ women are indeed the highest austerity (tapas)/ women are the Buddha, women are the sangha (community),/ women are the perfection of wisdom . . . (Viii: 29-30). In this scripture, Vajrayogini enumerates a list of her earthly manifestations — high births, low births, goddesses, human girls, priestesses, working women, teachers, prostitutes — “all female forms in the sky and above and below the earth . . . Are my forms.” The expressions of the Goddess here are practically opposites, which calls attention to an important emphasis of Tantric Vajrayana Buddhism, which is to stress non-dualism. In its embracing of opposites, the practitioner becomes aware of the artificial lens of seeing differences.