In different stages in the history of South Asian religions, the term yogini has been used in various contexts to designate various things: a female adept of yoga, a female tantric practitioner, a sorceress, a woman dedicated to a deity, or a certain category of female deities. This book brings together recent interdisciplinary perspectives on the medieval South Asian cults of the Yoginis, such as textual-philological, historical, art historical, indological, anthropological, ritual and terminological.

1. Introduction: Tracing Yoginis: Religious Polysemy in Cultural Contexts Part 1: 'Yogini': Definitions and categories 2. What is a Yogini? Towards a Polythetic Definition 3. The Category of the Yogini as a Gendered Practitioner Part 2: History, cosmography, hagiography 4. The Abode of the Pañcamudras: A Yogini temple in Early Medieval Varanasi 5. The Presence of Yoginis in Madhya Pradesh: An Epigraphic Study 6. Cosmographic Buildings of India: The Circles of the Yoginis 7. Relationships and Visions: The Yogini as Deity and Human Female in Tantric Buddhism Part 3: Art history 8. Yoginis in Stone: Auspicious and Inauspicious Power 9. The Goddess Hinghalaja of the Yogini Shrine at Khajuraho 10. The Yoginis of the Bayon Part 4: Ethnography 11. Yoginis in Bengali Religious Traditions: Tribal, Tantric and Bhakti Influences 12. Alternative Yoginis with Alternative Powers: Singing the Blues in the Causatti Yogini Devi Mandir of Varanasi 13. Invoking the Erotic Mother: The Outcaste Priestess and the Heroic Men Part 5: Possession, sexuality, dance 14. Yogini Possession in Early Saiva Tantras 15. Can Encounters with Yoginis in the Jayadrathayamala Be Described as Possession? 16. The Yogini and the Tantric Sex Rite, or How to Keep a Secret 17. Performing Hirapur: Dancing the Sakti Rupa Yogini