I am a historian of religion specializing in Tibetan Buddhism and Buddhist literature. My research focuses on the missing history of Tibetan yoginīs, non-celibate female adepts in esoteric communities focused on Great Perfection (rdzogs chen) literature. Great Perfection produced novel post-tantric reinterpretations of key elements of Buddhist philosophy and praxis constituting a Tibetan reinvention of tantra. However, how these innovations extended to women is a question yet to be answered, leaving a gap in understanding how the most influential post-tantric movement in Tibet factors in the history of Buddhist women and consort praxis. That missing history is also glaring for global Buddhism in the post #metoo era. Despite frequent public discussions about the role of women as consorts, there has not been scholarship that analyzes exactly what those practices were from canonical textual perspectives. Therefore, my research addresses that gap by analyzing prescriptions for yoginīs, the non-celibate female adepts in The Heart Essence of the Ḍākinī, (mkha’ ‘gro snying thig), a scripture that came to define Great Perfection in Tibet. I combine philology with digital humanities tools to highlight issues of representation and contestation and to point out how post-tantric taxonomies and consort instructions are constitutive of new forms of ideal Buddhist women.
While scholars such as White (2018) and Hatley (2016) have extensively documented the history of yoginīs and ḍākinīs[1]in Indian Buddhism, research on their Tibetan counterparts remains limited. Current scholarship on non-celibate women in Tibetan esoteric traditions, exemplified by the work of Jacoby (2014) and Gayley (2016), focuses primarily on nineteenth and twentieth-century figures. Scholars have yet to address the formative, early history of post-tantra in Tibet and the classical textual foundations that defined the rules and praxis for Great Perfection yoginīs. My research addresses this gap through analysis of The Heart Essence of the Ḍākinī (mkha’ ‘gro snying thig) and a newly discovered variant of this scripture by Rinchen Lingpa (me ban Rin chen gling pa, 1289-1368). These sources contain rich ontological frameworks, taxonomic systems, contemplative instructions, and philosophical texts developed by three pivotal figures: Pema Ledreltsal (padma las ‘brel rtsal, 1291-1315/17), the renowned philosopher, Longchenpa (klong chen rab ‘byams, 1308-1363), and Third Karmapa, Rangjung Dorje (rang byung rdo rje, 1284-1339).
My methodological approach combines traditional philological analysis with innovative digital humanities tools. Using computational text analysis software developed for classical Tibetan, I trace patterns of textual transmission and doctrinal development across centuries of Buddhist literature. Specifically, I employ machine learning algorithms to generate heat maps of intertextual relationships, revealing previously unidentified connections between The Heart Essence of the Ḍākinī and earlier tantric sources, namely The Heart Essence of Vimalamitra (Bima snying thig), The Tantra of the Brilliant Expanse (klong gsal ‘bar ma), and Longchenpa’s The Quintessence of the Ḍākinīs, (mkha’ ‘gro yang thig). This digital approach has enabled discoveries such as precise documentation of how Longchenpa systematically modified earlier consort taxonomies to create new categories of female practitioners. These findings would have been difficult to identify through traditional methods alone.
I found that yoginīs received different rules for praxis than the male disciples but participated in advanced contemplative training akin to their male counterparts and were thought to have soteriological advantages related to their role as consorts. I show that women both accepted and resisted discourses of subordination. Thus, in the Foucauldian sense, this research documents a forgotten history of accomplished women that did not change the order of things. It contributes new insights into the distinctions between the complex and instrumentalist sexual practices of tantra and the simplified, relational orientation of post-tantra. Ultimately, this literature requires new classifications to make sense of the complex combination of subordination and advancement of women. I argue that misogyny and androcentrism are blinding terms that obscure the differences between tantra and post-tantra, showing that The Heart Essence of the Ḍākinī paradoxically contested certain misogynistic ideals of tantra while perpetuating others, and that it was androcentric yet argued for the radical inclusion of women. This project has received significant funding, including The Fulbright-Hays Fellowship, Ford Foundation Fellowship, and Tsadra Foundation Fellowship.
My current book, Yoginīs in Tibet, A History of Women in The Great Perfection (rdzogs chen) begins with the first chapter, “Introduction to the Heart Essence of the Ḍākinī,” which documents this scripture’s history amidst the rise of all male monastic learning centers, when non-celibate adepts were under pressure to legitimize the involvement of women. The second chapter “Buddhist Sexualities,” introduces Great Perfection’s distinctive rules and praxis for consort relationships. The third and fourth chapters, “Anatomy of a Ḍākinī,” and “Human Women and the 21 Disciples of Pema Ledreltsal,” analyzes how this literature managed concerns about the dangers of women and sexual relationships by innovating taxonomic practices to create new categories of ideal Buddhists. The fifth chapter, “Interview with a Ḍākinī,” documents additional rules for yoginīs that constrained and controlled women’s sexuality. The sixth chapter, “When Ultimate Reality is a Woman,” analyzes The Heart Essence of the Ḍākinī’s cosmogenesis as female gnosis and as female centric buddha couples, a transformation of the usually androcentric yab yum symbol. The seventh chapter, “Reflections on Misogyny and Mimesis,” addresses the contemporary context of interpretations of consort literature in light of Buddhist #metoo revelations.
Columbia University Press has expressed strong interest in the manuscript, and I am currently completing a book proposal for submission. This research has resulted in three peer-reviewed articles, “Anatomy of a Ḍākinī: Female Consort Discourse in a Case of Fourteenth-Century Tibetan Buddhist Literature,” in The Journal of Dharma Studies (2020), “One Desires You, One Cries: A Taxonomy of Tibetan Consorts,” in Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines (2024), and “Non-duality as Yab Yum in Tibetan Great Perfection,” in The Journal of Dharma Studies (2024). I also published a book chapter, “Sexuality in Buddhist Traditions,” for The Cambridge World History of Sexualities Vol 2 (2024). My works in progress are “The Life of Princess Pemasel: Reincarnation and Female Authority in Fourteenth-Century Tibet,” for the Ḍākinīs Great Dharma Treasury Translation Project and Interview with a Consort: Textual Evolution of The Heart Essence of the Ḍākinī, 1200-1500,” for submission to the Journal of Tibetan Literature.
My next project, “Diaries of a Male Consort, The Secret Autobiographies of Nuden Dorje,” investigates Nuden Dorje, (nus ldan rdo rje 1655-1708), regarded as Tibet’s first proto-feminist author. I present a micro-history of seventeenth-century Tibet, the period just after the rise of the fifth Dalai Lama, but as told from the margins of power. This is the volatile context for an analysis of Dorje’s stories of male and female consorts. I argue that during a period of international power struggles, Dorje promoted Buddhist responses to violence through stories of consorts who fell victim to Mongolian forces. I presented this research at the Lotsawa Translation Conference in 2018 and 2022. The project contributes to broader conversations on Tibet, Buddhist women, and religious sexuality while offering new perspectives on seventeenth-century Tibetan political and religious history through the lens of gender relations.
My research agenda illuminates the previously unexplored history of women in Tibetan Buddhist post-tantric literature, making significant contributions across multiple fields including Tibetan studies, Buddhist studies, gender and sexuality studies, digital humanities, and the intellectual history of Asian religions. This work addresses urgent contemporary questions about women’s roles and sexual ethics in Buddhist tantra, topics of increasing importance both within academia and in global Buddhist communities. By uncovering how women exercised soteriological and relational agency within androcentric traditions, my research challenges prevailing orientalist assumptions about women in Asian religions. Through careful analysis of primary sources and innovative digital methodologies, I demonstrate how women’s religious experiences in pre-modern Tibet were far more complex and nuanced than previously understood, offering new frameworks for understanding both historical Buddhist communities and contemporary debates about women, sexuality, and religious authority.
[1] Ḍākinī refers to accomplished women, goddesses, and demons.