Dakini

A dakini (Sanskrit: डाकिनी ḍākinī; Standard Tibetan: མཁའ་འགྲོ་མ་ khandroma, Wylie: mkha' 'gro ma, TP: kanzhoima; Chinese: 空行母) The dakini is a tantric figure representing a female embodiment of enlightened energy. The Tibetan form of dakini, khandroma, translates as 'she who traverses the sky' or 'she who moves in space' or, more poetically, as 'sky walker' or 'sky dancer'.

The dakini is so central to a Tibetan Buddhist practitioner attaining full enlightenment as a Buddha that she appears in a Vajrayana formulation of the Three Jewels Buddhist refuge formula, known as the Three Roots. Most commonly she appears as the dharma protector, alongside a guru and yidam, but Judith Simmer-Brown points out that:

The dakini, in her various guises, serves as each of the Three Roots. She may be a human guru, a vajra master who transmits the Vajrayana teachings to her disciples and joins them in samaya commitments. The wisdom dakini may be a yidam, a meditational deity; female deity yogas such as Vajrayogini are common in Tibetan Buddhism. Or she may be a protector; the wisdom dakinis have special power and responsibility to protect the integrity of oral transmissions

As a key tantric figure the dakini also appears in other forms of tantric Buddhism such as the Japanese Shingon school from where she disseminated into Japanese culture, evolving into Dakini-ten and becoming linked to the kitsune iconography. The origins of the dakini figure are uncertain but she continues to this day as a part of Indian folklore, generally in wrathful forms, and remains a part of Hindu tantra.