The Cult of Tara

46 MAGIC AND RITUAL IN TIBET
Fig. 8. The "ancient" dakinl Lion-faced, the guardian of hidden
texts. From an iconographic sketch by Tendzin yongdii.
There is frequent reference to them in the tantric texts, where
they appear as the partners of the yogins, flocking around them
when they visit the great places of pilgrimage. Their presence
was essential to the performance of the psycho-sexual rites and
their activities generally are so gruesome and obscene as to earn
them quite properly the name of witch. They enter Tibetan
mythology in a rather more gentle aspect, and ceasing altogether
to be beings of flesh and blood, they become the bestowers of
mystic doctrines and bringers of divine offerings. They become
the individual symbols of divine wisdom with which the meditator
must mystically unite . . . although iconographically they retain
their fierce and gruesome forms.
Among these dakinls, the Dragon Kajii hold special reverence for Vajravarahi,
the "diamond sow" (or Vajrayogini, the "diamond yogin