130 CHAPTER SIXthe yogini goddess. The guru was to be regarded as being identical to a Pri-
mordial Buddha transcending even the five families of Buddhas; one was never
to speak ill of the guru for fear of falling into hell. As for the goddess, the
yogini was to take refuge in her simply by taking on her identity. The yogin
was taught, literally, to take refuge in the vagina of his partner; he was to do
her every bidding, to worship her, and to never offend any woman's feelings
or else he would lose all possibility of making spiritual progress in this lifetime.
Thus we have the taboos of a circle of practitioners who set themselves
apart from established religious institutions and demanded total devotion from
their followers, establishing their own institutions defined by what they were
rebelling against. This fact is reflected in another taboo that the Tantrics de-
veloped: The initiate was not to associate with Hinayanists on threat of losing
his/her empowerment for life.
6.3.4 Lay Vajrayana Practitioners: Siddhas and YoginisFrom the point of view of the sociology of religion, perhaps the most striking
aspect of Tantrism was the prominent role played by women, both as founders
and as innovators in the movement. The earliest attested Buddhist Tantric cir-
cle was an eighth-century group of lay yogins and yoginis led by Princess
Lak~rninkara ofUddiyana, in what is now the Swat Valley of northern Pak-
istan. According to a biography compiled in the eleventh century, Princess
Lak~rninkara had been promised in her youth to a prince of Sri Lanka, a com-
mon symbol for sarpsara. Upon arriving at the island with a rich dowry, she
found that her betrothed enjoyed hunting, which offended her good Buddhist
instincts. Experiencing a sey:ere mental crisis, she gave her dowry away and re-
nounced the world by feigning insanity. Finally she escaped to a cremation
ground where she meditated, clothed in ashes. There she experienced visions
of Buddhas and bodhisattvas, gaining instruction from them. Ultimately she
returned to Uddiyana to teach her new vision of the Buddhist path.
Her group of students, which included men and women from all castes, is
credited by Tibetan tradition with composing the seven root texts of the
Tantric movement. Among these texts is a short piece by Sahajayoginicinta, a
wine seller, who claimed that sensual pleasure is essentially no different from
religious bliss. She thus advocated the use of the erotic arts in sexual yoga as a
way of creating an experience of pleasure so intense that one's sense of a sepa-
rate self dissolves and one can be mindful of nothing else.
Within a few generations, Princess Lak~rninkara's students established con-
tact with similar-minded groups, forming a network throughout India. The
Hevajra and Cakrasarywara Tantras list places sacred to the movement, located
mostly in northwestern India, but also in the south (Andhra), the northeast
(Orissa, the Pala empire), and as far away as the Srivijayan empire in Southeast
Asia (see Section 7.2). Buddhist siddhas (accomplished, fulfilled persons who
had achieved the highest spiritual success) wandered across India, living out-
side the regular monastic communities as itinerant yoga practitioners and
teachers of their personal vision of Awakening. Success depended on the