Abstract
Stories of encounter with Buddhist vajra-yoginīs as the inhabitants of this earthy domain This presentation examines the network of yoginī-related sacred places in Śaiva and Buddhist tantric traditions, with particular focus on the pivotal role of Uḍḍiyāṇa as a paradigmatic tantric landscape. Across both Śaiva and Vajrayāna sources, yoginīs emerge not only as divine or semi-divine female beings, but also as embodiments of sacred geography whose presence structures ritual space, pilgrimage, initiation, and esoteric transmission. The study investigates how tantric texts map networks of pīṭhas, upapīṭhas, cremation grounds, caves, mountains, and liminal territories associated with yoginīs, and how these spatial systems articulate relations between body, cosmos, and ritual practice. Special attention is given to the shifting representations of Uḍḍiyāṇa in Śaiva tantras, Buddhist Yoginītantras, and later historiographical traditions. The presentation explores how Uḍḍiyāṇa functions simultaneously as a historical region, as a place within the subtle body of the practitioner, and a symbolic locus of tantric revelation. By comparing textual traditions such as the Kaula and Trika corpora alongside Buddhist sources including the Cakrasaṃvara cycle, the paper highlights shared topographies, parallel ritual vocabularies, and possible processes of cross-sectarian adaptation.The presentation further considers how yoginī-centered sacred geographies challenge conventional religious boundaries through mobile ritual communities, transregional pilgrimage networks, and fluid exchanges between Śaiva and Buddhist milieus. Ultimately, it argues that the tantric imagination of sacred place—centered on Uḍḍiyāṇa—served as a crucial medium through which authority, lineage, and esoteric knowledge were constructed and transmitted across medieval South Asia..
About the Speaker
Olga Serbaeva completed her PhD on yoginīs in Śaiva Purāṇas and Tantras at the University of Lausanne, followed by a habilitation thesis at Zurich on the Vidyāpīṭha Tantras. She has published and lectured widely in Russian, German, English and French, and is a wellknown expert in the voluminous and important Jayadrathayāmala compendium, a key source for the non-dual Śaivism of Kashmir. Her research interests include Śaiva Tantric texts, yoginīs, conceptualisation of the feminine in Indian traditions, and the transcreations of Indian concepts related to altered states of consciousness in contemporary Europe. Since 2012 she is working as databases designer and developer at various Swiss Universities (UZH, UNIL, UNIBAS) and creates applications and performs data analysis for the research projects in Humanities.
