Kritik am Buch „The Shadow Of The Dalai Lama ... - Neues von Shi De

queen of the dakinis in her palace in the form of an attractive and graceful girl (a witch’s illusion), he
did not let the demoness pull the wool over his eyes. He tore the clothes from her body and raped her
(Sierksma, 1966, p. 112). In the Guhyasamaja Tantra the masculine Hauptgottheit draws the dakinis
to him with skewers and diamond hooks which “shine like scorching flames”. We have already
mentioned Albert Grünwedel’s surmise above, that the “sky walkers” were originally real women
who were transformed into pliant spiritual beings via a “tantric fire sacrifice”. The possibility cannot
be excluded that the reason they suffered their fiery “witches’ fate” was that before their
“Buddhization” they offered their services to the terrible Kali as priestesses.
Whilst it is true, as the Tibetan historian Buston tells us, that the demonesses were subjugated by the
tantric divinity Cakrasamvara and converted to Buddhism, their cruelty was only partially overcome
by the conversion. Actually, from this point on, there are two types of dakini and it is not uncommon
that the two represent contrary aspects of a single “sky walker”. The dark, repulsive form is joined by
a figure of light, an ethereal dancing fairy, a smiling virgin. This goodly part took over the role of the
inana mudra for the yogi, the amiable spiritual woman and transcendent bearer of knowledge. I the
next chapter we discuss in more detail how such a division of dakinis into evil witches and good
fairies represents a primary event in tantric (and alchemic) control techniques.
Thus the evil party among the dakinis did not need to surrender their pre-Buddhist terrors, and unlike
the bloody Erinyes from the Greek sagas, did not transform themselves into peace-loving pillars of the
state like the Eumenides. Rather, the horror dakinis offered their destructive arts in the service of the
new Buddhist doctrine. They continued to play a role as forms in which the death-mother and her
former mistress, Kali, whom an adept needed to subdue, could appear. Their terrible emergence has
become a downright essential, albeit mortally dangerous, stretch to be traversed upon the path of
tantric enlightenment. Only at the end of a successful initiation do the “demonesses” appear in the
form of “female angels”.
For Lama Govinda, however, who constantly attempts to exorcise all “witches’ dances” out of
Tibetan Buddhism, their light form is the only truth: for him, the dakini represents that element of the
“ethereal realm” which we are unable to perceive with our senses, since the Tibetan name for the sky
walker, Khadoma, is said to have this meaning (Govinda, 1984, p. 228). The European lama explains
the Khadomas to be “meditative geniuses”, “impulses of inspiration, which transform natural force
into creative genius” (Govinda, 1984, p. 228) — in brief, they operate as the muses of the yogis.
Govinda’s view is not all that incorrect, but he describes only the result of a many –layered and very
complicated process, in which the demonic dakini is transformed via the “tantric female sacrifice”
described above into a soft and ethereal “sky walker”.
Kali as conquered time goddess
Now is it just the wild former retinue of Kali which is subdued in Buddhist Tantrism, or is the dark
goddess herself conquered? The Tibet researcher, Austine Waddell, has concluded on the basis of an
illustration of the time god, Kalachakra, and his consort, Vishvamata, that we are dealing here with a
representation of the Highest Buddha in union with the Hindu horror goddess Kali, who together do
the devil’s work (Waddell, 1934, p. 131). These days, his interpretation is considered amusing, and is
often cited as a warning example of Western ignorance and arrogance. But in our view Waddell is
absolutely correct, and he is able to help us understand the mystery hidden at the heart of the
Kalachakra Tantra.