With a long history in South Asian folklore and religious traditions, yoginīs are liminal, trangressive, and often ferocious semidivine female figures associated with the bestowal of temporal and transcendent spiritual accomplishment. In Buddhist tantra they are identical to ḍākinīs.

Depending on the context, this term can signify a class of potentially harmful female beings, goddesses associated with various astrological conjunctions, female yoga practitioners (both human and nonhuman), the awakened consorts of male tantric deities, and the awakened female leaders of tantric maṇḍalas.

In the sūtra and Kriyātantra literature, a yoginī is a female spirit of the lower order.

With a long history in South Asian folklore and religious traditions, yoginīs are liminal, transgressive, and often ferocious nonhuman female figures associated with the bestowal of temporal and transcendent spiritual accomplishment. In Buddhist tantra they are identical to ḍākinīs.