35. What is a Yoginī?
Yoga Studies in Five Minutes - Theodora Wildcroft
Ruth Westoby [+]
SOAS, University of London
Ruth Westoby is a doctoral candidate at SOAS University of London and she teaches for
SOAS YogaStudies Online. Ruth’s thesis is a historical textual study of the yoga body in
Sanskrit sources on early haṭhayoga identifying the functional paradigms of the body that
explain how yoga works. As a practitioner Ruth has collaborated on the reconstruction of
historical textual sequences of postures, contributing to the development of a new
methodology: embodied philology. Ruth’s 2021 article, ‘Raising rajas in haṭha yoga and
beyond’, appears in Religions of South Asia, also published by Equinox. Her research interests include yoga, the body, gender, textual history and critical theory.
Description
The meaning of the term yoginī varies considerably according to context, and can include: a class of tantric goddesses, a designation for the Great Goddess, intermediary beings/demigoddesses, ghosts, witches, female ascetics, tantric practitioners, women consecrated to a deity, and persons with a special affinity for Indian religion.