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China / Tibet: Yeshe Tsogyal, spiritual consort of Padmasambhava, c. 12th century

China / Tibet: Yeshe Tsogyal, spiritual consort of
Padmasambhava, c. 12th century

Yeshe Tsogyel, also known in the Nyingma tradition as the Great Bliss Queen, is a semi-mythical female deity or figure of enlightenment (dakini) in Tibetan Buddhism. She lived from 757 to 817, and is most identified as the mystic spiritual Yab-Yum consort of the great Indian tantric teacher Padmasambhava ('the Lotus-Born One'), who was invited to Tibet by the Emperor Trisong Detsen.

A dakini (Sanskrit: ḍākinī; Tibetan: khandroma) is a tantric deity described as a female embodiment of enlightened energy. In the Tibetan language, dakini is rendered khandroma which means 'she who traverses the sky' or 'she who moves in space'. Sometimes the term is translated poetically as 'sky dancer' or 'sky walker'.

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