India has 64-Yogini temples that are among the most mysterious sacred sites on earth — and almost no one knows they exist. Dr. Adyasha Das presents the Chausat Yogini tradition at the Draupadi Mahotsav, tracing these circular open-sky temples — the most celebrated being at Hirapur, Odisha — back to Tantric traditions that elevated local village goddesses into potent numerical groups bestowing magical powers on their devotees.
The historical arc is extraordinary: these sites flourished between the 7th and 12th centuries, then by the 17th and 18th centuries their memory was so completely erased that when the ruins were rediscovered, scholars had almost no clues about their purpose. Dr. Das argues this erasure was deliberate and that the sites’ significance — as expressions of the omnipresent divine feminine woven into India’s sacred landscape — is only now being recovered.
The contemporary relevance is tourism and identity. Surveys show visitors to Yogini temples are not standard tourists — they seek authenticity, archaeological depth, and self-reflection. A rising trend of identity tourism and niche spiritual travel makes these lesser-known destinations urgently worth developing with informed, culturally grounded interpretation that speaks to both art historians and the growing new-age spirituality community.

About The Speaker:
Dr. Adyasha Das is an Associate Professor at the Indian Institute of Tourism & Travel Management(IITTM) Bhubaneswar, Ministry of Tourism, Government of India. She has published extensively in several areas of tourism, focusing on the cultural and management perspectives. Her major publications are in the areas of heritage and cultural tourism, human resource management and tourism, and the psychology of tourist behaviour. She is an avid researcher and has presented papers at several universities abroad.