A ḍākinī (Sanskrit: डाकिनी; Tibetan: མཁའ་འགྲོ་མ་, Wylie: mkha' 'gro ma, THL: khandroma; Mongolian: хандарма; Chinese: 空行母; pinyin: kōngxíngmǔ; lit. 'sky-going mother'; alternatively 荼枳尼, pinyin: túzhǐní; 荼吉尼, pinyin: tújíní; or 吒枳尼, pinyin: zhāzhǐní; Japanese: 荼枳尼 / 吒枳尼 / 荼吉尼, dakini) is a type of goddess in Hinduism and Buddhism.

The concept of the ḍākinī somewhat differs depending on the context and the tradition. For example, in earlier Hindu texts and East Asian esoteric Buddhism, the term denotes a race of demonesses who ate the flesh and/or vital essence of humans. In Hindu Tantric literature, Ḍākinī is the name of a goddess often associated with one of the six chakras or the seven fundamental elements (dhātu) of the human body. In Nepalese and Tibetan Buddhism, meanwhile, 'ḍākinī' (also wisdom ḍākinī) can refer to both what can be best described as fierce-looking female embodiments of enlightened energy, and to human women with a certain amount of spiritual development, both of whom can help Tantric initiates in attaining enlightenment.

In Japan, the ḍākinīs – held in the East Asian Buddhist tradition to have been subjugated and converted to Buddhism by the buddha Vairocana under the guise of the god Mahākāla (Daikokuten in Japanese) – were eventually coalesced into a single deity called Dakiniten (荼枳尼天, 吒枳尼天, or 荼吉尼天), who, after becoming syncretized with the native agricultural deity Inari, became linked to the fox (kitsune) iconography associated with the latter.

The Sanskrit term ḍākinī is related to ḍīyate, "to fly", as in uḍḍayanam (meaning "flight"). The Tibetan khandroma (Tibetan: མཁའ་འགྲོ་མ་, Wylie: mkha' 'gro ma), meaning "sky-goer", may have originated from the Sanskrit khecara (of the same meaning), a term from the Cakrasaṃvara Tantra. The masculine form of the word is ḍāka, which is usually translated into Tibetan as pawo, "hero" (Wylie: dpa' bo).

In Chinese, ḍākinī is transcribed mainly as 荼枳尼 (pinyin: túzhǐní), 荼吉尼 (pinyin: tújíní), or 吒枳尼 (pinyin: zhāzhǐní); other less common alternative transcriptions include 陀祇尼 (tuóqíní), 吒祇尼 (zhāqíní), 吒幾爾 (zhājǐěr), and 拏吉尼 (nájíní). It is also translated as 空行母 (pinyin: kōngxíngmǔ; lit. 'sky-going mother'), a calque of the Tibetan term. In Japanese, these transcriptions are all read as dakini (katakana: ダキニ; also ダーキニー, dākinī).

In certain passages in Hindu Purāṇic literature, ḍākinīs are depicted as flesh-eating demonesses in the train of the goddess Kālī. For instance, in the Shiva Purāṇa (2.2.33), Vīrabhadra and Mahākāḷī at Shiva's command march against Prajapati Daksha accompanied by the Nine Durgas and their fearsome attendants, namely "Ḍākinī, Śākinī, Bhūtas, Pramathas, Guhyakas, Kūṣmāṇḍas, Parpaṭas, Caṭakas, Brahma-Rākṣasas, Bhairavas and Kṣetrapālas." In the Brahmāṇḍa Purāṇa (3.41.30), Paraśurāma sees ḍākinīs among Shiva's retinue (gaṇa) in Mount Kailash.

In the Bhāgavata Purāṇa (10.06.27–29), after the young Krishna had killed the demoness Pūtanā, the cowherd women (gopis) of Vrindavan carry out protective rites to keep him safe from future harm. At the end of the ritual, they declare:

The Dākinīs, the Yātudhānīs, the Kūṣmāṇḍas, the infanticides, the goblins [Bhūtas], the Mātṛs, the Piśācas, the Yakṣas, the Rakṣasas, the Vināyakas, Kotarī, Revatī, Jyeṣṭhā, Pūtanā, and other Mātṛkās, Unmāda, Apasmāra, and other devils inimical to the mind, the body and the senses, and other evil omens and calamities dreamt of, and the slayers of the old and the young,—may these and all other evil spirits be destroyed, being terrified at the recital of the name of Viṣṇu.