NO. 6 YAKSAS— COOMARASWAMY 9 



may be related to the Guhyas, attendants of Kuvera (Hopkins, Epic 

 Mythology, pp. 145, 229). 



Yaksas (like Nagas) are sometimes regarded as constructive or 

 artistic genii: thus Hsiian Tsang, Bk. VIII, speaks of the Asokan 

 remains at Pataliputra as having been built by genii (Yaksas).' 



Kubera himself can be regarded as the first smelter of gold." 



Comparatively few individual YaksinTs are mentioned by name ; 

 the Mahahharata (3, 83, 23) speaks of a Yaksini shrine at Rajagrha 

 as " world-renow^ned." But it is beyond doubt that Yaksinis w^ere 

 extensively worshipped, in part as beneficent, in part as malevolent 

 beings. In the latter aspect they do not differ essentially from their 

 modern descendants, such as the Bengali Sitala, goddess of smallpox, 

 or OlabibT, goddess of cholera. The Seven Mothers (who are in part 

 connected with Kubera), the Sixty-four Joginls, the DakinTs, and 

 some forms of Devi, in medieval and modern cults, must have been 

 Yaksinis. In Southern India, indeed, to the present day, nearly all 

 the village deities are feminine. MiUclksi, to whom as wife of Siva, 

 the great temple at Madura is dedicated, was originally a daughter of 

 Kubera, therefore a Yaksini. Durga was originally a goddess wor- 

 shipped by savage tribes. 



The case of Hariti is too well known to need a long discussion. To 

 sum up her story, she was originally a Magadhan tutelary goddess, 

 wife of Paficika and residing at Rajagrha ; she was not ill-disposed, 

 for her name Nanda means Joy. She was called even in Hsiian 

 Tsang's time the Mother of Yaksas, and the people prayed to her for 

 offspring. But Buddhist legend has it that she had begun to destroy 

 the children of Rajagrha by smallpox, and so earned the name of 

 Hariti, " Thief," by which she is known to Buddhism ; metaphorically, 

 she was said to " devour " them, and is represented as an ogress, and 

 it was as an ogress that the Buddha encountered her. The Buddha 

 adopts the expedient of hiding her last-born child (Piiigala, who had 

 been a human being in a previous life, the Yaksa birth being here a 

 penalty) ; she realizes the pain she has been causing others, and be- 

 comes a convert ; but as she can no longer seek her accustomed food, 

 the Buddha promises that she shall receive regular offerings from 

 pious Buddhists, as a patroness of children and fertility. This reads 

 more like an explanation or justification of a cult than a true account 



.^Beal, Buddhist Records, II, p. 93. Cf. also Laufer, Cilralaksaiia, pp. 189, 

 190, where a late Tibetan author ascribes Asoka's works at Bodhgaj-a to Yaksas 

 and Nagas, and speaks of certain Indian medieval sculpture and paintings as like 

 the art-work of the Yaksas. 



" Hopkins, Epic Mythology, p. 146. 



