NO. 6 . YAKSAS — COOMARASWAMY 33 



asoka and mango are most usual. At first sight, these figures seem to 

 be singularly out of place if regarded with the eyes of a Buddhist or 

 Jaina monk.^ But by the time that a necessity had arisen for the 

 erection of these great monuments, with their illustration of Buddhist 

 legends and other material constituting a veritable Bihlia Pauperum, 

 Buddhism and Jainism had passed beyond the circle of monasticism, 

 and become popular religions with a cult. These figures of fertility 

 spirits are present here because the people are here. Women, accus- 

 tomed to invoke the blessings of a tree spirit, would approach the rail- 

 ing pillar images with similar expectations ; these images, like those 

 of Nagas and Yaksas often set up on Buddhist and Jaina sites, may 

 be compared to the altars of patron saints which a pious Catholic 

 visits with prayers for material blessings. 



From these types of YaksT dryads ' are evidently derived three 

 types iconographically the same, but differently interpreted : the 

 Buddha Nativity, the asoka-tree dohada motif in classical literature, 

 and the so-called river-goddesses of medieval shrines. 



^ The array of dryads at Mathura produces on the mind an effect like that of 

 Asvaghosa's description of the beautiful girls in Siddhartha's palace garden, 

 who " with their souls carried away by love .... assailed the prince with all 

 manner of stratagems" (Buddhacarita, IV, 40-53). 



But it may be said to be characteristic of Indian temples that the exterior 

 displays the world of sensuous experience (cf. Konarak), while the interior 

 chambers are plain and severe, or even empty (cf. the air-liiigam at Cidam- 

 baram) : and this arrangement, even for a Buddhist shrine, is not without its 

 logic. 



I have scarcely mentioned and have not illustrated the many interesting 

 reliefs and paintings in which tree spirits are represented, not by a complete 

 figure beneath a tree, but as half seen amongst the leaves, patresv ardhakaydn 

 abhinirmaya (Lalita Vistara) : a face, hand, two hands, or half body emerging 

 from the branches. Representations of this kind occur already at Bharhut, and 

 survive in the eighteenth century Buddhist painting of Ceylon. The spirits 

 thus represented may be male or female as the case requires. 



' That the Vrksakas of the railing pillars are properly to be described as 

 Yaksis is proved by the inscriptions accompanying the similar figures at Bharhut 

 (cf. Vogel, in A. S. I., A. R., 1906-07, p. 146). Vrksaka is, of course, legiti- 

 mate, but hardly more than a descriptive term. Some with musical instruments 

 should perhaps be described as Gandharvis, or even Apsarasas, but none are 

 represented as actually dancing, and to call them dancing girls is certainly an 

 error. 



Hoysala bracket figures, however, which preserve the motif of woman and 

 tree, supported by a dwarf Yaksa, are often in dancing positions, and accom- 

 panied by drummers (Smith, H. F. A., fig. 163; others at Palampet and Beliir). 



