NO. 6 ' YAKSAS — COOMARASWAMY 37 



of, Upon occasion, as a Yaksa. " Yaksa " may have been a non- 

 Aryan, at any rate a popular designation equivalent to Deva, and 

 only at a later date restricted to genii of lower rank than that of the 

 greater gods. Certainly the Yaksa concept has played an important 

 part in the development of Indian mythology, and even more cer- 

 tainly, the early Yaksa iconography has formed the foundation of 

 later Hindu and Buddhist iconography. It is by no means without 

 significance that the conception of Yaksattva is so closely bound up 

 with the idea of reincarnation. 



Thus the history of Yaksas, like that of other aspects of non- 

 Aryan Indian animism, is of significance not only in itself and for 

 its own sake, but as throwing light upon the origins of cult and 

 iconography, as well as dogma, in fully evolved sectarian Hinduism 

 and Buddhism. And beyond India, if, as is believed by many, charac- 

 teristic elements of the Christian cult, such as the use of rosaries, 

 incense, bells and lights, together with many phases of monastic 

 organization, are ultimately of Buddhist origin,^ we can here, too, 

 push back their history to more ultimate sources in non- and pre- 

 Aryan Indian pujas. 



Adherents of some " higher faiths " may be inclined to deprecate 

 or to resent a tracing of their cults, still more of dogmas, to sources 

 associated with the worship of " rude deities and demons " (Jacobi) 

 and " mysterious aboriginal creatures " (Mrs. Rhys Davids). But if 

 the Brahmans in fact took over and accepted from popular sources 

 the concept of devotion to personal deities, and all that this implied, 

 do we not sufficiently honor these thinkers and organizers of theo- 

 logical systems in recognizing that they knew how to utilize in the 

 service of more intellectual faiths, and to embody in the structure of 

 civilization, not only their own abstract philosophies, but also the 

 " forces brutes mystiques " (De la Vallee-Poussin) of pre-Hindu 

 Hinduism? And if some elements of ancient Hindu cult, perhaps of 

 millennial antiquity, are still preserved in the Christian office, this is 

 no more than evidence of the broad unity that underHes religious ten- 

 dencies and acts everywhere and always ; pagan survivals in all cur- 

 rent faiths are signs of fulfillment, rather than of failure. And in 

 India it becomes more than ever clear that thought and culture are 

 due at least in equal measure both to Aryan and indigenous genius. 



* See Garbe, Indian und das Christenttim; BerstI, Indo-koptische Kunst, Jahrb. 

 as. Kunst. I. T024. 



