NO. 6 YAKSAS COOMARASWAMY 43 



APPENDIX 

 I 



I owe to Professor Walter Eugene Clark the following tale of a Yaksa, found 

 in the Divyavadana, 275, et seq. A certain man was the keeper of a sulka- 

 sala or toll-house. When he died, he was reborn among the Vyada-Yaksas. He 

 appeared to his sons in a dream and told them to make a yaksasthdita and attach 

 a bell. He said that the bell would ring if anyone tried to smuggle merchandise 

 past without paying toll. A man tried to smuggle in a yamall of fine cloth con- 

 cealed in the stick of his umbrella. The bell kept ringing and the merchants 

 were detained till he confessed. 



This is very like the Vaisali story cited above, pp. 14, 15. The yaksasthana 

 may have been a separate shrine, or more likely a shrine made within the toll- 

 house : presumably there was an image, and the bell was hung round its neck. 



II 



The well-known Besnagar kalpa-drinna capital, representing a banyan having 

 below its branches three money bags, and a conch, lotus, and jar, from which 

 square coins are welling up, probably represents Kubera in his capacity of 

 Dhanada, " Wealth-giver." The banyan-tree is mentioned in Mahavamsa, X, 89 

 as specifically his abode. Sahkha and Padma personified as lords of wealth are 

 amongst the eight treasures of Kubera (Harivainsa, 2467 and 6004, and 

 Visnudharmottara, III, 53). The conch with coins or vegetation rising from 

 it occurs as a symbol elsewhere. 



Ill 



Page 2, note i, add: It is perhaps significant of the orthodox Vedic Brahman- 

 ical attitude towards the Yaksa cult that in Baudhayana Dharmasdstra. I, 5, 9 

 caitya-irksas are mentioned in a list of objects of which the touch causes 

 defilement requiring purification. 



IV 



Yaksa of the Klratarjunlya story (p. 14) : The Yaksa, described as a follower 

 of Kubera, appears in Bharavi's drama Klratarjunlya, guiding Arjuna to the 

 Indrakila (see H. O. S., Vol. 15). 



The shrine of Kamadeva in Mrcchakatika, I, 32, is situated in a grove 

 (Kdmadcva adanaujjana^^ Kdmadcva ayatana udhyana). 



