Indian Art: A History of Indian Art from the Earliest Times up to the Third Century A.D. c11.s2.5

c11.s2.5

In the Ṛigveda Yaksha worship is mentioned several times but not as an approved way. The followers of Mitra and Varuṇa are desired to remain free from Yaksha influence (RV. VII.61.5). It is prayed that in the face of Mitra and Varuṇa of wondrous powers (*adbhuta-kratu*) being present, there was no need of a deity like Yaksha (RV. V.70.4). In one place Agni is said to be big enough to be even the lord of Yaksha (*Yakshasyādhyakshaṃ tavishaṃ brihantam*, RV, X.88.13). There is a more specific reference in which the abode of Yaksha or a Yaksha shrine is explicitly mentioned (*yakshaṃ sadam*, RV. IV.3.13), ‘praying to Agni that he should not visit the place of a Yaksha to which deluded persons were going’, probably a reference to the lower class of people, not following the Aryan deities and who believed in the Yaksha cult. But there is one reference to show that the Yakshas began to be associated with beautiful form even in the Ṛigveda, the Maruts being compared to beautiful goodlooking and benevolent Yakshas (*yakshadriśo na śobhayantamaryāḥ*, RV. VII.56.16). This aspect of the Yakshas being good spirits gradually found deeper root as in the Gṛihya Sūtras where the new student admitted to the Vedic school wishes himself to be as loving to the eye as a Yaksha (*yakshamiva chakshushaḥ priyo vā bhūyāsam*, Gobhila G.S. 3. 4. 28, Drāhyāyaṇa G. S. 3. 1. 25). This phase of Yaksha cult gained strength and during the Janapada period (c. 1200-500 B.C.) the Yaksha cult established its authority over the whole people, as we find in the Pāli and Ardha-Māgadhī literature. (*Nāyā-dhamma-kahā*, 1. 25; *Rāyapaseniya*, Kaṇḍikā 1. 48). Amongst the several lists of the cult-festivals including as many as 20 or more names we find *Yakkha Maha* or *Vessamaṇa-maha* as one of them. The Atharva reflecting the popular beliefs more faithfully is full of the glorification of the Yaksha god saying that all the chiefs in the kingdom pay homage to the great Yaksha (*mahad Yakshaṃ bhuvanasya madhye tasmai balim rāshṭra-bhrito bharanti*, AV. 10. 8. 15). As a matter of fact the belief in the Nāgas and the Yakshas was rooted in the soil. These deities were taken wholesale in the Hindu religion and in this process a great deal of mutual borrowing took place. Indra, Varuṇa, Aryamā, all leading Vedic gods, whose essential features were fixed in the Ṛigveda quit their high pedestal and mingle with the lowly Yakshas. In Greece, too, the gods of the Olympian heights came to mingle with Hermes or rough stone monuments representing local godlings before actual images were planned for them. In the list of Yakshas given in the Mahābhārata, the Buddhist literature and the Purāṇas, we find that most of these Vedic gods are identified as Yakshas. In a Sūtra of Pāṇini (V. 3. 84) giving a list of godlings after whom personal names were adopted for children by their parents, we find mention of Śevala, Supari, and Viśāla (names of Yakshas) read with Varuṇa and Aryamā, who originally were Vedic deities, but in this context are names af Yakshas. Viśāla is one of the assembly of Yakshas attending the Vaiśravaṇa Sabhā in the Sabhā Parva (10. 16). Varuṇa is a Yaksha chief in the list of the Āṭānāṭiya Suttanta (Digha Nikāya, III, 195; Dialogues of the Buddha, vol. III) which text mentions Indra, Soma, Varuṇa, Prajāpati along with Māṇibhadra and Ālavaka as Yaksha chiefs. In the Yaksha list of the Mahā-Māyūrī, an important and religious text, Viṣṇu is the name of the Yaksha of Dvārakā.