Indian Art: A History of Indian Art from the Earliest Times up to the Third Century A.D. c12.s2.41

c12.s2.41

SUPERHUMAN BEINGS:—Yakshas—The religious significance and antiquity of the worship of the Yakshas have already been discussed under folk arts (pp. 114. 118). There is clear and overwhelming evidence that the cult of the four regions of space formed an important item in the religious beliefs of the people, the four regions being placed under the guardianship of one deity as Savitā on the west, east, north and south (*Savitā paśchātāt, Savitā purastāt, Savitottarātāt, Savitādharātāt*, RV. 10.36.14), or under different deities as Agni on the east, Indra on the south, Varuṇa on the west, Soma on the north, Viṣṇu in the centre and Bṛhaspati above (AV. 3.27.1-6; 12 3. 55-60). The followers of this cult were known as Diśāvratika or Diśāpokkhiya. According to the Bhagavatī Sūtra a devotee of this cult in Hastināpura worshipped Soma in the east, Yama in the south, Varuṇa in the west and Vaiśravaṇa in the north. Another adherent did the same at Vārāṇasī. This drew within its fold the cult of the four Mahārājika gods with which was associated the whole conception of the fourfold cosmos or *Dik-Svastika* in popular belief, which was given a concrete form in the architectural planning of the Stūpa and its railing. We find frequent reference to the Chātummahārājika gods in Buddhist literature presiding over the four directions of space and it is thus quite natural that the builders of the earliest Buddhist Stūpas have given the most conspicuous place to these four deities on the four gateways as follows: