Indian Art: A History of Indian Art from the Earliest Times up to the Third Century A.D. c17.55
Indian Art: A History of Indian Art from the Earliest Times up to the Third Century A.D. c17.55
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c17.55
The conception of Alakā was an inalianable part of the Kubera cult derived from the more ancient tradition of Uttarakuru. Alakā had the ideal Vaibhrāj Garden of Kubera and the other elements of Kailāsa and Manasarovara, and above all the Kalpavṛikshas from which the Yakshas and Yakshīs obtained all their desires. This was a link with the older Mithuna cult. Some of these are represented in the illustration of the Sudarśana city visited by king Māndhātā on a bas-relief in the Bhaja cave. This is how we meet with the different elements of the Uttarakuru and Alakā fused together in the mythology of Vaiśravaṇa Kubera. We may also point to the cult of Hārītī, Jātahāriṇī and Revatī with that of Kubera.