Yakshini

What it is

Yakshinis, also called yakshis, are female spirits of nature in Hindu, Buddhist and Jain belief. Their male counterparts are the yakshas, and both number among the divine or semi-divine beings tied to India's sacred groves. They are not devas, asuras, gandharvas or apsaras. Some are kindly. These are honoured as tutelary guardians and attend Kubera, the treasurer of the gods, who rules the kingdom of Alaka. Others are thought to be spiteful, haunting and cursing people in the way a poltergeist is said to. The ashoka tree is closely linked with them, and a yakshini who holds its branch with one foot against the trunk is a repeated figure in Indian temple art.

Where it comes from

Yakshi figures come from the early Buddhist sites of Bharhut, Sanchi and Mathura, mostly carved on the railings of stupas. Sculptors worked out a set of shared features there over time: a bare body, a smiling face and pronounced sexual characteristics, which later writers linked to fertility. A yakshini is usually shown touching a tree branch, her body curved in a stance called tribhanga. Some authors hold that this young woman at the foot of a tree goes back to an older tree deity. Across the centuries the figure turned into the salabhanjika, or sal tree maiden, a standard ornament of Indian sculpture and temple building. A stone yakshi from Didarganj, dated between the 3rd century BCE and the 2nd century CE, is among the best known.

How it is done

For Hindus, tantric texts describe yakshinis as beings who can be approached through ritual. The Uddamareshvara Tantra lists thirty-six of them with their mantras and rules for worship, and a similar set appears in the Tantraraja Tantra. A practitioner, called a sadhak, first decides whether to treat the yakshini as mother, sister or wife, and initiation from a teacher is held to speed the practice. In ordinary worship the spirits are honoured at shrines and temples in pooja, worship with offerings. In Thailand and Myanmar they are given spirit houses and small shrines as guardians of a place.

Tools and materials

The ashoka tree is the plant most tied to yakshinis, and carved images show the figure grasping its branch. Writing from the subcontinent often mixes up the sal tree (Shorea robusta) with the ashoka (Saraca indica), so the two are hard to tell apart in old texts. The salabhanjika takes her name from the sal. In tantric practice the tools are mantras and the counsel of a guru. In Thailand and Myanmar, shrines and spirit houses are the setting for honouring these guardian spirits.

What it is for

Benign yakshinis are held to protect. They serve as tutelaries, guarding temples, places and treasure buried in the earth. Because they attend Kubera, the god of wealth, they are also linked with prosperity, and one tantra calls them givers of whatever is desired. Kerala tales give the darker side, where a yakshi may be a murdered woman who comes back to trouble the living. One legend says devotees of the sister Neelapilla bring her clippings of fingernails or locks of hair taken from their enemies and ask her to destroy them, which is reported as a belief about her.

Who does it

Whoever deals with a yakshini does so as a worshipper, a priest or a tantric practitioner. In the tantric texts the sadhak, the person who undertakes the practice, approaches one spirit under a teacher's initiation and may treat her as mother, sister or wife. Temple worship runs through pooja and ritual, as in the Kerala story where the sister yakshis were calmed by many poojas and a shrine was raised where they died. In Thailand and Myanmar the guardians are served at local shrines, and Jain temples give twenty-five yakshis a place as goddesses.

Peoples and places

Yakshinis belong above all to India. Their legends are told among the tribes of the Northeast, in Kerala and in Kashmiri folktales, and Sikh scripture also names yakshas. Beyond the subcontinent they travelled with Buddhism and Hinduism. In Thailand they are known in Tai folk religion and Thai folklore, with shrines such as that of Nang Phisuea Samudra. In Myanmar they are honoured in folk religion, where Popa Medaw guards Mount Popa and another guardian is tied to the Shwedagon Pagoda. In China, Taiwan and Japan they are known too, Hariti among them.

What people believe

These beings sit in a crowded spiritual world. Hindu, Buddhist and Jain traditions place them apart from devas, asuras, gandharvas and apsaras, though all are divine or semi-divine. The benign ones attend Kubera, treasurer of the gods and lord of Alaka, and are treated as guardians of wealth and of hidden treasure. Tantric texts sort them by the three qualities, sattvik, rajas and tamas. In Kerala belief they can also be the spirits of women who died badly and returned to haunt the living. Buddhist tradition gives some of them a protective role, with Hariti among the deities held to defend the dharma.

How scholars and sceptics see it

Art historians work from the sculpture. The figures at Bharhut, Sanchi and Mathura, mostly on stupa railings, show a development that settled into shared features, and their bare bodies, smiles and exaggerated sexual characteristics have led researchers to read them as fertility images. Some authors argue that the young woman beneath the tree descends from an older tree goddess. Writers also note that old texts from the subcontinent confuse the sal tree with the ashoka, which complicates any reading of which tree a carving shows.

Compare and confuse

Yakshinis are the female half of a pair; yakshas are the male. Both are set apart in the texts from devas, asuras, gandharvas and apsaras, and neither is simply a god. In temple sculpture the yakshi grew into the salabhanjika, the sal tree maiden, and the two names are sometimes used for one carved figure. The ashoka tree and the sal tree are often confused in old writing, and Hariti, honoured in East Asian Buddhism, is counted among the yakshinis.

Today

The spirits remain part of living practice. Shrines and spirit houses for guardian yakshinis stand in Thailand, and in Myanmar Popa Medaw and the guardian of the Shwedagon Pagoda are honoured locally. Jain temples keep twenty-five yakshis as guardian goddesses. Hariti has a temple in Tokyo. In Kerala the yakshi is still a favourite subject of storytelling and Malayalam cinema, and the 1967 novel Yakshi by Malayatoor Ramakrishnan gives them a world with a blue sun, crimson grass and jewelled flowers. The Padmanabhaswamy vault stays sealed amid legal argument.

Questions people ask about Yakshini

Good reading and sources

• Yakshini on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data