Yakshini | EPFL Graph Search

Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?

Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of GraphSearch.

Yakshinis or yakshis (यक्षिणी yakṣiṇī or yakṣī; yakkhiṇī or yakkhī) are a class of female nature spirits in Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain religious mythologies that are different from devas and asuras (classes of power-seeking beings), and gandharvas or apsaras (celestial nymphs). Yakshinis and their male counterparts, the yakshas, are one of the many paranormal beings associated with the centuries-old sacred groves of India. Yakshis are also found in the traditional legends of Northeastern Indian tribes, ancient legends of Kerala, and in the folktales of Kashmiri Muslims. Sikhism also mentions yakshas in its sacred texts. The well behaved and benign ones are worshipped as tutelaries, they are the attendees of Kubera, the treasurer of the gods, and also the Hindu god of wealth who ruled Himalayan kingdom of Alaka. There are also malign and mischievous yakshinis with poltergeist-like behaviours, that can haunt and curse humans according to Indian folklore. The ashoka tree is closely associated with yakshinis. The young girl at the foot of the tree is an ancient motif indicating fertility on the Indian subcontinent. One of the recurring elements in Indian art, often found as gatekeepers in ancient Buddhist and Hindu temples, is a yakshini with her foot on the trunk and her hands holding the branch of a stylized flowering ashoka or, less frequently, other tree with flowers or fruits. The three sites of Bharhut, Sanchi, and Mathura, have yielded huge numbers of Yakshi figures, most commonly on the railing pillars of stupas. These show a clear development and progression that establishes certain characteristics of the Yakshi figure such as her nudity, smiling face and evident (often exaggerated) secondary sexual characteristics that lead to their association with fertility. The yakshi is usually shown with her hand touching a tree branch, in a sinuous tribhanga pose, thus some authors hold that the young girl at the foot of the tree is based on an ancient tree deity.

About this result

This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.

Related concepts (16)

Indian art

Indian art consists of a variety of art forms, including painting, sculpture, pottery, and textile arts such as woven silk. Geographically, it spans the entire Indian subcontinent, including what is now India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and at times eastern Afghanistan. A strong sense of design is characteristic of Indian art and can be observed in its modern and traditional forms. The origin of Indian art can be traced to prehistoric settlements in the 3rd millennium BCE.

Gupta art

Gupta art is the art of the Gupta Empire, which ruled most of northern India, with its peak between about 300 and 480 CE, surviving in much reduced form until c. 550. The Gupta period is generally regarded as a classic peak and golden age of North Indian art for all the major religious groups. Gupta art is characterized by its "Classical decorum", in contrast to the subsequent Indian medieval art, which "subordinated the figure to the larger religious purpose".

Neminatha

Neminātha (Devanagari: नेमिनाथ) (Sanskrit: नेमिनाथः), also known as Nemi and Ariṣṭanemi (Devanagari: अरिष्टनेमि), is the twenty-second Tīrthaṅkara of Jainism in the present age (Avasarpini). Neminatha lived 81,000 years before the 23rd Tirthankara Parshvanatha. According to traditional accounts, he was born to King Samudravijaya and Queen Shivadevi of the Yadu dynasty in the north Indian city of Sauripura. His birth date was the fifth day of Shravana Shukla of the Jain calendar.