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yakṣa
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The Yakshas (, , ) are a broad class of nature spirits, usually benevolent, but sometimes mischievous or capricious, connected with water, fertility, trees, the forest, treasure and wilderness. They appear in Hindu, Jain and Buddhist texts, as well as ancient and medieval era temples of South Asia and Southeast Asia as guardian deities. The feminine form of the word is or Yakshini (, ; ).
Wikidata facts
- Image
- 133 Yaksa Padmanidhi.jpg
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- Commons category
- Yaksha
- topic's main category
- Category:Yakshas
- described by source
- The Nuttall Encyclopædia
- female form of label
- Yakshini
- worshipped by
- Hinduism
- different from
- Jakša
Sources (1)
via Wikidata · CC0
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Encyclopedic overview
14 sectionsContents
- Early yakshas
- Kubera
- In Buddhism
- In Jainism
- Shasan devatas in Jainism
- In poems
- In Nepal
- In Thailand
- In Sri Lanka
- Gallery
- See also
- References
- Sources
- External links
The Yakshas (, , ) are a broad class of nature spirits, usually benevolent, but sometimes mischievous or capricious, connected with water, fertility, trees, the forest, treasure and wilderness. They appear in Hindu, Jain and Buddhist texts, as well as ancient and medieval era temples of South Asia and Southeast Asia as guardian deities. The feminine form of the word is or Yakshini (, ; ).
In Hindu, Jain and Buddhist texts, the s have a dual personality. On the one hand, a may be an inoffensive nature-fairy, associated with woods and mountains; but there is also a darker version of the , which is a kind of (bhuta) that haunts the wilderness and waylays and devours travellers, similar to the rakṣasas.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “yakṣa” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.