yaksha
यक्ष yakṣaAn ancient nature-spirit of the earth, trees and hidden wealth; an ambivalent being, benevolent guardian of treasure yet potentially dangerous. Their king is Kubera. Yakshas are the subject of India's earliest monumental stone sculpture.
Where this term appears
- Who is Ganesha? Deities
At Mathura, in the Kushana era of roughly the first to third centuries CE, sculptors carved stout, pot-bellied, elephant-headed attendant figures, yaksha or gana types.
- Who is Parvati? Deities
The victory had in fact been Brahman's, the gods had taken the credit, and now something stood in front of them that they could not identify. A yaksha , a mysterious spirit, refusing to explain itself.
- Who is the Goddess? Deities
They grow proud, certain the triumph was their own. Then a mysterious spirit, a yaksha, appears.
- What is Shaktism? Lineages
The gods have won a victory and grown proud, certain the triumph was their own. A mysterious spirit, a yaksha , appears.
- Arrival at Kailasa Treatise
Kubera the lord of wealth commands the treasure-guarding yakshas ; Indra holds court among celestial musicians; Yama, the lord of the dead, has his messengers and his fierce accountant.
- Cousins Across Cultures Treatise
…mapāla; the apsará and the valkyrie; the kami in the old tree and the yakṣa in the sacred grove; the Chinese celestial bureaucracy and the Hindu government of navagrahas and lokapālas we met in the last chapter…
- Earth and Water Treatise
These are the yakshas and the nagas, and they are among the oldest divine beings in the subcontinent.
- From the margins to the Lord of beginnings Treatise
An elephant-headed yaksha figure appears in the sculptural record by about the second century of the Common Era, but Thapan cautions that it cannot simply be assumed to be Ganapati; a deity clearly named and sh…