Yaksha

Yakṣa}}, 1st-2nd century CE

Greek scroll supported by Indian Yaksha, Amaravati, 3rd century CE, Tokyo National Museum.

Yakṣa (Sanskrit) or Yakkha (Pāli) is the name of a broad class of nature-spirits or minor deities who appear in Hindu and Buddhist mythology. The feminine form of the word is yakṣī or yakṣiṇī (Pāli: yakkhī or yakkhinī).

Contents

1 General character
2
3 Yaksha in Popular culture
4 References

General character

In both Hindu and Buddhist mythology, the yakṣa has a dual personality. On the one hand, a yakṣa may be an inoffensive nature-fairy, associated with woods and mountains; but there is a much darker version of the yakṣa, which is a kind of cannibalistic ogre, ghost or demon that haunts the wilderness and waylays and devours travelers, similar to the {{IAST.

In Kālidāsa's poem Meghadūta, for instance, the yakṣa narrator is a romantic figure, pining with love for his missing beloved. By contrast, in the didactic Hindu dialogue of the Yakṣapraśnāḥ ("questions of the Yakṣa"), a dangerous cannibalistic {{IAST, the tutelary spirit of a lake, threatens the life of the epic hero {{IAST.

The yakṣas may have originally been the tutelary gods of forests and villages, and were later viewed as the steward deities of the earth and the wealth buried beneath.

In Indian art, male yakṣas are portrayed either as fearsome warriors or as portly, stout and dwarf-like. Female yakṣas, known as {{IAST, are portrayed as beautiful young women with happy round faces and full breasts and hips.

In Buddhist countries yakṣas are known under the following names: Chinese Pinyin: 夜叉 yè chā, Japanese: , Burmese: ba-lu).
In Buddhist mythology, the yakṣa are the attendants of {{IAST, the Guardian of the Northern Quarter, a beneficent god who protects the righteous. The term also refers to the twelve heavenly generals who guard the Buddha of Medicine (Sanskrit: Bhaiṣajya; Tibetan: sangs-rgyas sman-bla; Chinese and Japanese: 藥師如來)

Yaksha in Popular culture
Yaksha is also the name of the oringinal vampire in The Last Vampire Series by the Late Christopher Pike. Christopher Pike uses names from the Hindu pantheon for nearly all of the main characters.
YASHA is a Japanese television series in 11 episodes about a manmade "A80" virus that threatens the elderly population of Japan.
InuYasha is a manga and anime in which demons frequently appear.

References

Dictionary of Hindu Lore and Legend (ISBN 0500510881) by Anna Dhallapiccola
Sources: Encyclopaedia Britannica

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