Jainism in South India and Some Jaina Epigraphs

SR No.: 011025
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: P B Desai
Publisher: Jain Sanskruti Samrakshak Sangh Solapur
Publication Year: 1957
Total Pages: 495
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 33 MB

Page 98

JAIMIALA IN SOUTH INDIA
Tae YAKSHI CULT: Another highly interesting and remarkably characteristic feature of the Jaina creed in the Tamil land is the prevalence of Yakshi worship from the early times and on almost universal scale. Yakshi or Yakshiņi," strictly speaking, occupies a subordinate and secondary position in the Jaina pantheon; and whatever sense of veneration is entertained in respect of her is due mainly on account of her association with the Jina whose guardian angel she is conceived to be. So, according to the theo. logical or iconographical standards, she cannot claim a place of independence or the privilege of individual adoration in the hierarchy of Jaina divinities. But there is a volume of iconographical and epigraphical evidence to show that here, in the Tamil country, the Yokshiņi was allotted an independent status and raised to a superior position which was almost equal to that of the Jina. This is not all; in some instances the worship of Yakshiņi appears to have superseded and overshadowed even that of Jina himself.
This is not an unparallelled circumstance in the history of the Jaina creed, so to say. No doubt, the Yakshiņi attained a place of importance in the popular plane of Jaina religion at a subsequent age of its history in other parts of the country also. But elsewhere the position appears to have been confined to only a few, one or two deities in particular, The reference is to Padmāvati, the Yakshiņi of Pārsvunātlia, who was elevated to the altar of the main deity and worshipped with ceremony in Karnāțaka. An early instance that would illustrate the point is the goddess Padmāvati of Patti Pombuchchapura in the Mysore area."
But the Yakshi cult in the Tamil land has an independent history of its own. The following interesting facts deserve to be noted in connection with the rise and growth of this cult.
1) The origin of the Yakshí cult in the Tamil land may be traced to as early a period as the second century A. D. from an allusion to it in the Silappadikāram. This will be discussed in the following Section. The epigraphical reference, however, to this cult, as seen previously, dates from the 8th century A. d. It is possible to surmise the reasons that would
1 The Jaina terminology is more familiar with the expression Yakshiņi and not Yakshi,
though the same idea is conveyed by both. In the Tamil country Yakshini is invariably spokea of as Yakshi. This partiality for the particular nomenclature is
noteworthy. 2 Padmavati was the tutelary deity of the Säntara chiefs. It was through her grace
that Jinadatta established the Säntars family at Pombuchchapura. This was about the 9th century A. D.; but the epigraphs furnishing this information are of the Ilth century A. D, and later; Mysore and Coorg from Inscriptions, p. 138; Ep. Carn., Vol. VIII, Nagar 36, eto.