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Dr. Charlotte Krause : Her Life & Literature
one of the four main categories of gods17 known to Jaina dogmatics. But that at least Dharaṇa or Dharanendra, the most popular of the Śāsanadevas, cannot be meant to belong to the Yakşa sub-class of the Vyantaras, is clear from the facts :
(1) that this Yaksa sub-class of the Vyantaras is stated to be ruled by two Indras only, viz., Purnabhadra and Māņibhadra's, not leaving room for a third Indra 'Dharana', and
(2) that they are not snake-deities'', while the Śāsanadeva Dharana is most decidedly a snake-god. Obviously, he is identical with the Dharana whom Jaina dogmatics mention as the Indra of the southern section of the Nāga-kumāras, the second sub-class of the Bhavanapatisz", whose emblem is the snake21. Yet if this identity is assumed, the difficuly arises that the Sāsanadeva Dharana is unanimously described as being accompanied by his mate Padmāvatī, while a list of the names of the chief-queens of the Nāga-kumāra ruler Dharaṇa22 does not contain the name of 'Padmāvatī', as Professor H. R. Kapadia has Pointed out23. If the Senapraśna is correct in insisting on the identity of both, as well as on Padmāvati being Dharana's chief queen24, the name of 'Padmavati' would have to be taken as an original epithet or apposition to any one of those Indrānīs, replacing, later on, the actual name.
As thus Dharanendra, anyhow, does not belong to the Yakşa sub-class of the Vyantaras, the now prevalent technical meaning of the word 'Yakşa' as 'divine attendant on a Tīrthankara' cannot directly be connected with the former meaning. There is more likelihood of its being based on the meaning which the word 'jakkha' bears in two isolated passages of the Uttarādhyayana-sūtra-5, where it serves as a synonymon for 'deva', and refers to gods of higher categories, who reside in 'Kalpas, thus proving that it is not restricted to the sub-class of the Vyantaras called Yaksas.
The idea that each couple of Yakṣa and Yakșiņi serving one and the name Tīrtharkara, are husband and wife, as assumed by B. C. Bhattacharya26, certainly holds good in the case of Dharana and
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