Jain Rup Mandan

Author(s): Umakant P Shah
Publisher: Abhinav Publications

Page 237

CHAPTER TEN
Four More Popular Yakşiņis
I. Cakreśvari, the Yakși of Rşabhanatha
Cakreśvari or Apraticakrā is regarded as the fi sana yakși of Rşabhanātha or Adinātha, the first Tirthankara, by Jainas of both the Svetämbara and the Digambara sects. She is so called because she holds the cakra or the disc which is her chief distinguishing symbol. The eagle is her vāhana.
It is difficult to distinguish her form from the Svetāmbara Vidyādevi of the same name who also holds the disc and rides the eagle. As Vidyādevi she is described as carrying the discs in all her four hands. This would have made it easier to distinguish the Yakşi from the Vidyadevi but for the fact that the Vimala vasahi at Abu contains figures of the Cakreśvari-vidyā with discs in only two upper hands and shows the citron and the varada mudra with the two lower ones. These figures are of the Svetāmbara tradition. Again the same symbols are found with the Cakreśvari-yakşi in this tradition. Moreover, as will be seen below, a form of the yakşi Cakreśvari carries discs in all the four hands, thereby supporting the inference that the forms of Cakreśvari, the yaksi, and Cakreśvari, the vidyadevi, are closely related, and were possibly interchanged. This close similarity between some forms of the yakși and the vidyādevi makes it difficult to say who was the prototype of whom.
A. CAKREŚVARI OR APRATICAKRA (SVETAMBARA)
In the Svetāmbara pantheon, the yakşiņi of Rşabhanātha is found worshipped in three varieties of forms, namely, the two-armed, the four-armed and the eight-armed.
1. Two-Armed Variety
Dhaky has referred to a two-armed form of yakşi Cakreśvari found in the Jaina temple at Sevādi, Rajasthan. Here Cakreśvari carries the cakra in her right hand while her left hand is mutilated.14 The eagle is her väbana. No literary evidence is known.
2. Four-Armed Variety
Though no literary evidence for the four-armed form is forthcoming, quite a large number of figures of this variety obtained on pedestals of images of Adinātha attest to the frequent occurrence in worship of this form. Moreover, the form represents an old tradition since a beautiful figure on a mutilated bronze image of c. eleventh century is still worshipped in a Jaina temple at Prabhāsa-Patapa, in Saurashtra.2 In this image which is a mutilated part of a bigger metal sculpture-probably a covisi-is shown a figure of Cakreśvari seated in the lalita pose. She carries the disc in each of two upper hands, while the right and the left lower ones show the yarada and the conch respectively. The eagle is shown as her vāhana. On one side of the yakşi Cakreśvari is represented in one section a standing two-armed Ambikā with a child and an amralumbi in her two bands. The presence of this early variety of foum of
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