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Four More Popular Yaksinis
275 goddess, in lalitāsana, shows the lotus, the sword, the vajra and the varada in her right hands and the lotus. the shield, the ghanță (bell) and the fruit in the left ones (fig. 111). An eight-armed form of the goddess exists in the Barabhuji cave, Khandagiri, Orissa, but symbols are indistinct.260
6. Tripura-Bhairavi
As Tripura-Bhairavi, Padmavati is three-eyed and eight-armed and shines like the Indragopa-flower. She carries the conch, the disc, the bow, the arrow, the sword, the shield, the lotus and the fruit in her hands.261
D. Six-Armed Variety
Vasunandi, Āsādhara and Nemicandra refer also to a six-armed form. This shows the popularity the goddess enjoyed in the Jaina Pantheon, in the ages in which these authors lived. According to Vasunandi, she holds the noose, the spear, the sword, the crescent, the club and the pestle (musala) in her six hands.282 'the other two authors merely say that the goddess holds the symbols beginning with pāśa. According to Nemicandra, Padmāvati, when invoked in this form, gives victory over the enemy.
E. Twelve-Armed Variety
No specific dhyānas for this form are available. But, a beautiful figure on a pillar in the courtyard of temple no. 12 in the Devgadh Fort can safely be identified as Padmavati with the twelve arms (fig. 197).
Adorned with five snake-hoods over the crown, the goddess sits on a bhadrâsana with her right foot hanging. The figure shows the club, the bow, the lotus, the arrow, the sword (?) and varada mudrà in six hands on the right. In her left hands are seen the vajra, the snake, the noose, the bow, and the fruit. The kukkuta-sarpa is here very artistically represented.
A sculpture of 12.armed Padmavati seated in padmasana illustrated in fig. 174 is from the Thakur Sahib collection, Shahdol. The goddess shows the varada mudra, the sword, the axe, the arrow, the snake, the vajra, the disc, the shield, the mace, the goad, the bow and the lotus in her twelve hands.263
At Sohagpur in the Bilaspur district, M.P., are found loose images lying near the palace of the local Thakur. One of these is a rare image of Padmāvati with twelve arms with a small figure of Pärsvanātha over her head. In her right hands she shows the wheel, the thunderbolt, the battle axe, the sword, the arrow and the varada while the bow, the goad, the noose, the mace and the lotus are carried in the left ones. The sixth left hand is unfortunately broken.264
Maruti Nandan Prasad has identified a sixteen-armed devi as Padmavati in the ceiling in front of cell 41 at Vimala Vasahi. I believe the goddess there is Vairoty, and not Padmavati.
F. Twenty-two-Armed Variety
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The Padmavati stotra265 gives separate verses for the worship of the symbols held by Padmāvati; they are worshipped in the following order: first pair-the vajra in the right and the goad in the left hands, the second pair--the lotus in the right and the disc in the left, similarly, the chatra in the right and the damaru in the left, the bowl (kapala) in the right and the sword in the left, the bow in the right and the pestle in the left, the plough in the right and the flame of fire in the left, the bhindimala in the right and the cluster of stars (tärämandala) in the left, the trident in the right and the axe in the left, the cobra in the right and the club in the left, the staff in the right and the noose in the left and lastly, the stone in the right and the big tree in the left hands. A twenty-two-armed figure of Padmavati can thus be reasonably expected, although as far as is known no sculpture has yet been discovered which answers to the above description.
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