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Corinne Dempsey. Double Take - Through The Eyes of Yakṣis, Yakṣas, and Yoginīs PDF
Corinne Dempsey. Double Take - Through The Eyes of Yakṣis, Yakṣas, and Yoginīs PDF
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Double Take: Through
the Eyes of Yaksis,
Yaksas, and Yoginis
Corinne Dempsey
1 Coomaraswamy links the medieval cult of the 64 yoginis with that of the more ancient worship of
yaksis (Coomaraswamy: 9). Sutherland notes similarities between yoginis and yaksis, having both
fierce and benevolent sides and associations with trees (Sutherland: 146).
Journal of the American Academy of Religion March 2005, Vol. 73, No. 1, pp. 3-7
doi:10.1093/jaarel/1fi002
@ The Author 2005. Published by Oxford University Press, on behalf of the American Academy of
Religion. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected]
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4 Journal of the American Academy of Religion
2 As Gail Sutherland, describes it, "after a few Vedic references, the body of associations with the
yaks4a steadily increases in complexity and resonance. . . . forming labrynthine connections to a
staggering variety of iconographic applications and religious and cultural depictions" (Sutherland: 1).
3 The yaksa was also referred to interchangeably with the rdksasa, pisaca, or gandharva, particularly
in the Atharvaveda (Ling: 15-16).
4 My thanks to Leslie Orr and Padma Kaimal who helped me untangle much of the information in
the above paragraph.
5 This shift in perspective is most apparent during the rise of Hindu theism and bhakti
sensibilities, yet the Vedas themselves reflect conflicting and perhaps changing views of the yaksa and
yaksi, depicting them as sublime deities as well as entities whose priests one should avoid (Misra: 7-8).
6 Reflected in the widespread vandalization of yogini figures and their temples as well as in
interviews with people living near abandoned yogini temples, the yogini's sexuality seems to have
invoked a similar kind of fear (Kaimal, personal communication).
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Dempsey: Double Take 5
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6 Journal of the American Academy of Religion
REFERENCES
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Dempsey: Double Take 7
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