Yakshini

Yakshinis appear in all three major South Asian religious traditions — making them one of the oldest and most cross-culturally attested supernatural classes in the subcontinent. In Hindu tradition, they are part of the retinue of Kubera, the god of wealth, and are associated with fertility, trees, hidden treasure, and the generative abundance of the forest. Their male counterparts, the Yakshas, appear in the Mahabharata's famous Yaksha Prashna — the series of riddles posed to Yudhishthira at a sacred lake.

The Uddamareshvara Tantra (attributed to Shiva's instructions to Parvati) contains detailed descriptions of 36 named Yakshinis, each with her specific appearance, the offerings she requires, and the precise powers granted to someone who successfully completes her sadhana. This text treats Yakshinis not as beings to be feared but as beings to be engaged — a transaction between human and nature spirit, with specific terms.

The Yakshini is typically depicted as a voluptuous woman of extraordinary beauty, emerging from or intimately associated with a specific species of tree — pipal, mango, kadamba, or banyan, depending on the Yakshini. Her skin may be dark, forest-green, or golden. She wears heavy gold jewellery and garlands of flowers, and is often shown reaching upward into the branches, her body forming a continuity with the tree.

In encounter accounts, she appears as a beautiful woman standing at the base of a large tree at dusk or night. Her feet may not quite touch the ground. Several accounts across North India describe an overwhelming scent of flowers — specific to her tree's bloom — that arrives before she is seen.

A propitiated Yakshini grants her primary function as a Kubera-servant: material prosperity, hidden treasure revealed, and protection of the household. She can also grant beauty and attract love relationships, according to the Uddamareshvara Tantra's specific prescriptions for each of the 36.

When angered — by cutting her tree, urinating near it, approaching without ritual acknowledgment, or breaking a compact made during sadhana — she causes sudden swelling illness, skin conditions, miscarriage, and afflictions of the lower body. Entire villages near a large felled pipal tree have attributed subsequent misfortune to a displaced Yakshini.