On December 24 last year, one of the most popular directors of the Malayalam film industry, K S Sethumadhavan, passed away. Reading through the obituaries and his filmography, one of his movies caught my eye.
The film was Yakshi, released in 1968 based on a novel by the same name by Malayattoor Ramakrishnan published a year earlier. But even before the movie’s release, the stories of yakshis were very much in the popular imagination of Malayalis.
Kottaratthil Sankunni, in his collection of legends of Kerala titled Aithihyamala and published in early 20th century, brings in the story of few yakshis along with their tormentors like Surya Kaladi Bhattathiri and Kadamattathu Kathanar.
In these stories, yakshis with their bewitching beauty would entice their victims, usually travellers passing through scantily populated regions. Due to their magic spell, the saptaparni (Indian devil tree) would bloom with its intoxicating fragrance and the travellers would see a palatial mansion—which in reality was the palmyra palm tree, the abode of these yakshis.
After reaching the top of the trees, these dazzling damsels would transform into ferocious ogresses and devour their victims. In some of the cases, the victims would escape these torments due to the protection they receive through some miracle or holy book. In one of the stories, Chamravattatthu Yakshi falls in love with her victim and spares his life and even enters into a secret relationship with him.
On the other hand, Kalliyankaattu Neeli’s story is more dramatic and narrates her gruesome murder by her own lover. Neeli’s name is associated with Kalliyankadu in southern Travancore and we find references to her in different ballads from the region. In addition to this, Marthanda Varma by C V Raman Pillai, one of the earliest Malayalam novels, also mentions her. Neeli was more ferocious and had a long list of victims and is said to have surrendered to Kadamattathu Kathanar, a well-known exorcist in Kerala who encaptivated her in Panayannarkavu temple in Pathanamthitta district.
My idea about the yakshis as a Keralite was well fostered by the legends expounded by Kottarathil Sankunni and movies like Yakshi (1968) and Kalliyankaattu Neeli (1978). These popular media created a picture of yakshis as blood-sucking vampires.
When I started learning art history, I got introduced to more yakshis, this time from north India. Mauryan-period yakshis of Didarganj, Patna and Vidisha with voluptuous physique, Kushana-period yakshis of Bhuteswar with nonchalant nakedness and Gyaraspur Yakshi, they all smiled at me enchantingly from the volumes on Indian art.
The difference was that they were not the poltergeists from horror movies but embodiments of beauty and the representation of abundance. The palmyra palm and the palatial house on its top disappeared; so did the enticing fragrance of the saptaparni tree. The only story close to the Kerala yakshis came from Buddhist tradition in the form of Jataka, known as Simhala Avadana Jataka, where Simhala, a merchant along with his friends reaches the shores of Tamradvipa inhabited by the ogresses who disguised themselves as beautiful women.
In the Jataka, these ogresses are never designated as yakshis because of the fact that in the Buddhist and Jain traditions, the yakshis and their male counterparts, yakshas, are protectors of the village and reside on the pipal or banyan trees. They are usually handsome and beautiful, representing the fertility cult. Many of them are represented with children as in the case of Ambika, the yakshi associated with Neminatha, the 22nd Jain Thirthankara. Buddhism has Hariti, an ogress converted by the Buddha as the protector of children.
The ferocious mother goddesses as the protectors of children and villages are also popular in Tamil culture. German scholar Heinrich Zimmer refers to a tree spirit known as Taalavasini who resided in the palmyra palm tree according to ancient Tamil legends. In the southern part of Kerala, one can observe the worship of Madan, a folk deity who got appropriated into the Brahmanical pantheon as the son of Siva. Madan is the protective spirit of the villages (kaval daivam) accompanied by yakshis and other female deities.
Most of the shrines exclusively dedicated to yakshis are in present-day Alappuzha and Pathanamthitta districts, with one or two in the Kochi region. Some of the shrines would be attached to Bhagavati temples as in the case of Panayannarkavu. Surprisingly the shrines for these semi-divine spirits are non-existent in the Malabar region, probably for the reason that these kinds of spirits were already incorporated in the Teyyam and Tirai tradition.
The yakshis also appear to be part of the Tantric tradition where they are classified into 36 types. The character of yakshis in Kerala seems to be having close affinity to those of Tantric tradition. This is because the state was one of the last bastions of Tantric Buddhism and an existing centre of Brahmanical Tantric tradition. However, as the yakshi cult is non-existent in north Kerala, it is safe to place them closer to the Tamil tradition.
In conclusion, one may state that the yakshis of Kerala have their origin in the Tamil tradition as tree spirits and protectors who have been given an Aryan name, just because of their enchanting beauty and bewitching smile.
Jayaram Poduval
Head, Department of Art History, The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda
(This is an article in the ongoing series by the author on pre-modern visual culture of Kerala)
(jpoduval@gmail.com)