yaksha

[ yok-shah ]

noun

, Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism.

1. any of a class of nature spirits or deities who guard places or treasure: most are considered benevolent, but some are thought to be capricious, mischievous, or malicious.
2. a statue depicting such a spirit, often placed guarding another deity or flanking a temple gate.

Word History and Origins

Origin of yaksha¹

First recorded in 1780–90; from Sanskrit yakṣa

Example Sentences

The researchers said the fossil represented a new species of albanerpetontids, named Yaksha perettii, which was about 5cm long without the tail.

From The Guardian

The first Kapoor antiquities to arrive at the Met were a set of first-century terra-cotta rattles in the shape of Yaksha, a nature spirit.

From New York Times

Early in the night a number of people come from the water, and having made preparation for an entertainment, retire; a Yaksha, a genie, then comes out of the lake with his two wives, and spends the night there: when he and one of his wives are asleep, the other, seeing the youths, invites them to approach her, and to encourage them, shews them a hundred rings received from former gallants, notwithstanding her husband's precautions, who keeps her locked up in a chest at the bottom of the lake.

From Project Gutenberg

Hence— God, Man, Yaksha, Piśácha, serpent, Rákshasa, bird, tree, creeper, wood, stone, grass, jar, cloth,—these and all other words, be they what they may, which are current among mankind as denotative by means of their base and its suffixes, as denoting those things, in denoting things of this or that apparent constitution, really denote the individual souls which assumed to them such body, and the whole complexus of things terminating in the Supreme Spirit ruling within.

From Project Gutenberg

Son, I tried thee in the Dwaita wood, what time The Yaksha smote them, bringing water; then Thou prayedst for Nakula's life—tender and just— Not Bhíma's nor Arjuna's, true to both, To Madrî as to Kuntî, to both queens.

From Project Gutenberg