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[Intro]
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[Texts]
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[Caves]
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One of the frequent epithets of Vajrapi
throughout his history is that of a Yaka or Yakkha. While many deities
can simultaneously be 'great gods,' and be called Yakas, Vajrapi
had "an independent pre-Buddhist [Yaka] cult." 
As a Yaka he was a component of one of the earliest forms of worship on the subcontinent. The discovery the origins of this shared cult of worship is beyond the grasp of modern historians of religion; by the earliest periods we see belief in these manifold figures throughout the literary and archaeological record. Additionally, not only do they seem to show up everywhere, (from the Vedas to folk tales to tribal shrines) they also have diverse functions and characters. |
| Ram Nath Mishra asserts
correctly that "There hardly appears an aspect of life , during this
period [the Vedic period] over which the Yakas were incapable of
exhorting themselves with benevolent or malevolent designs. These
Yaka cults now incorporated in its fold a large number of individual
Yakas, their cults, functions, and provenances of worship, its modes,
icons and popular theology pertaining to the rituals and a widespread
system of belief." |
The second point Mishra is referring to is the powerful way that early Brahmanic authors incorporated the various form of Yaka worship into their own systems. In typical Brahmanic fashion at this very early period the absorbed the vast diversity of Yaka worship on the subcontinent at that time. Vajrapi is no exception to this rule and as a result,
we have no way to extract him from the web of significations within which he is woven and by which he is constituted.
