2-735-721 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Nature Divinity (Yakshi), c. 75. Iconic images of female divinities who personify the life-giving forces of nature were worshipped for fertility, healthy pregnancies, and safe childbirth. Their images were donated by local people and set up in shrines—some under important trees, which the divinity was thought to inhabit in the form of sap. Others, shown with water-serpent hoods, were associated with bodies of water, however small. Traces of carvings that may have been either serpents or locks of hair are visible above this charming figure's elaborate headdress. Nature divinities were so important to local populations that they were incorporated into the sacred complexes of early Buddhist and Jain monuments.