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Article: Cakreśvarī or Apraticakrā
Contributed by Nalini Balbir
The yakṣī Cakreśvarī or Apraticakrā is one of the best-known Jain goddesses. She is a śāsana-devatā – ‘deity of the teaching’ – and is believed to help protect and spread the message of her Jina. She is the yakṣī of the first Jina, Ṛṣabhanātha or Lord Ṛṣabha, and a very popular deity who has developed a separate identity as a powerful goddess. Her male counterpart, the yakṣa Gomukha, does not have an independent status.
As a goddess, Cakreśvarī or Apraticakrā is a soul subject to the cycle of birth and can intervene in human affairs, unlike Jinas, who are liberated, perfect souls, completely detached from everyday human experience. Lay Jains worship gods partly to request help with worldly matters, ranging from issues of health and fertility, and passing examinations to business success. By the tenth century several of the śāsana-devatās had developed into independent gods at the centre of their own cults. This may be because of their connections with the major Jinas, links with a prominent pilgrimage centre or various stories of their powers.
Śvetāmbara Jains call this goddess Cakreśvarī while Digambaras know her as Apraticakrā, but this distinction is not watertight. Each sect gives her different attributes, but the disc – cakra – is her distinctive symbol, connected to the two versions of her name. In sculptures as well as paintings she is shown holding it in at least one of her hands. She has close associations with Mount Shatrunjaya, a major Śvetāmbara pilgrimage centre. She is also linked to the popular Jain hymn called the Bhaktāmara-stotra.
Name
This goddess is known as:
- the ‘lord of the disc’ – Cakreśvarī
- the ‘one with a disc without rival’ – Apraticakrā.
In this case, there is a close connection between the yakṣī’s name and her most important symbol. This association can be said to underline her unrivalled power or supremacy.
In addition, Cakreśvarī as a vidyā-devī or 'goddess of knowledge' is sometimes called Vaiṣṇavī, the consort of Viṣṇu, whose main emblem is the disc.
Roles
Detail of the Ranakpur dome
Image by w3p706 – Fabian Heusser © CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Apraticakrā or Cakreśvarī is mainly known as the yakṣī – attendant goddess – of the first Jina, Ṛṣabhanātha or Lord Ṛṣabha. But like many yakṣas and yakṣīs she is at the crossroads of categories. She is also the fifth among the 16 mahā-vidyās or vidyā-devīs, who represent types of magical power or knowledge.
She is ‘parallel in concept to the Hindu goddess Vaiṣṇavī’ (Bruhn 1969: 23), who is the female energy of Viṣṇu. He is the protective, preserver deity of the Hindu triad of major gods and Vaiṣṇavī has similar associations.
Cakreśvarī is also the tutelary deity of the Śvetāmbara monastic lineage of the Ancala-gaccha, along with another goddess named Kālikā.
Appearance
Thunderbolt
Image by NelC - Nelson Cunningham © CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Both yakṣas and yakṣīs are considered part of the entourage of the Jina image, technically known as parikara. Like all of the attendant deities, Cakreśvarī has certain features that help to identify her and indicate her powers. These are described in, for example, texts on the iconography of the Jina, which outline the appearance of the Jina's attendants.
Being presented as a deity implies that Cakreśvarī has special characteristics linked to the depiction of gods in art. This means she:
- may have more than two arms or hands
- has a vehicle – vāhana
- demonstrates attributes by holding various objects
- may exhibit hand-gestures that symbolise a concept or attitude – mudrās.
Cakreśvarī’s vehicle is Garuḍa, a mythical eagle. Her symbol is the disc – cakra – which is one of the main Indian weapons.
Cakreśvarī is given varying numbers of hands by different traditions within the two main Jain sects, as follows:
- two, four, six, eight, ten, 12, 16 or 20 hands – Digambara
- two, four, eight or 18 hands – Śvetāmbara.
According to the Nirvāṇa-kālikā, she has eight hands. Ascribed to the first quarter of the 11th century, this treatise deals with the installation of images and contains a lot of information about iconography. It states that her four right hands:
- make the gesture of giving a boon – varada-mudrā
- hold an arrow
- carry a disc
- grasp a noose.
Her left hands hold a:
- bow
- thunderbolt – vajra
- disc
- goad.
The sects also give her varying divine attributes. In her 12-hand form, her attributes are identical in the two traditions. They are:
- discs in eight hands
- thunderbolt in two hands
- fruit and varada-mudrā in the two remaining hands.
A 14th-century work says:
On both sides [of the frame of the jina image] there should be yakṣa, yakṣī, lions, elephants, caurī, and in the middle the goddess Cakreśvarī. These should occupy fourteen, twelve, ten, three, and six parts respectively of the whole [frame]
Vatthusāra-payaraṇa II. 27
quoted in Fischer and Jain 1978, volume II, page 22
Written in the 12th century, Hemacandra’s standard Śvetāmbara version of the lives of the 24 Jinas contains a paragraph for each pair of gods attendant on the Jinas. Here is the description he gives of Cakreśvarī:
Apraticakrā, gold-color, with a garuḍa-seat, with one right arm in varada-position and the others holding an arrow, disc, and noose, her left arms holding a bow, thunderbolt, disc, and goad
Hemacandra, Triṣaṣṭiśalākāpuruṣacaritra I.3.279ff.
Johnson’s translation, volume I, page 211
There is also a terrifying form of Cakreśvarī depicted in Tantric texts. She has the same attributes but ‘is visualized as three-eyed with dreadful appearance’ (Tiwari and Sinha 2011: 91).
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