Yadageri
the science of inducing rain and snow by means of enchantment. (See Siberia.) Yaksha or Jak: A species of Indian fiend or imp. Says Mr. Crookes: "The Jak is the modern representative of the Yaksha, who in better times was the attendant of Kuvera, the god of wealth, in which duty he was assisted by the Guhyaka. The character of the Yaksha is not very certain Yaksh his eldest son's double when the original was dying of the plague. The belief flourishes also on the continent, and in different parts of Britain it goes under different names, such as "waff," "swarth," " task," " fye," etc. Variants of the wraiths are the Irish "fetch" (q.v.), and the Welsh "lledrith." In Scotland it was formerly believed that the wraith of one about to die might be seen wrapped in a winding-sheet. The higher the shroud reached the nearer was the approach of death. Something analogous to wraith-seeing comes within the scope of modern psychical science, and the apparition is explained in various ways, as a projection of the "astral body," an emanation from the person of its living prototype, or, more scientifically perhaps, on a telepathic basis. A well-known case in point is that of the Birkbeck Ghost, where three children witnessed the apparition of their mother shortly before her death. This instance, which is recorded in the "Proceedings the Psychical Research Society, is noteworthy because of the fact that Mrs. Birkbeck was conscious before she died of having spent the time with her children.
Wronski: (See France.) X Y " of drawn from the arrangement of logs in the fire-place, from the manner in which they burn, etc. It is perhaps the survival of this mode of divination which makes the good people say, when a brand is disturbed, that "they are going to have a visitor."
He was called Punya-janas, "the good people," but he sometimes appears as an imp of evil. In the folk-tales, it must be admitted, the Yakshas have an equivocal reputation. In one story the female, or Yakshini, bewilders travellers at night, makes horns grow on their foreheads, and finally devours them; in another the Yakshas have, like the Churel, feet turned the wrong way and squinting eyes; in a third they separate the hero from the heroine because he failed to make due offerings to them on his wedding day. On the other hand, in a fourth tale the Yakshini is described as possessed of heavenly beauty; she appears again when a sacrifice is made in a cemetery to get her into the hero's power, as a heavenly maiden beautifully adorned, seated in a chariot of gold surrounded by lovely girls; and lastly, a Brahman meets some Buddhist ascetics, performs the Uposhana vow, and would have become a god, had it not been that a wicked man compelled him by force to take food in the evening, and so he was re-born as a Guhyaka. "
In the modern folk-lore of Kashmir, the Yaksha has turned into the Yech or Yach, a humorous, though powerful, sprite in the shape of a civet cat of a dark colour, with a white cap on his head. This small high cap is one of the marks of the Irish fairies, and the Incubones of Italy wear caps, 'the symbols of their hidden, secret natures.' The feet of the Yech are so small as to be almost invisible, and it squeaks in a feline way. It can assume any shape, and if its white cap can be secured, it becomes the servant of the possessor, and the white cap makes him invisible. "In the Vishnu Purana we read that Vishnu created the Yakshas as beings emaciate with hunger, of hideous aspect, and with big beards, and that from their habit of crying for food they were so named. By the Buddhists they were regarded as benignant spirits. One of them acts as sort of chorus in the Meghaduta or 'Cloud Messenger' of Kalidasa. Yet we read of the Yaka Alawaka, who, according to the Buddhist legend, used to live in a Banyan tree, and slay any one who approached it; while in Ceylon they are represented as demons whom Buddha destroyed. In later Hinduism they are generally of fair repute, and one of them was appointed by Indra to be the attendant of the Jaina Saint Mahavira."