Padmavati Ji

Padmavati is the yakshi who attends Parshvanatha, the twenty-third tirthankara. She is not a tirthankara but a guardian deity, and she is among the most actively worshipped figures in Jain practice, in some places more so than the tirthankara she serves. At Humcha in Karnataka she is the principal object of devotion, which is theologically striking and is explained below.

Padmavati Devi. Note that this platform keys her as a Jain figure specifically, because the name is shared with unrelated Hindu goddesses.

Usually four-armed: two right hands holding a lotus and a rosary, two left holding a fruit or citron and a noose, with accounts varying on the fourth object. A multi-hooded snake canopy covers her head, and a small image of Parshvanatha is often set in her crown, which marks her subordination to him even at the centre of her own shrine. Her mount is disputed in the sources: a rooster in some, a snake with a cock's head in others. She is also shown seated on a lotus. The disagreement is recorded rather than resolved.

Her origin is an act of mercy repaid. Tradition holds that a pair of serpents were trapped inside a log and being burned alive, and that Parshvanatha, then still a prince, saved them. Reborn as celestial beings through that compassion, they became Dharanendra and Padmavati. Later, when the ascetic Parshvanatha was meditating and the demon Meghamali conjured a storm against him, the two returned: Dharanendra spread a canopy of serpent hoods above him, and Padmavati coiled around his body to hold him above the rising water.

She is paired with Dharanendra, the naga king, and both attend Parshvanatha.

Why a yakshi is worshipped at all, which is the interesting question. Jain doctrine holds that tirthankaras are fully liberated souls, free of all passion and attachment, who therefore do not and cannot intervene in worldly affairs, grant favours, or answer requests. Yakshas and yakshis are different in kind: they remain within the cycle of rebirth, still subject to passions, doctrinally subordinate to the tirthankaras but capable of acting in the world. So a devotee with a worldly need does not petition the tirthankara, who has passed beyond such things. They petition the yakshi, who has not. That is the doctrinal logic behind her prominence, and it is a coherent position rather than a popular deviation. Humcha (Hombuja) in Karnataka is her principal seat, dated to the seventh century and a major centre of Digambara and tantric worship, carried on this platform. Also the Padmavati Basadi at Karkala, and Padmakshi Gutta at Warangal.

No Digambara or Shvetambara divergence was established in the sources consulted. The confusion risk is with Hinduism, and it is significant. The name is shared with at least two unrelated Hindu figures, including a consort associated with Venkateshwara at Tirupati. Reference works maintain them as separate entries, and so does this platform.