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KINGS AND PEOPLES
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Yakṣas being Uttarakuru or Northern continent forming the kingdom of Kuvera Vaisravana. The Kinnaras, Kimpurusas and Yakṣas 1 figure as semi-human beings, the first two representing the two branches of one and the same stock of people. This is in substance and details the description of them as offered in the early texts of Buddhism.
The words, Kinnara and Kimpurisa, are employed in Pali, precisely as in Sanskrit, as synonyms. According to the Amarakoṣa, the Kinnaras or Kimpurusas have a human form which is ugly because of having a face like that of a horse, and are, therefore, known also as aśvamukhāḥ or turangavadana; the heavenly musician, Tumbaru, belongs to the race of Kinnaras or Kimpurusas. In Pali, on the other hand, the heavenly musician is represented by Pañcasikha who belongs to a class of demigods called Gandhabba. As the Kinnaras or Kimpurisas figure in the Pali Jātakas, they were rather of a human or infrahuman race 4 than of a suprahuman origin. Like the deer, they
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1 Kern, Manual of Indian Buddhism, pp. 59-80.
2 Jataka, iv, p. 252f.
• Amarakoga, Svargavarga, 71: Kinnaraḥ Kimpurusas turangavadano mayuḥ.
4 Jātaka, iv, p. 252: Na-y-ime deva na pi Gandhabbaputta, miga ime turacchanagata; iv, p. 439: miga manussā, vā nibhāsavanna, 'animals in a human form'.
