Jakh Botera

Jakh Botera, Jakhdada, Jakkha Bautera, 72 Yaksha or Bohter Yaksha (Gujarati: જખ બોંતેરા, બોંતેર યક્ષ), literally seventy-two Yaksha warriors, are group of folk deities worshiped widely in Kutch district of Gujarat, India.

The Jakhs said to were shipwrecked on the Kutch coast and came ashore at place, now known as Jakhau. Variously described as tall and fair-complected with an advanced culture, their traditional number is seventy-two with at least one woman. Their origins are obscure.

The legend associates Jakhs with historical town of Punvaranogadh, the ruins are located about two miles to the north-west of present-day village of Manjal, Kutch district, Gujarat.

Punvaranogadh was built around 878 by Punvar, son of Ghaa or Ghav, the chief of Kera, Kutch and possibly a nephew of Lakho Phulani. Quarreling with his family, Punvar or Punrao resolved to found a city and call it after his own name. When the city was finished, the architect was rewarded by having both his hands chopped off that he might not do work like it for any one else. Soon after, seven devotees of Jakhs renowned for their virtues and miracles came from Rum-Sham (possibly Anatolia and Syria or Byzantine), and settled in a high hill near Punvaranogadh. Hearing of their fame, Punvar's childless queen had an underground passage dug from the palace to the devotees' hill. Helping them in the service of their god Jakh, she after six months prayed them to ask the god to give her a son. But, for her husband's sins, until a sacrifice was offered in the palace, the prayer could not be granted. By the underground passage the holy men entered the palace and were performing their rites when Punvar, hearing there were strange men in the women's rooms, forced his way in, seized the devotees, and set them with bare feet to tread out corn in a threshing floor bristling with harrow-spikes. Pitying their sufferings a friendly barber named Babra offered to take the place of one of them. The freed devotee went to the top of Lakhadiya hill nearby and call Jakhs to their aid. Jakhs heard the prayer, and, with an earthquake that shook the hills, appeared with seventy-one brothers and a sister, Sayari or Sairi. Called on to give up the holy men, Punvar refused and by the help of the gods and a magic amulet suffered nothing from the arrows of Jakhs. Then Sayari, taking the form of a mosquito, bit Punvar on the arm so that he drew of his amulet, and, in the siege, a stone falling from the roof broke his head. Jakhs cursed the town and it has since lain desolate. Later Jakhs were revered by people and the temples were erected in their dedication.

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Wikipedia