ABSTRACT
Yakshas and Vaddas MODERN science cannot accept the existence of supernatural beings like the Yakshas, demons good and bad, which figure so largely in Buddhist writings. The historical critique which was in vogue at the end of the last century, and is still very powerful, would have argued thus : "Demons do not exist. Therefore traditions of demons are false." Certainly, but though demons may not exist, there exist men who are believed both by themselves and by others to be demons.
