Hariti is one of the minor divinities in Buddhism. The name literally means one who steals. Hariti was a yakshini, an other-worldly being who used to steal and devour children. According to some legends, she was an ogress who had made a vow in her former birth to devour the children of Rajagriha and thus was born as a yakshi. Though yakshinis were usually fierce ad full of spite and vengeance, addicted to man-and-beast killing, some of them got kinder and humane under the moralizing influence of Buddha. Originally, Hariti was a Magadhan tutelary Goddess who resided at Rajagriha with her spouse Pancika, a general of yaksha army, variously known as Kubera, Jambhala, Dhanada and Vaishravana. She began destroying the children of Rajagriha by smallpox and so earned the name of Hariti, by which she is also known in Buddhism. Metaphorically, she is said to devour children as an ogress, in which form Buddha encountered her. Buddha adopted the tactic of hiding her last-born child, Pingala, who