Jain cosmology holds no creator god and no deity capable of granting liberation, which every soul must earn through its own conduct across countless lives. It does, however, hold a crowded heaven of devas, beings born into their station by past karma and themselves still bound to the cycle of rebirth. Among the most prominent of these are the yakshas and yakshis, guardian spirits paired with each of the twenty-four Tirthankaras, and none is more widely invoked than Padmavati, attendant of Parshvanatha, the twenty-third ford-maker.
Padmavati's standard iconography shows her seated or standing on a coiled serpent, often multi-armed, holding a lotus, a noose, a goad and other implements that vary by region and sect. The serpent connects her to Dharanendra, the naga king who, in the best known episode of Parshvanatha's legend, sheltered the meditating Tirthankara from a storm sent by a hostile rival; Padmavati is Dharanendra's queen in that same narrative cycle, and the pair are frequently depicted together flanking Parshvanatha's image in temple sculpture.
Unlike the Tirthankaras, whom Jains venerate as models of the path itself rather than as sources of worldly help, Padmavati is approached precisely for worldly ends: protection, prosperity, healing, the resolution of disputes. This division, between the Tirthankara as an object of meditative emulation and the yakshi as an intercessory power, is a structural feature of Jain devotional life documented across both major sects. Temples dedicated wholly or partly to Padmavati exist throughout Karnataka, Rajasthan and Gujarat, and her image accompanies Parshvanatha in Jain art wherever that Tirthankara is depicted.