The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c23.s2.5

v1.c23.s2.5

The Rakṣases are the most famous of the classes of demons, and occur in the Rigveda upwards of fifty times, nearly always in connexion with the mention of a god who is desired to deal with them. In two hymns¹ the Rakṣases seem to be more precisely defined as Yātus or Yātudhānas, words which denote wizard or sorcerers, and the latter may be regarded as a subdivision of the Rakṣasas, a fact of the utmost importance as showing how important even in the Rigveda was the belief in such beings, many of them probably real men. The Rakṣases are often, as is natural, theriomorphic; they appear as dogs, vultures, owls, and other birds flying about at night;² they can assume the form of husband, brother, or lover,³ and they are a constant peril to the woman in child. In dog or ape form they are ready to attack her;⁴ at the wedding service they prowl around, and small staves are flung in the air to pierce the eyes of the demons.⁵ When they have human forms, they are often hideously deformed, with two mouths, three heads, four eyes, five feet, with feet turned backwards, without fingers, or with horns on their hands, and bear-necked.⁶ Blue, yellow, and green are their colours, and they are not without social organization, having both families and kings:⁷ unlike the gods, they are mortal, and have not won immortality.⁸ They are essentially blood-suckers who seek to enter men, especially by the mouth in the process of eating and drinking, but also by other inferior passages which the gods are therefore besought to protect.⁹ When within they eat the man's or beast's flesh and cause disease;¹⁰ they bring about madness and destroy the power of speech;¹¹ they invade human dwellings¹² and dance around houses in the evening; they make a noise in the forest, pray aloud, or laugh and drink out of skulls as cups,¹³ a point which shows that the ghouls of the places of burial must have contributed an element to the conceptions: in such spirits the idea of the spirits of the dead, especially the dead not duly buried or burnt, and the spirits, which are, like Vāstoṣpati in the house, resident in the place of the dead, must inevitably inextricably combine.