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From The Rig Veda To Myriads Of Folk Narratives, The Belief In Demons Prevails All Over India, Vividly Illustrating That A Demon Is Something People Fear Because It Is Beyond Their Comprehension And Control. Time And Again, The Menacing And Uncontrollable Forces Of Night, Darkness And Death, Along With Powerful Defeated Enemies And Incomprehensible Natural Phenomena, Are Demonized. The Book Of Demons Presents A Perceptive Overview Of The Various Types Of Demonic Beings And Concepts That Exist In Hindu Literature, Supplemented With A Dictionary Of Individual Demons For Ready Reference. Besides The Well-Known Rakshasas And Asuras, The Author Also Reveals A Densely Populated World Of Lesser-Known, But Equally Fascinating, Demonic Creatures. Andhaka (Blind Darkness), Conceived When Parvati Playfully Covered Shiva S Eyes And The World Was Plunged Into Darkness; Gajamukha, The Elephant-Faced Demon Who Was Transformed Into A Mouse By Ganesha And Then Converted Into His Vehicle; Jambha, The Demon-Leader Who Snatched The Pot Of Immortal Nectar From The Ocean During The Great Churning; Maya, The Demonic Equivalent Of Vishvakarma, Architect Of The Gods, Who Built The Three Cities Of Tripura; And Putana, The Demon Who Tried To Kill Krishna By Suckling Him With Poisoned Breasts. Male Or Female, Human, Animal, Plant, Or Simply A Concept Demons Play A Pivotal Role In Our Mythical Traditions. Blending Insightful Erudition And Lively Description, Nanditha Krishna Brings To Life The Traits And Actions Of A Host Of Complex, Colourful, Monstrous And Intriguing Demons That Inhabit Indian Religion And Mythology.

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Publié par	Penguin Books Ltd
Date de parution	16 octobre 2007
Nombre de lectures	1
EAN13	9789351181446
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	2 Mo

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NANDITHA KRISHNA
The Book of Demons

Including a Dictionary of Demons in Sanskrit Literature
PENGUIN BOOKS
Contents
Note for the Reader
PART I
The World of Demons
Fallen Gods-Asuras
Demonized Enemies
Non-Demonized Enemies
Spirits, Ghosts and Others
Demons of Jainism and Buddhism
Demonic Lands
The Battle Never Ends
PART II
A Dictionary of Demons in Sanskrit Literature
Footnotes
PART I
Fallen Gods-Asuras
Demonized Enemies
PART II
A Dictionary of Demons in Sanskrit Literature
Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Copyright Page
PENGUIN BOOKS
THE BOOK OF DEMONS
Note for the Reader
This book has so many Indian words that the entire book would have been full of diacritical marks, making reading difficult. To avoid that, a general rule has been followed regarding spelling:
Popular spellings have been used for all proper nouns-names of people, places and books. For example, although the sound sh is written differently in Devanagari in the names of Shiva and Vishnu, I have followed the popular spellings. However, I have retained Brahmana (instead of Brahmin or Brahman) as my preferred spelling.
Where the sound may change the meaning, either a double vowel or a diacritical mark has been used. For example, Maya was the demon architect, while m y (pronounced maayaa) means illusion.
The following words appear very frequently, so putting diacritical marks or double vowels throughout the book would make it difficult reading. I have therefore listed the words below: Rakshasa is pronounced as Raakshasa (to be distinguished from rakshas). Yatu and Yatudhana are pronounced Yaatu and Yaatudhaana. Danava is pronounced Daanava. Pishacha is pronounced Pishaacha. Rama and Ravana are pronounced Raama and Raavana respectively. To distinguish between the male and female, the double vowel has been used, as in the male Hidamba and his sister Hidambaa. Similarly, Naraka means hell and Naaraka means an inhabitant of hell. Dasa, Dasyu, Naga and Nishada are pronounced Daasa, Daasyu, Naaga and Nishaada respectively. Pragjyotisha and Patala are pronounced Praagjyotisha and Paataala respectively. Rambha and Rambh are distinct entities: a demon and an apsaras respectively. Apsaras is the singular form of the word, the plural being apsarases.
PART I
Of vain hopes, of vain actions, of vain knowledge and senseless,
They verily are possessed of the delusive nature of Rakshasas and Asuras.
Bhagavad Gita, 9. 12
{1}
The World of Demons
Without Contraries is no Progression. Attraction and Repulsion, Reason and Energy, Love and Hate, are necessary to Human Existence
William Blake 1
Demons are found everywhere, in every culture and society. From the Rig Veda to local folk literature, the belief in demons is found all over India. Demons represent everything evil: malice, mischief, iniquity, vice, immorality, malevolence and every form of wickedness. They have inordinate powers. Many were originally human and even heavenly beings. Those who met unnatural or violent deaths, those who were terrifying in their lifetime, and those who had inadequate death rites and so are frustrated become demons. Many were fallen divinities. They may be male or female, native or outsider, Indian or foreign and of any caste, religion or lineage. They have one thing in common: after their deaths, they are figures of malice, figures to be feared and figures to be propitiated. In short, they are demons.
Demons mean different things to different people. A strict teacher, a harsh boss or an autocratic ruler is a demon to those who fear him. A cyclone, drought or flood that destroys is a demon to the affected population. An enemy who is hard to defeat, whose ways are different, unpleasant and threatening, is yet another form of demon. People are said to battle with demons in their mind when they are confronted with problems. An abandoned, lonely or ill-kept place or building is called the haunt of demons. Saddam Hussein became a living demon for George Bush Sr. and Jr.-it would not be surprising if, in a few years, children s stories were to treat him as a demon. A demon is feared because it is beyond human comprehension and control. In the Indian context, the forces of night, darkness and death, menacing and uncontrollable, were demonized.
Demon, devil, fiend, imp, sprite and evil spirit-the words mean different things in different cultures, yet they are similar in that they describe something evil and beyond human understanding. Demon is an ambiguous term applied to almost anything perceived to be beyond human control, and therefore, evil. A demon is generally an anthropomorphic form of a person or place or object or a negative natural phenomenon. Demons are powerful beings challenging human existence and even the existence of the gods themselves. Human inability to control these forces creates myths of supernatural power, trickery and magic, which enhances the reputations of the demons and makes them into supernatural beings or spirits.
Many castes and tribes are distinguished by their worship and propitiation of demons, which may even exceed their reverence for the gods. Often, the demons gain the upper hand, although a combination of divine power and human prayers ensures their final defeat. They demand horrendous blood sacrifices and varied rituals, from devil dancing to human sacrifice. They are defeated, but never totally so. As long as there is evil on earth and within human beings, the demons return to trouble us.
Sanskrit texts often represent the demons as the primitive inhabitants of the subcontinent, ruling the jungles and disturbing the expanding influence of Vedic religion by throwing flesh into the sacred fire and disturbing the sacred yaj a. Thus their defeat and destruction was imperative.
Most Indian myths are based on the conflict between good and evil: Indra versus Vritra, Rama versus Ravana, Krishna versus Kamsa, Buddha versus Mara and so on. Barely is one demon defeated and either killed or relegated to hell than another pops up, often a new incarnation of the previous one. Vishnu incarnates himself to defeat the demons and save mankind, but does not always kill them. Krishna does not kill Kaliya; he merely banishes him. Thus the forces of good and evil are maintained in a state of equilibrium. The contrast here stated in moral terms-that goodness within an individual becomes valuable only when it is pitted against evil-is recognised by the Hindus in cosmological terms: that the good in the universe is valuable only because it exists together with evil Goodness cannot, by definition exist without evil. 2 The demons often become negative role models, to teach the consequences of evil actions and of neglect or repudiation of rituals. The world becomes a battleground between good and evil, and it is the duty of everybody to prefer good and fight evil.
There is consanguinity between the gods and the demons, for both are the sons of Prajapati. The Vedic Asuras are not merely brothers but elder brothers of the Devas or gods. In the Mahabharata , Arjuna asks, Do the gods prosper without killing their kinsmen the demons? The gods won their places in heaven by fighting. Such are the ways of the gods and the eternal dictates of the Vedas . 3
Gods and demons are in conflict over several issues: acquisition of power, control of people and minds, control of land and so on. They are born equal and alike. The demons finally fail because of their demonic nature: delusion, untruth, desire and anger. Thus, the battle between the two becomes the opposition between dharma and adharma. Heretics and materialists are defined as given to adharma.
Demons are easily corrupted: Indra deludes the Jaina Raji and his sons, placing them beyond the Vedas and dharma. Then he kills them. Shiva corrupts the three sons of Taraka who had built the triple city of Tripura, for they offended dharma and became greedy for immortality. Shiva destroys all the inhabitants of Tripura with a single arrow. Again, as the Buddha, Vishnu corrupts the demons by making them preach against the Vedic sacrifice and dharma. In the next stage, they will be destroyed by Vishnu as Kalki. By identifying Buddhists (not the Buddha) with demons, the defeat of their heresies is justified, and Vedic religion reigns supreme again. However, the Buddha incarnation is regarded as a positive one, even if the Buddhists themselves are not, and his identification with Vishnu total. In fact, many of the demons are from heretical sects inimical to the Vedic religion, who are destroyed by the gods themselves. However, the acknowledgement that demons like Prahlada and Bali were good , the identification of the Buddha with Vishnu and even the worship of Shiva by several demons like Ravana all indicate that the definition of evil itself is nebulous, and that demonization is a matter of necessity rather than conviction.
The history and spiritual heritage of ancient peoples survive in myths and legends. Animals that people fought in their struggle for survival, tyrants of another age, natural phenomena that are beyond human control and people s hopes and fears have come down in time as myths. If a story needs a hero, a villain is equally essential to enable the hero to act heroically. The repetitive, regenerative and renewable villains became the demons of myths and legends.
Mythology is an essential medium for transmission of information about heroes and demons. Mythology becomes a study of society, where natural phenomena are explained and classified according to the principles that prevail in the social organization. The individual and society are merged in a natural-divine cosmos , and traditional social structures and practices are grounded in a divinely instituted cosmic order. 4 As practitioners of magic, demons bring into focus an important tool of ancient people who, preoccupied with economic survival and food security, resorted to magic, the expression of a