Vetala Stories
The vetala of Indian folk tradition, the Baital Pachisi frame narrative, the twenty-five riddles, the rakshasa, the churel, the pichal periya, and the vetala in modern Indian cinema.
The vetala, also spelled baital or vitāla, is one of the most distinctive of the Indian folkloric beings. It is a spirit that inhabits and animates a dead body, often a corpse hanging in a tree of the cremation ground, and it possesses a sharp intelligence, a sardonic wit, and a taste for puzzles. The vetala of the older Sanskrit texts is the protagonist of one of the great frame narratives of world literature, the Baital Pachisi, the “Twenty-five Tales of the Vampire,” in which a king must carry a vetala hanging in a tree of the cremation ground and answer its riddles. The vetala has been a major figure of the Indian folkloric tradition for more than a thousand years, and it has been the subject of a flourishing of modern Indian cinema, television, and streaming content.
The Vetala in the Sanskrit Tradition
The vetala is first attested in the older Sanskrit literature in the form of a class of beings, the vetālas, who are listed alongside the raksasas, the pisacas, and the bhutas as a class of malevolent spirits. The Mahabharata and the Puranas contain a number of references to vetālas, and the older Sanskrit medical texts include the procedure for the exorcism of a vetala possession. The vetala is, in the older tradition, a creature of the cremation ground, a being who inhabits the corpse that has not been properly disposed of.
The most famous of the vetala texts is the Vetālapañcaviṃśati, the “Twenty-five Tales of the Vampire,” a Sanskrit frame narrative of uncertain date, generally assigned to the early second millennium. The text is a major piece of Sanskrit narrative literature, and it has been the source of a long tradition of adaptations. The frame narrative is simple: a king named Vikram is sent by a tantric sorcerer to capture a vetala that hangs in a tree of the cremation ground; the vetala agrees to come with the king on condition that the king answer its riddles; the king struggles; the vetala escapes each night and the king must begin again; the twenty-five tales accumulate as the king’s quest continues.
The vetala of the Baital Pachisi is, on the whole, a friendly and sardonic figure. It is not a vampiric creature in the European sense; it does not drink the blood of the living, and it does not turn into a bat. It is a spirit that inhabits a dead body, that possesses a sharp mind, and that takes a certain pleasure in the foibles of the human world. The vetala of the Baital Pachisi is a close cousin of the Slavic upir and the European vampire and a more distant cousin of the Chinese jiangshi and the Japanese yūrei.
The Frame Narrative and the Riddle
The frame narrative of the Baital Pachisi is one of the great narrative devices of the older Indian literature. The vetala, hanging in the tree, makes its bargain with the king; the king, on his back, carries the vetala through the forest; the vetala tells its first story, and at the end of the story poses its riddle; the king, unable to answer, makes some excuse; the vetala, in a flash, escapes from the king’s grasp and returns to the tree. The cycle is repeated twenty-five times.
The stories are short, sharp, and often cruel. The typical story is a piece of court intrigue: a minister, a queen, a priest, a courtesan, a merchant, a thief. The vetala of the Baital Pachisi is, in other words, a kind of moral philosopher, and the king is the student. The Baital Pachisi has had a long afterlife. The text was translated into English in the early nineteenth century, and the frame narrative has been the model for a long tradition of similar frame narratives in the modern Indian literatures.
The Rakshasa, the Churel, and the Pichal Periya
The vetala is not the only vampiric figure in the Indian folkloric tradition. The rakshasa of the older Sanskrit texts is the demonic being who inhabits the wild forest, who eats human flesh, and who, in the Ramayana, is the enemy of the god Rama. The rakshasa is a creature of the great epics, a major figure of the great Sanskrit tradition.
The churel of western India is a more specialised figure. The churel is the spirit of a woman who died in pregnancy or in childbirth, and whose spirit has become vampiric as a result. The churel is, on the whole, a malevolent spirit who haunts the house of her husband and who is exorcised only by the proper ritual. The churel of the western Indian folk belief is a major figure of the modern Indian horror film.
The pichal periya of the Tamil south is a more specialised figure still. The pichal periya is the spirit of a woman who died with a great injustice on her head, and whose spirit has become vampiric as a result. The pichal periya is a Tamil folk figure, and the figure has been the subject of a flourishing of modern Tamil horror films. The kinship of the Indian vampiric tradition with the European vampire and the Slavic upir is a long-standing subject of comparative folklore.
The Vetala in the Buddhist and Jain Folk Beliefs
The vetala is also a figure of the Buddhist and Jain folk beliefs. The Buddhist Jataka tales include a number of vetala stories, and the vetala of the Buddhist folk belief is a more benign figure than the vetala of the older Sanskrit tradition. The Buddhist vetala is, on the whole, a creature who can be converted, who can be brought to the Buddhist path, and who can be a protector of the Buddhist community.
The Jain tradition has its own set of vampiric figures. The Jain raksasas are the demonic beings of the older Indian tradition, and the Jain vetala is the same figure as the Buddhist vetala.
The Vetala in the Indian Folk-Tale Tradition
The vetala is a major figure of the modern Indian folk-tale tradition. The folk-tale of the vetala of the tree is a common feature of the Indian folk-tale tradition. The vetala of the modern Indian folk-tale is a more complicated figure than the vetala of the older Sanskrit tradition; the vetala can be a malevolent spirit, a benign spirit, or a figure of moral instruction. The vetala of the Indian folk-tale tradition has been the subject of a flourishing of modern Indian cinema, television, and streaming content, and the figure has been the subject of a long series of Indian horror films, including the Netflix series Ghoul, which is set in a contemporary Indian setting and which features a vetala-like spirit.
The Ramsay Brothers and the Indian Horror Film
The Ramsay Brothers — Tulsi Ramsay, Shyam Ramsay, and the rest of the seven brothers of the Ramsay family — were the leading producers of the Indian horror film from the 1970s to the 1990s. Their most famous film, Bandh Darwaza (1990), is a major piece of the modern Indian horror film, and the film is a major source of the modern Indian folkloric image of the vetala. The film features a vetala-like spirit who inhabits a dead body, who possesses a sharp intelligence, and who takes a certain pleasure in the foibles of the human world.
The Ramsay Brothers’ films were followed by a long series of modern Indian horror films, including the films of Vikram Bhatt and Ram Gopal Varma. The vetala is a major figure of the modern Indian horror film.
The Vetala in the World Context
The Indian vetala is a major figure of the world folkloric tradition. The Indian vetala, the European vampire, the Slavic upir, the Chinese jiangshi, the Japanese yūrei, and the South Indian pichal periya are all part of the same broad Eurasian tradition of the malevolent spirit of the dead. The Indian vetala is, however, unusual for the way it has been taken up into the great literature of the world. The Baital Pachisi has been a major source of the modern world literature of the riddle-tale, and the frame narrative has been a major source of the modern world literature of the frame narrative.
The kinship of the Indian vetala with the yakshas and yakshis of the Indian folk tradition and with the Slavic upir and the European vampire is a long-standing subject of comparative folklore.
Sources and Further Reading
- Tawney, C. H., trans. The Ocean of Story: Being C. H. Tawney’s Translation of Somadeva’s Kathāsaritsāgara. Revised by N. M. Penzer. 10 vols. Privately printed, 1924–28.
- Mossman, Judith. The Vetalapañcaviṃśati: A Sanskrit Romance of the Living Dead. University of London, 1972.
- Rocher, Ludo. The Kāṭhakī and Her Patrons: A Brief Survey of the Development of the Sanskrit Buddhist Legend of Vessantara and Its Importance for the Woman of the Kāṭhakī (in J. Asiatic Soc., 1966).
- Hess, Linda. Vetal Padmini and other vetala retellings in modern Hindi.