Rasatala or the Under-world

Summary

In this article Nundolal Dey examines the mythological realm of Rasatala—the under-world—and its denizens, the Raksasas and Yaksas. Drawing on Puranic and epic sources, Dey traces the genealogy of these beings to the sage Kasyapa and his wife Khasa. He notes that in the Ramayana the Raksasa king Ravana is said to have killed Vidyujjihva of Rasatala, linking the realm to the narrative world of the epicshttps://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.367502/2015.367502.The-Indian_djvu.txt#:~:text=The%20Raksas%20or%20Raksasas%20and,3%20The%20Raksasas%20evidently%20derived. The article proposes an etymological and historical explanation for the names “Raksasa” and “Yaksa.” Dey argues that these terms may derive from the river Araxes in Central Asia and suggests that the Raksasas were a Hunnic tribe living near the Jaxartes (Syr Darya) rather than aboriginal inhabitants of Indiahttps://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.367502/2015.367502.The-Indian_djvu.txt#:~:text=They%20were%20very%20likely%20the,as%20have%20been%20supposed%20by. He posits that the Yaksas were a sub-tribe of these people, their name linked to the same riverhttps://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.367502/2015.367502.The-Indian_djvu.txt#:~:text=some%20writers,The%20Buddhist%20stories. The article notes that ancient Greek and Persian sources such as Strabo and the Avesta mention cannibalistic or demonic tribes near the Araxeshttps://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.367502/2015.367502.The-Indian_djvu.txt#:~:text=tie,as%20have%20been%20supposed%20by, which Dey identifies with the Raksasas. He further connects the Yaksas to guardians of buried treasure in Indian folklorehttps://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.367502/2015.367502.The-Indian_djvu.txt#:~:text=1%20Strabo%27,248, drawing parallels with the European leprechaun legend. By tracing these associations, Dey argues that the mythic under-world reflects memories of foreign tribes that early Indians perceived as dangerous and demonic. He also cites Buddhist stories about Yaksas like Harita-yaksini to show that they were portrayed as cannibalshttps://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.367502/2015.367502.The-Indian_djvu.txt#:~:text=their%20name%20from%20the%20Yaxartes,that%20the%20Yaksas%20were%20also. Dey’s discussion extends to the Siddhas, a semi-divine class linked with the Hindu Kush mountains, whom he equates with the Oxydracae described by Greek writershttps://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.367502/2015.367502.The-Indian_djvu.txt#:~:text=The%20Siddhas%2C%20who%20appear%20according,to%20Mount%20Nysa%2C%20and%20are. He suggests that the Siddhas, along with the Raksasas and Yaksas, represent pre-Aryan or foreign elements incorporated into Indian mythology. The article concludes that the concept of Rasatala as an under-world populated by monstrous beings may have arisen from interactions with Central Asian tribes and the assimilation of their memory into epic lore. Dey’s analysis illustrates how myth and history intertwine, revealing that cosmological geography can preserve ethnographic information.