Rākshasas
Rākshasa
The rākshasas, the night-walkers (niśācaras), are one of the twelve yonis (classes of beings) whose dharma Brahmā laid down. In the Vāmana Purāṇa the ṛshis of Magadha give their marks to the rākshasa king Sukeśī: carrying off the wives of others, seizing the wealth of others, and the ārādhanā (worship) of Tryambaka, Bhagavān Śiva, the three-eyed. They too, the Purāṇa says, come forth from Sanātana Vishṇu, who pervades all. They are fierce in war and delight in the battlefield, and the munis fled from them and hid.
The Purāṇa often uses the word rākshasa for the whole host of the enemies of the devas: Andhaka is “that rākshasa”, Mahishāsura is king of the rākshasas, and Bali‘s people are the rākshasas whom Bhagavān Vishṇu, having taken the virāṭ form at Bali’s yajña, crushed under his palms and soles. Bhagavān Vishṇu is praised again and again as Rākshasa-nāśaka and Rākshasāntaka, the destroyer of the rākshasas. His Sudarśana cakra and his divine gadā destroy them, by his mahimā (greatness) they can hardly enter the land of Avantī, and the Pañcanada tīrtha set by Rudra is terrible to them. Yet the Purāṇa also tells of a man-eating rākshasa who, through a stotra to Vishṇu, was freed of every pāpa (sin) and reached Vishṇu-loka.
Their dharma among the twelve yonis
There was once a rākshasa king named Vidyutkeśi, whose son Sukeśī was rich in good qualities. Pleased with him, Parama Śiva gave Sukeśī a city that moves through the sky, and the varas of never being conquered and never being slain by enemies. Sukeśī lived with his people in that sky-city without straying from dharma. One day he went to the āśramas of the maharshis in a forest of Magadha, bowed at their feet and asked them, “This is not my command to you; it is a request”: what gives the highest good in this world and the next? “Best of rākshasas,” they answered, “the practice of dharma alone gives happiness here and hereafter.”
Then they gave him the dharmas of the twelve yonis, in this order: the devas, the daityas and dānavas, the siddhas, the gandharvas, the vidyādharas, the kiṃpurushas, the pitṛ-devatās, the ṛshis, the mānavas (humans), the yakshas, the rākshasas and the piśācas. The dharma of the rākshasas is carrying off the wives of others, seizing the wealth of others, and the ārādhanā of Tryambaka. “These are the marks laid down by Brahmā for these twelve yonis,” the ṛshis said, “and for each of them they give sadgati, a good destination.”
In the Vishṇu Sārasvata stotra, Sarasvatī Devī praises the all-pervading Sanātana from whom suras, asuras, the pitṛ-gaṇas, devas, gandharvas, yakshas and rākshasas come forth.
Source: Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapters 11 and 59
The rākshasas in the wars of the devas
Andhaka‘s war. When Andhaka, called “that rākshasa”, marched on Meru, the jackals howled as ill omens before the battle, and devas and rākshasas alike trembled, thinking of what was to come. The great devāsura battle that followed was dreadful to cowards and a delight to the yakshas and rākshasas; the hosts of piśācas leapt for joy, and the river of blood was a feast for the rakshas and piśācas. Later, when Andhaka had fled to pātāla, burning with desire for Devī Pārvatī, he spoke to his fellow rākshasas; and Bhagavān Śiva, when he gave Andhaka to Hiraṇyāksha, had said that he would deal with him himself if he ever sent his rākshasas to kill vipras.
Rambha cast out. Rambha and Karambha were two rākshasas of great strength who shook the whole world. When Rambha was about to offer his own head into the fire, Agni stopped him, calling him “lord of the rākshasas”, and granted him a son. Rambha united with a she-buffalo at Mālavaṭa, and for that deed his fellow rākshasas cast him out; he went back to Mālavaṭa, and the she-buffalo followed him. Their son was Mahisha. A male buffalo that pursued her died in a divine lake and took the form of the rākshasa Namara, and from Rambha’s pyre rose Raktabīja, who conquered Indra, Rudra, Sūrya and the Maruts. “Those rākshasa heroes were of such valour,” Pulastya Maharshi says, and among them all Mahishāsura was the greatest.
The armies of Mahisha. The rākshasa heroes Caṇḍa and Muṇḍa saw Kātyāyanī on the Vindhya and told Mahishāsura, king of the rākshasas. When the devas begged the Devī to put on armour, Durgā said, “What need have I of armour? Can these rākshasa insects even stand before me?” With the bhūtagaṇas born of her laughter she destroyed the rākshasa force as a rain of thunderbolts destroys standing crops, and she seized the great asuras by their hair and danced on the mountain slope. When she had crushed Mahisha under her feet and cut off his head, cries of “hā hā” rose in the rākshasa armies, and Caṇḍa, Muṇḍa, Maya, Tāra, Asiloma and the others fled trembling to Pātāla.
At the wedding of Śiva. Countless hosts of yakshas, kinnaras and rākshasas joined Bhagavān Śiva’s wedding procession to Himavān‘s city with great tumult.
Bali‘s host. When Bali was crowned king of the daityas, all the rākshasas came with Maya Dānava to see their lord, and Bali led them out to war against the devas; the deva host that came against them, the text says, also had rākshasas in it. Relying on Maya’s support, the rākshasas cut down the suras, and the devas, who had not yet drunk amṛta, were defeated. Then Śrī Hari strung the divine Śārṅga bow, and the surviving rākshasas fled and took refuge with Kālanemi, who grew by māyā and, with the rākshasas’ help, began to crush Indra, Candra and Sūrya. Kālanemi called Bhagavān Vishṇu “the great enemy who has become the heart’s sorrow of the whole rākshasa world”, and Vishṇu, the slayer of rākshasas, cut off his arms and his head with his divine cakra.
The coming of Vāmana. Indra, having lost the three worlds to the rākshasas, went to Brahmā. When Bhagavān Vishṇu promised Aditi that he would be born of her, he said, “The moment I am conceived in your womb, the whole rākshasa world will become lifeless.”
At Bali’s yajña the earth shook and the sacred fires refused the asuras’ offerings. Śukrācārya explained that Śrī Hari had come as Vāmana, and that by the power of his presence the rākshasas, haters of the suras, had lost their fitness for yajña; Bali by his own power had won the share of the yajña for the rākshasas too. Vāmana addressed Bali as “Rākshaseśvara”. When Bhagavān Vishṇu took the virāṭ form, all the rākshasas leapt upon him like moths into flames. Cikshura seized his toe with his teeth, and Śrī Hari cut his throat with the tip of his nail; he crushed all the rākshasas with his palms and the soles of his feet and expanded in the Trivikrama form. So he destroyed the rākshasas and gave the kingdom of the three worlds to Indra.
Source: Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapters 9, 18, 20–21, 27, 37, 47, 50; Saro Māhātmya, Chapter 10
The munis and the rākshasas
Fearing the rākshasas, the munis took shelter on the Akhaṇḍa mountain, where Bhagavān Vishṇu is present as the four-armed Jagannātha. Some brāhmaṇas, the Aśmakuṭṭas and Marīcipas, bathed in the Kālindī, went south and settled in the land of Avantī, taking refuge in Vishṇu; by Vishṇu’s mahimā it is hard for rākshasas to enter that land. Gautama, Āṅgirasa and the other munis, fearing the rākshasas, went each in a different direction and hid.
Among the tīrthas of the Saro Māhātmya, the Pañcanada tīrtha of five lakes, established by Rudra, is terrible to the rākshasas.
Source: Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 62; Saro Māhātmya, Chapter 13
Protection from the rākshasas
In the Vishṇu-pañjara stotra that Bhagavān Śiva taught Kātyāyanī, Vishṇu is called on in the north-east as Rākshasa-nāśaka, the destroyer of rākshasas, holding the Śārṅga bow and the Nārāyaṇāstra; by its power the Devī slew all the rākshasas, and it is praised as the best of all protective kavacas. In the Vishṇu-pañjara that a tapasvin recites in Chapter 59, the sharp-edged Sudarśana cakra, blazing like the sun’s disc, roams everywhere destroying pretas and rākshasas, and the divine gadā, pouring forth the light of a thousand rays, destroys the rakshas, bhūtas, piśācas and ḍākinīs. The Vishṇu Sārasvata stotra bows to Vishṇu, the Ādi-purusha, the slayer of rākshasas, and asks who but he, sporting in Nanda‘s Gokula, could slay rākshasas like Pralambāsura and Pūtanā.
Source: Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapters 18, 20 and 59
The rākshasa who reached Vishṇu-loka
A cruel kshatriya, who harmed brāhmaṇas and the pitṛ-devatās, died and became a fearsome rākshasa, a man-eater, and lived so for a hundred years. When he leapt at a tapasvin on a river bank who had protected himself with the Vishṇu-pañjara, all his strength failed, and he stood held for four months. The tapasvin, moved to pity, heard his story but would not teach rākshasas who eat men; from that day the rākshasa stopped eating living beings except once in six meal-times. At last he seized a brāhmaṇa boy, on whose tongue Sarasvatī Devī, sent by Agni, spoke the Vishṇu Sārasvata stotra. The rākshasa let the boy go, went to the Śālagrāma kshetra, chanted the stotra and worshipped Jagannātha, and by the grace of Purushottama he was freed of all his pāpas and reached Vishṇu-loka.
Source: Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 59
Sources
- Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapters 9, 11, 18, 20–21, 27, 37, 47, 50, 59, 62; Saro Māhātmya, Chapters 10, 13