The Glorious Rakshasas: A forgotten Race

Rakshasas, in the present days, is more or less synonymous with the term "demon", "beast" or "man-eaters", but this is only because of the thousands of years of propaganda spread by those who were anti-Rakshasas and who wanted to invade their lands in India. Rakshasas have a bad name among the Indians in the present times mostly because of the false mythological stories of Ramayana and Mahabharata. These epics portrayed the Rakshasas as an evil race which should perpetually be eliminated by the Indo-Aryans who wanted to spread their influence and power all over India. Nothing could be far from truth. As is known, history is written by the winners; and in this case, the winners were the Indo-Aryan tribes who migrated from Central Asia. After gaining power and influence they started, like in every case of invasion, to impose their language, religion and culture. It was because of this that the Rakshasas ended up having a negative image amongst the masses. But still, this is not necessarily true everywhere in India. There are some tribes in India which worship Ravan, the famous king of Rakshasas; and the same tribe is known for cherishing a hatred towards the Ramayana hero Rama. In fact, the original Ramayana written by Valmiki, itself doesn't portray the Rakshasas in completely dark light, and this book had also glorified the wealth and knowledge of the Rakshasas which the Indo-Aryans envied thoroughly.

I am writing this article the remove the shade of darkness that has descended over the glorious Rakshasa race because of the vicious disinformation campaign of the masses by the ruling classes since thousands of years. Firstly, from a common sense point of view itself, it can be shown that Ravan, the Rakshasa king, was far more virtuous than the epic hero Rama. Ravan was supposed to have kidnapped Sita while Ram, Sita and Laxman (Rama's brother) had retreated to the jungles. Ravan kept Sita for several years in his kingdom and he had all the power on Earth to take advantage of her (she was described as very beautiful even by Ravan). But he never did so; he never laid a single finger on her. On the other hand, Rama, the husband of Sita, was so insecure about his own image and had lacked a trust in his own wife that he banished her from his kindgom just to please some random subject of his. So, who is more virtuous? Of course, Ravan.


Now, I am going to write down the views of leading historians about Rakshasas. The motive is to show that (i) Rakshasas were not some supernatural beasts who used to eat human beings, but were themselves a native tribe of India, and (ii) Rakshasas were virtuous and glorious unlike the evil image that has been imposed on them by their enemies.

1. This is from the book "Somanatha" by leading Indian historian Romila Thapar:-

"He terms such people as barbaras/barbarians, yatudhanas/sorcerers, rakshasas and daityas/demons, and asuras. The rakshasas are said to have destroyed the temple of Svayambhurudramahakala at Shristhala. Jayasimha captures the culprit whose wife then pleads for his life and, on being released, he becomes a devoted follower of the king. These may have been people outside caste society whose land had been encroached upon and were resisting the encroachment."

[Somanatha, Thapar, Pg 107-108]

2. This is from the book "A Socio-political Study of the Valmiki Ramayana" by Ramashraya Sharma. This author has a complete chapter dedicated to Rakshasas ("The Non-Aryan people of the South").:-

"The Rakshasas belonging to the other group (viz. of Rakshasas by birth) are essentially human beings, in spite of the cloak of monstrosity and barbaric splendour imposed on them by an Aryan poet describing the culture and achievements of a hostile people. The origin of these people is to be traced to Salakatankata who is in all probability a personification of night. One important respect in which these Rakshasas are to be distinguished from the Aryans (and all other people of the Ramayana) is the 'matrilinear character' of their family life."

["A Socio-Political Study of Valmiki Ramayana", Ramashraya Sharma, Pg 217]

The author's remark is significant here because he describes the indigenous peoples of India as being matrilineal in their family life. Indo-Aryans were patrilineal since the beginning of their times, as opposed to all the native Indian peoples like Nagas, Rakshasas, Asuras etc.
The author remarks somewhere else:-

"The Rakshasas of the Ramayanic period were not only a mighty political power, but even in respect of their material wealth they were the most advanced of their times.. The abundance of gold, silver and other jewels such as sapphire, coral, pearl, diamond and ruby in the description of the town Lanka, gives in a way, the popular imagination every right to hold that the town was all made up of gold"

One can contrast the above description of the Rakshasas' opulent civilization to that of the Dasyus as described in the Rig Veda. They are also described as being highly civilized with a lot of material wealth stored among them. 'Dasyu' refers to all the non-Aryan native Indian tribes of ancient India. Therefore, Rakshasas were just one of these tribes.

Later he writes:-

"The poet aptly characterizes the Rakshasas at one place as men "predominated by intellect. One observes that as a corollary of this predominance of the intellect the Rakshasas pursued naked sensualism."

The overall chapter is a good read for anyone interested to know more about Rakshasas' as per the author's analysis. Not all of his conclusions need to be true however. I particularly disagree with his inferences about the religion of the Rakshasas.

3. Even in the Valmiki's Ramayana (which is supposed to be the original version of the epic), there is an instant where even Sita pleads for the innocent Rakshasas whom the hero Ram swears to annihilate (for no reason at all).:-

.... you are alarmingly close that sinful state to which the
ignorant are prone.... that is, killing a creature who has not
committed any offence.... O hero, my prayer is that when armed
with the bow, you are engaged in waging war against the
rakshasas, who have this forest for their home, you may never
allow yourself to slay indiscriminately those who are not to
blame." But Rama, in reply makes it clear that his killing of
the rakshaas including the rakshasa queen Tataka, is out of a
vow made to the Brahmans of the Dandakaranya forest, and thus
as part of a protection of caste hierarchy. (9)

(9.) Gail Omvedt, Dalit Visions, Orient Longman, Delhi, 2006, p.95.

From the above excerpt from Valmiki's Ramayana, it is clear that Sita had a soft heart for the Rakshasas whom his hero Rama was mercilessly killing. Another point to note is the use "you are engaged in waging war against the rakshasas, who have this forest for their home", by Sita, which shows the invasion of Rakshasa territory by the Indo-Aryan tribes.

These were only a few scholarly works by many prominent researchers of history that showed the true reality of Rakshasas; how they were being invaded by the violent Indo-Aryans and how they were being branded as evil. Perhaps Valmiki Ramayana was simply an account of the invasions by theses Central Asian tribes onto the territory of the glorious Rakshasas. As of now, there has been very little research done in this field, as, unfortunately, most of the historians are biased towards the Hindu (thus Ram) side of the story; but I am pretty sure that a deep research on Rakshasas would reveal more about the glory of the great Rakshasas.