Demons And Demonesses Of Hindu Mythology

About the Book Demons and Demonesses of Hindu Mythology takes you millions of years back in time when beings as tall as mountains walked the ground, their every stride causing earthquakes and tsunamis; when they stayed in their mother’s wombs for thousands of years before being born; when they transformed into lions or buffaloes or elephants in the blink of an eye and when encountering beings with five heads, three legs, twenty arms or indeed torsos without heads was not an exception, but the norm.

Plunge into the Garbhodaka Ocean where it all started and immerse yourself in the stories of some of the most exotic, magical and powerful asuras and rakshasas in Hindu mythology.

About the Author Priya Narayanan is a designer, writer, traveller, teacher and mother, not necessarily in that order. She runs her own design practice under the twin banners Tatva and Soma and is Professor at CEPT University, her alma mater. She is also a published poet and' author. While her poems and short stories have appeared in various anthologies and literary magazines, she has four children's books under her belt and many more lurking in the deepest corners of her computer, waiting for their moment in the sun. When not practicing and teaching design, she likes to travel solo and read everything that comes her way. Introduction Demons and demonesses are essentially supernatural beings who find themselves portrayed as evil wrong-doers in mythological stories and folklore from across the world. In Hindu mythology, they fall under the category of either asuras or rakshasas.

When I was young, I often heard my grandmother use the words 'asura-buddhi' and 'rakshasa-buddhi'. 'Buddhi' means intelligence and since you, my dear readers, are of the intelligent sort, I'm sure you can put two and two together to decipher what my grandmother was trying to say ... or can you? After all, my own perception of the words has changed since I was a child.

Back then, asuras and rakshasas, at least according to the elders who surrounded me, meant only one thing-BIG, BAD, EVIL BEINGS (oh okay, I've listed three things, not one. My bad!). Not surprisingly, Grandmother used the aforementioned words to describe the intelligence of those with crooked or vile thoughts-be they the nasty people she encountered on bus and local train rides, or shopkeepers and vendors of the arguing variety or, of course, a select few from a species popularly known as politicians. I believed her then, because in all the bedtime stories Grandfather told me during the hot and sweaty summer holidays, the gods were good and the asuras or rakshasas were bad. It never occurred to me that I should question what counts as good and what as bad, so I gladly devoured the stories and nodded understandingly whenever Grandma said 'asura- buddhi', with ~ hint of contempt.

Now, of course, I think differently. Because the more I read about asuras and rakshasas, the more I'm convinced that not only were they powerful, magical and, at times exotic, they were also supremely intelligent. Who then, were these beings? Where did they come from? What drove them to be evil and wreak havoc everywhere they went? To know this, Will have to travel back in time ... no, not to my childhood, but way back to when the world was born.

In the beginning, there was nothing but darkness. Then, Brahma, the creator of the universe, uttered three words. With 'bud', he generated the earth; with 'bhuvaha', he generated the air and with 'svaha', he generated the sky. Hi then set about populating the universe.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages