They are much larger than men, but can take any shape. Their teeth are very long, and are curved like bangles; they are as thick as a boy’s arm. Their tangled hair hangs down over their bodies.
They build good houses, and have an abundance of things in them, as well as silver and gold. They commonly rear only horses and parrots. They live on the men and animals they catch. Men are very much afraid when they see them; they seize anyone they can catch, and eat him,—or any animals whatever.
Yakās (Yaksayō) do not usually eat men; they only frighten them. Rākshasas are much worse and more powerful than Yakās.
Other notions of the villagers regarding these two classes of supernatural beings may be gathered from their folk-tales.
In Tales of the Punjab (Mrs. F. A. Steel), p. 135, a Rākshasa is represented as living partly on goats. In the notes, p. 310, Sir R. Temple remarked that this was curious. It is in accordance with Sinhalese belief.
In the Kathā Sarit Sāgara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 602, a Rākshasa who had seized a man and was about to eat him, allowed him to go on his taking an oath that he would return, after doing a service for a Brāhmaṇa that he had promised. He got married in the place of the Brāhmaṇa’s son, stole off in the night to redeem his promise, and was followed by his wife, who offered herself to the Rākshasa in his place. When the Rākshasa said that she could live by alms, and stated that if anyone refused her alms his head should split into a hundred pieces, the woman asked him for her husband by way of alms, and on his refusing to give him the Rākshasa’s head split up, and he died. See also vol. i, p. 141, of these Sinhalese stories.
In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. i, p. 405, a demon released a King on his promising to return to be eaten.
[1] Mist Mother. In the Ṛig Veda, v, 32, 4, Śushṇa, the Dānava, is termed Child of the Mist. [↑]