Brahmaparusha

Also Known As: also Brahmaparush, Brahmeparush, Bramaparush; from Sanskrit brahmapurusha, “Brahman’s man”, a word the Sanskrit dictionaries give as another name for the brahmarakshasa, the demon-ghost of a Brahmin
Region/Culture: South Asia
Mythos: Hindu Mythology
Primary Type/Nature: Undead/Cursed Beings
Mythical Attributes: A man-eating demon of the Brahmin kind that wears a wreath of human entrails, gnaws the flesh of a severed head and drinks blood from a skull.
Role in Mythos: In the one old tale that shows him at work he is the owner of a sacred fig tree, who catches a king trespassing beneath it and demands a child’s life in payment.
Relation to Humans: He kills and eats people, and the modern vampire handbooks say travellers are his usual prey. In the Sanskrit tale he can be bargained with, although the price he names is a human sacrifice.

Morning comes up over a lake in the forest. A king and his new bride have slept the night on a bed of flowers under a great fig tree, and the horse is cropping grass by the water. Then something steps out that is black as soot, with hair as yellow as lightning. It has made itself a wreath of entrails. A cord of twisted hair hangs across its chest where a priest’s thread should be. It is gnawing the flesh of a man’s head, and it washes each mouthful down with blood from a skull.

That scene is the root of the Brahmaparusha. It was written down in Kashmir in the eleventh century by the poet Somadeva, in the huge story collection called the Kathasaritsagara, and it reached English readers through C. H. Tawney’s translation of the 1880s. Tawney calls the creature a Brahman demon. Sanskrit has a name for the kind, brahmarakshasa, and the big Sanskrit dictionaries of the nineteenth century list a second word, brahmapurusha, as meaning the same thing. Brahmaparusha is that second word, slightly bent, as it travelled into English.

The dictionaries are plain about what such a being is. A brahmarakshasa is the ghost of a Brahmin who lived an unholy life, a priest gone wrong and come back with teeth. Nothing in the old record tells how this particular one fell. The tale gives him no past at all. He simply owns his tree.

On a quiet day that seems to be all he does. He keeps to the fig, an ashvattha, a tree holy enough that people leave it alone, and he eats what he has caught. The skull is warm in his hand. The entrails are wet on his brow. Nobody comes near, which suits him.

The king is named Chandravaloka, and he has just married Indivaraprabha, the daughter of a hermit and a heavenly nymph. They have ridden ahead of the army and lost the road. When the demon finds them under his branches he gives his name, Jvalamukha, which means Flame Face, and says the trespass will cost the king his life. Then he offers terms. In seven days the king must bring a Brahmin boy seven years old, of good character, who gives himself freely. The boy’s mother and father must hold him down by the hands and feet. The king must strike the blow himself with a sword. Chandravaloka is terrified for his wife and agrees. The demon is gone at once.

Back in his city the king sends out a proclamation, hardly hoping, and a boy answers it. He talks his own parents round. A body does not last, he tells them, and a good deed does. On the seventh day they all stand beneath the fig tree. The parents take hold of his hands and feet. The king lifts the sword. And the boy laughs out loud.

Everyone stops. The king stops, the parents stop, and the demon himself stands staring. The story is one of twenty-five riddles told by a corpse-spirit to another king, and this is where the spirit breaks off to ask why the child laughed. The answer given is that he laughed for joy at reaching his purpose, and for wonder at the grown people around him, who all knew they would die and still clung so hard to their bodies. It is a strange thing to find at the bottom of a horror story.

The Brahmaparusha most readers meet now is a different animal. From the 1990s English-language vampire handbooks began to carry an entry under this name, among them Rosemary Ellen Guiley’s vampire companion of 1994 and Theresa Bane’s vampire encyclopedia of 2010. Their creature is a floating head with its guts trailing from the neck and a skull cup carried in the tangle. It catches travellers. It nibbles a small hole in the head and drinks the blood as it trickles, then gnaws through the bone and sups the brain, keeping the victim alive for as long as it can. Afterwards it dances, wraps itself in the dead man’s intestines and winds them into a turban. No Sanskrit text has been produced for the floating head, the dance or the slow feeding. Those details belong to the handbooks. The wreath and the skull are old.

His strength is easy to state. He is strong enough that a king with a sword in reach does not think of fighting, he comes and goes in an instant, and he has a Brahmin’s exactness about ritual, which is why his demand reads like a rule book. He knows what a proper sacrifice needs.

The limits come from the same place. He is tied to one tree and angered only by those who walk under it. He keeps his word and waits the full seven days. He can be surprised, and a child’s laugh was enough to do it. No source gives a charm, a prayer or a weapon against him. The record is honest about that. The only defence it offers is to sleep under some other tree.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a Brahmaparusha?

A Brahmaparusha is a man-eating demon from Indian tradition that wears human entrails on its head and drinks blood from a skull. The name comes from the Sanskrit word brahmapurusha, which Sanskrit dictionaries give as another name for the brahmarakshasa, the ghost of a Brahmin who lived an unholy life. Modern vampire handbooks describe the Brahmaparusha as a vampire.

Where does the Brahmaparusha come from?

The oldest scene behind the Brahmaparusha is in the Kathasaritsagara, a Sanskrit story collection written by Somadeva in Kashmir in the eleventh century. In it a Brahmin demon named Jvalamukha appears wearing a wreath of entrails, gnawing a man’s head and drinking blood out of a skull. The spelling Brahmaparusha and the vampire label come from English-language vampire handbooks published from the 1990s onward.

What does the Brahmaparusha look like?

In the Sanskrit tale the demon is black as soot with hair as yellow as lightning, and it wears a wreath of entrails and a cord of hair. Modern vampire handbooks describe the Brahmaparusha instead as a floating head with intestines hanging from the neck, carrying a cup made from a human skull. The floating head appears only in the handbooks.

How does the Brahmaparusha kill its victims?

According to the modern vampire handbooks, the Brahmaparusha bites a small hole in a traveller’s head and drinks the blood, then gnaws through the skull and eats the brain while keeping the victim alive. Afterwards it dances and winds the victim’s intestines around its head like a turban. No Sanskrit text has been produced for this sequence.

Why did the boy laugh in the story of King Chandravaloka?

The demon Jvalamukha demanded that King Chandravaloka sacrifice a willing seven-year-old Brahmin boy under the fig tree, and the boy laughed just as the sword was raised. The tale’s answer is that he laughed for joy at fulfilling his purpose and for wonder at the adults, who clung to their bodies although they knew everyone must die.