Vetala
- Origin
- Worshipped in the Konkan and Goa as Betal, Vetal and Vetoba, counted as the husband of the goddess Shantadurga (Wikipedia, partly uncited). The written record here is the Sanskrit tale cycle Vetalapanchavimsati, which Penzer (1926) finds in Somadeva and Kshemendra and in the Sivadasa and anonymous recensions; these sources give no date for its composition. The Hindi Baital Pachisi descends from Surati Misar's Braj-bhasha version, made under Jai Singh Sawai of Jaipur (1699-1743), and Lallu Lal's Hindi of 1805.
- How we treat it
- The label covers the vetala as a being worshipped as Betal in the Konkan and Goa. The tale cycle is literature, and the label does not make it scripture. It makes no claim that vetalas exist, and it does not adopt Burton's framing of the vetala as a vampire.
- Routes out
- Penzer comes first, as the scholarly account of the Sanskrit recensions and the Hindi line. Ryder's translation from the Sanskrit follows, then Wikipedia for the living Konkan cult. Burton comes last, as an 1870 English retelling. No source from the Konkan or Goa communities that worship Betal was recorded; one would lead if found.
The vetala is a being known from a Sanskrit cycle of twenty-five tales, the Vetalapanchavimsati, later retold in Braj-bhasha and Hindi as the Baital Pachisi. Wikipedia reports a strong cult of the vetala in the Konkan, under the names Betal, Vetal and Vetoba.
N. M. Penzer, in a 1926 appendix to The Ocean of Story, traces the tales through books by Somadeva and Kshemendra of Kashmir and through two separate recensions. He judged the prose-and-verse version attributed to Sivadasa the most important, and it seemed to him the original form, though he said the late versions that survive allow no firm claim. Heinrich Uhle edited it alongside an anonymous recension; Jibananda Vidyasagara edited the Jambhaladatta recension at Calcutta in 1873.
Penzer also follows the Hindi line. Surati Misar made a Braj-bhasha version while Muhammad Shah reigned, on the orders of Jaipur's ruler Jai Singh Sawai (1699-1743). By then the work was called the Baital Pachisi, and in 1805 Lallu Lal put it into Hindi.
Arthur W. Ryder's 1917 translation from the Sanskrit, Twenty-Two Goblins, tells of a king who carries a body down from a tree. A goblin lives in the body; when the king looks again, the goblin is back up in the tree, and the king climbs up and brings the body down once more. Richard F. Burton's 1870 English version, Vikram and the Vampire, called the Baital a vampire and described it as a spirit that animates dead bodies.
Wikipedia reports the cult in the Konkan under the names Betal, Vetal and Vetoba. Because Betal is counted as the husband of the goddess Shantadurga, a Betal temple stands within or near her temple grounds, and there is one at Amona in Goa. Wikipedia marks its claim that Betal is a form of Bhairava as needing a citation.
"It exists not only in the great Kashmir works of Somadeva ^ and Kshemendra,^ but is found as an independent collection in two distinct recensions. The most important of these is that attributed to Sivadasa, who gives us a mixture of prose and poetry. This appears to be the original form, although, as we have only the different versions of later date to go by, we cannot make any definite statement on this point.^ It has been edited, together with an anonymous recension, by Heinrich Uhle.^ The other recension is that of Jambhala- datta, edited by Pandit Jibananda Vidyasagara, Calcutta, 1873."
- The Ocean of Story, Vol. VI, Appendix I: The Vetalapanchavimsati, N. M. Penzer, ed. (1926), via Internet Archive
- Twenty-Two Goblins (translated from the Sanskrit), Arthur W. Ryder, tr. (1917), Project Gutenberg
- Vikram and the Vampire, or Tales of Hindu Devilry, Richard F. Burton (1870), Project Gutenberg
- Vetala, Wikipedia