Do Demons Exist?

Sage Vishwamitra came to Ayodhya to take Rama and Lakshmana with him so that they could protect his yaga from rakshasas.
Rakshasas were not allowing him to perform the yaga.
They were obstructing it.

These evil forces — rakshasas and all — are very much part of Sanatana Dharma.
If you say that it is a superstition, then the next thing you will say is that the Ramayana is fiction, a book that spreads superstition — because it is written in the Ramayana that there were rakshasas. Lord Rama destroyed them.

Many of them — Mareecha, Khara, Dushana, Ravana, Kumbhakarna.
Some of our rationalist friends may not like this. But what to do? You cannot do anything.
Even by law, by constitution, faith is protected.

I can believe and practice whatever I like and accept, as long as it doesn’t affect you or your well-being.
Nobody is forcing you to believe that there are rakshasas or evil forces.
But you also don’t thrust your beliefs upon us.

We believe they are there.
You believe they are not there.
That is the only difference.
Both are beliefs.

We also believe that they are there because the Vedas also talk about them.
Now, if you want to question the validity of Vedic knowledge, there is no end to it.
But there is one thing — these negative forces will come into the life of only those who are trying to do good things.
If they are completely absent in the lives of rationalists, they better do some introspection.

We will look at a sukta from the Atharva Veda:

स्तुवानमग्न आ वह यातुधानं किमीदिनम् ।
त्वं हि देव वन्दितो हन्ता दस्योर्बभूविथ ॥

Agni is the destroyer of these evil forces.
You know Rakshoghna Sukta — krinushwa paja — the role of Agni in that also is as the destroyer of evil forces.

This mantra gives three terms to represent these evil forces:
Yatudhana, Kimeedina, and Dasyu.

Yatudhana — the basic term is yatu, which means yatana — trouble.
They give trouble. That is their basic nature.
Yatudhana means someone who gives trouble — the troublemaker.

Kimeedina — these evil forces: किमिदानीमिति चरते
They move about looking for opportunities to poke their nose into.
'Who is doing something good? Let us stop that.'
This is our only complaint with these evil forces.

A cruel lion lives in the forest — we have no problem.
As long as we don’t go in front of him, he won’t harm us.
But these evil forces — such as rakshasas — are not like that.
They come to us and try to stop whatever good things we are doing.

Ravana was the king of Lanka.
But he came to Bharata and was killing tapaswis here.
He abducted women from here and took them to Lanka — that is the problem.
Let him do what he wants in his own country — we have no problem.
But why is he coming to us?

There is another thing about these evil forces —
They don’t always look like what you see in movies, with protruding teeth and scary eyes.
They have the talent to disguise themselves. They have certain powers.

Suppose you are doing a havan in your apartment in a city. Naturally, havan means smoke will be there.
Now the rakshasa wants to stop this.
They won’t come directly and throw flesh and blood in your havan kund.
What they will do is — they will instigate the mind of a neighbour.
He will complain. You are forced to stop.
This is how the yatudhanas operate these days.

The third term is Dasyu.
Dasyus cause upakshaya — damage.
They make you fall.
That is their purpose. Their intention.
They don’t want to see you growing, progressing.
They want to see your fall.

Now when you look at the real meaning of these terms — yatudhana, kimeedina, and dasyu —
Those who want to give you trouble, sorrow, misery,
Those who move about looking for opportunities to trouble others,
Those who enjoy the fall of others —
I don’t think even the rationalists can deny that there are such people and powers in the world.

We look at them as powers.
Powers which can get into people, possess them, make them perform evil acts.
This is possession.

People get possessed by ideas and thoughts.
Ideas and thoughts get into people and make them act.

There is a thought behind every action — except maybe the autonomous functions of the body, such as heart pumping.
Anything that you do with your hands and legs, tongue, mind — they all have thoughts behind them.

So if it is an evil thought that has got into you, it will make you do evil acts.
We say that the evil thought has taken possession of you.
It has possessed you. It is controlling you now.

Do the rationalists have any objection to this?
Is this a superstition?
This is what Veda says.
The rest is all media creation and fake news.

There is a murderer. Whoever passes through his area — he kills them.
This idea has got into him.
That is controlling him now.
That is making him act now.

This thought is what we call as rakshasa or yatudhana or kimeedina or dasyu.
It need not have a body — a separate physical body with blood dripping from the mouth.

This evil power or thought can get into any person and make him act.
This power is what Veda talks about — and wants to destroy even before it acts.

So here, prayer is made to Agni:
That you pull out these rakshasas wherever they are and bring them here.
They need to be punished — destroyed even before they are able to cause harm.

You please do this for us — because we are your devotees, we praise you.
And you are famous as the hanta, slayer of dasyus.
We know this about you.
You don’t like these evil forces.

There are six more mantras in this sukta. We will see them one by one.

Ramaswamy Sastry and Vighnesh Ghanapaathi