“The Island of Seductive Women” origin story of Sri-Lanka, that travelled from India to Japan
Source: Demonology and Eroticism: Islands of Women on JSTOR
In Dharmic religions, especially in Hindu and Buddhist mythologies, there are beings called Raksha/ Yaksha (Male) and Rakshasi / Yakshini (Female)
Raksha/Rakshasi : Depends on mythology, meaning can change, usually a being like human, but man-eater
Yaksha/ Yakshini: Usually they can also be man-eater, but they also possess magical powers
the demons are a huge part of Buddhism, especially female demons who seduce men. Old Buddhist writings are full of stories about men falling to temptation. Medieval monks thought of women body was an endless source of fear and fascination. Especially the Japanese, they even used to meditate on dead bodies to hate this mortal body especially of women, and now don’t ask where they got the bodies
Writers never said this directly. A common saying went, by oft-quoting
‘“women are the emissaries of hell; they cut off forever the seeds of buddhahood. On the outside they have the faces of bodhisattvas, but on the inside, they have the hearts of demons”
Secksy demons
It has long been a fantasy of men to travel to a land inhabited by beautiful and seductive women, ready and willing to be one with the men. These fantasies were common, but in Buddhist writings, these were morality tales to teach buddha followers to be single, and promote hermit life
In one tale, some men went to a land of women and became their prostitutes. At first, life was great, but since they were the only men, they served thousands of women day and night, and they all died from exhaustion, death by aaaa….mmmm tiredness
The Yakshini/Raksasi was part of this tradition of morality tales.
Now there are male Yakshini, who also seduces, but……who gives a s — t.
The Yakshini/Raksasi is a creature that can change into a scorching hot woman. If you’re a man and you meet one, this cannibalistic creature would seduce you, and then she would swallow you.
That’s the good news.
But then she would eat you too.
Now it’s hard to imagine a society of islanders so seksually perverted and degenerate, so heads off to the monk’s imagination.
Story that traveled:
Before we start the story, i want you to learn some Etymology.
Rasetsu: Raksasi orectic shape-shifting cannibals who seduce men and then literally eat them alive.
Rasetsukoku: the land of these horrific man-eaters, is an isolated realm Rasetsukoku is in japanese, as the original story is a lost-file(maybe), we can only assume, 国 こく • (koku) means. Nation, region in japanese. Hence, the original word must be Raksasidweep/ Raksasi kul
Sōkara: Japanese spelling of Shimhala, the original name
Nansenbushü or Enbudaishü: the world continent on which we dwell, known as Jambu Dvipa
In Japan, this island of seductive demon women appeared first in the literary and painting culture of the Heian period and for centuries thereafter occupied an enduring and evolving place in the Buddhist imagination.
The first Japanese mention of the Island of the Rasetsu was in a story from the 1100s called “How Sōkara and 500 Merchants Went to the Land of the Rasetsu.” in among the stories of India collected in the Tenjiku section of the twelfth-century Konjaku monogatari sh
so, It was an Indian story that made its way to Japan
Here’s a bedtime story:
One day a merchant named Sōkara and 500 of his merchant buddies set sail looking for treasure, south of Nansenbushü. Unfortunately all they found was a strong wind that made their ship crash onto an unknown island.
They were all, “Oh no we’re going to die.”
Then
they were like, “Well hold on a minute”
when a group of women came to the beach, singing. Their voices were like those of the best opera singers, because no one listened to them. They were all busy looking at how beautiful the women were.
The ladies beckoned them to follow, and follow they did, right into this cool mansion.
Turns out, they had crashed on some fantasy island of gorgeous women who were just waiting for men to come,just waiting for a chance to satisfy their desires. Each man was free to pick any woman to be his wife, and for some time, they lived in bliss.
Only one man thought he smelled something fishy, the leader of the expedition, Sōkara, snooped around the island, and in a place far from any undulating bodies, he found their secret. It was a cave, and scattered on the ground were bones, bits of flesh, and entire corpses. There were men locked behind bars, some of them missing limbs. He had found a prison for men.
One prisoner told Sōkara that he too used to be a merchant. His ship crashed and the women welcomed him and his crew. They lived in seksual pleasure. All their needs were met.
It’s all fun and games until someone gets eaten.
He and his men were thrown in prison. The women cut the tendons on their feet so they could not run, kept them there for food.
He warned Sōkara that the women were rasetsu demons, and they should run away. Sōkara told his men what he saw. But their ship was wrecked, how could they escape?
Some of the merchants fell down and prayed to the bodhisattva Kannon. And she actually responded.
A great white horse galloped by Sōkara and some of his men grabbed on as it flew over the waters. The women saw this and changed to their true demonic forms to chase after them.
One of the men on the horse made the mistake of thinking of his new wife’s beautiful face and lost his grip. He fell into the sea and was gobbled up by the demons.
Two years later, Sōkara was at home. He thought his little adventure long ago was behind him, but while he was in bed, his rasetsu wife appeared.
She looked beautiful and told him to return to the island, but Sōkara had a good head on his shoulders, and he thought with it.
“I will kill you if you don’t go away,” he said.
His Yakshini wife stormed off to the palace to complain to the king, and the king fell madly in lust with her. Sōkara heard the news and ran over to warn the king.
“She’s a man-eater, Your Dumb Majesty!” He said.
Unfortunately, His Dumb Majesty had given in to desire and spent 3 days in bed with the demon. After 3 days, the rasetsu woman exited the room with blood flowing down her lips. All that was left of the king was a pool of crimson and hair.
Having your king slayed usually makes you mad,
Sōkara gathered an army and attacked the island, killing all the rasetsu.Afterwards, he became king of the island, and his descendants live on it to this day.
Sokara, the Japanese name for Simhala, you may have guessed is connected, both as the founder of Shinhala kingdom of Sri-Lanka, and as the Buddha in one of his innumerable Janam
it’s an origin story of Sri Lanka and Sōkara was the Buddha in a past life, and the story was an allegory of him escaping his desires and ascending to nirvana, usual Jatak katha things
The tradition of pre-conquest Lanka as an island of râksasï is not limited to Buddhist literature and is found as well in the two great epics, the Rãmãyana and the Mahãbhãrata, but context is different in these epics.
The island is even in the Saddharma Puṇḍarīka Sūtra , one of the main Buddhist texts. In it, the bodhisattva Kannon is supposed to protect you from 10 great dangers, one of them is the danger of being shipwrecked on an island of man-eating demons. Very specific for some reason.
In the Saddharma Puṇḍarīka Sūtra, Chapter 25, the demons are actually male, not female. Later stories changed it to an island of female demons, which stuck when the stories traveled to China and Japan.
[help me find the original, pls]
If you asked people in ancient and mediaeval times where Rasetsu Island was, they would’ve gestured south, The island was always somewhere down south. People saw it as some mysterious place
Since the stories began in India, people thought it was Sri Lanka. But when the stories came to Japan, the Japanese thought it was an island to the south of Japan,
The Japanese even started drawing it in their maps.
The earliest example is this map from 1305.
In South, It’s labeled “Land of Rasetsu”and has the text “Women here, those who enter never return.”
and more maps.
It was never fully drawn, only one side was visible, because people thought it was a place of the unknown, yet to be explored.
In some maps in the 1400s drawn by Koreans, using information from the Japanese, the island was sometimes right next to Japan, or much further away.
You can also see another island on this map called the Land of Women, which is a different place, where women become pregnant by spreading their legs to the wind, but you probably don’t wanna hear about that.
For much of the Edo Period, Rasetsu Island became standard in all maps of Japan.
In Indian context, it is quote clear, it was Sri-Lanka. Although, atleast in my knowledge there is no such map depicting Sri-lanka as RaksasiDweep except text. Maybe it is only a story, this was very clear for Mediavel/Ancient Indians, but not for the Japanese and Chianese, who look it as a proper place
