Topic Research: Vampires (sort of) in Ancient Indian Culture

For this week's research, I continued pursuing the idea of the vampire parallel in Indian culture. Although I find this topic very interesting, it is becoming incredibly difficult to find good sources on the internet: I will need to start taking treks to the library if I want to continue. 

If I do pursue this topic, I will probably write 3 different horror stories about 3 different types of spirits that somewhat resemble vampires. Currently, the 3 that I'm looking at are the Vetala, the Pishacha, and the Penchapechi. Although some tweaking may be necessary to maintain the horror genre, I am going to try to stay as close as possible to source material. 

The Vetala is interesting to me because it is most associated with the translation of vampires, but it doesn't have a whole lot in common with them. Additionally, the most common source for information on the Vetala is the Baital Pachisi. That being said, the Baital Pachisi is actually a shell story for a collection of stories. The premise is that a king is trying to collect a Vetala for a sorcerer, but the Vetala is very cunning. It is inhabiting a cadaver, and can only run away from the king if he speaks. Thus, the Vetala tells the king stories or riddles, and tells him that if he knows the answer to the riddle, the Vetala will kill him. Thus, every time the king gets the answer right, he speaks, and the Vetala runs back to his tree. In the end, the Vetala ends up helping the king by explaining that the sorcerer is evil. Here are 2 pdfs that claim to be translations of the Baital Pachisi, although I don't know how credible they are as sources: first and second. Ultimately, the internet seems to think the Vetalas are "The Indian Vampire," but according to the story of the Baital Pachisi, Vetalas just seem like decent spirits who want to be left alone (and ultimately help the hero defeat evil). 

The Pishacha on the other hand seems like a much more ruthless candidate. They are described as having skin as black as onyx, with bulging red veins and glowing red eyes. Pishacha are said to eat human flesh, or to feed directly off of the life energies of humans, and can possess humans and drive them insane. Additionally, they can shape shift at will, and even become invisible. Last but not least, they live in cremation grounds or cemeteries. If Pishachas can't give Dracula a run for his money I don't know what can. That being said, information is hard to find: many websites just have information copy pasted from the wikipedia page, but I found this website which has more information.

I found the last candidate on Ghosts in Bengali Culture wikipedia page. The Penchapechi is a spirit that takes the form of an owl, and tracks victims that are alone in forests. Once they are secluded enough, it swoops down and attacks them, either drinking their blood or just eating them whole. The Penchapechi isn't very close to vampires, other than supposedly drinking blood, but I think it could make for a very scary story nonetheless. 

Image Information

(Pishacha - Cryptid Wikia)