There was a paved road that connected two great cities, but
many travellers chose take the short cut through the forest since it had
plentiful fruit from trees, animals to catch, and various branches of the
Sarayu River along the way for water. A beautiful mountain overlooked this
forest. This is where a beautiful woman named Thataka lived with her family,
until she was doomed to demonhood. The wild energy she had as a demigod turned
into anger as she changed form, but she sought to control it. Before her
transformation she was a beautiful and pure individual and did not harm (unlike
her sons and husband). Now a demon, she hid out in the mountain over the countryside
to hide herself away from the travellers so that she might not kill them
involuntarily, for since her transformation she craved animal and human blood.
She was scared what she might do if she saw one of these travellers. Additionally,
Thataka had raised a portion of the mountain to go higher than any animal could
climb so that they might not tempt her. One day Thataka sat on her rocky home
atop the mountain and watched as some travellers walked through the forest
below. She thought nothing of it until she heard a loud crash come from the
forest below. The five men now held giant axes and began cutting down the trees
of the forest. Thataka was immediately reminded of the crime her sons and
husband committed. She no longer saw three men trying to find wood for a boat.
She saw her gigantic, terrible sons pulling out trees from the roots for fun.
Something in Thataka snapped and for the first time since her transformation.
Before she realized what she was doing, she bounded down her mountain and in her
rage attacked the five men with her giant fangs. She ate them in two bites. Her
anger had made her so hot that she found the river branch and started drinking
it until it had drained. However, she still felt as though she was on fire. She
stomped and stomped in frustration. As she stomped, she forgot her great size.
The ground around her had crumbled and created long cracks. All plants and
fruit trees had turned to dust. Her beloved mountain fell into one of the large
cracks. Deer tried to jump over the cracks but got stuck on islands of the
dirt. Thataka had survived all those months on the mountain, distancing herself
from the animals, but now she saw the deer and ran toward them. Pretty soon,
she was unable to stop her hunger for the land. From then on, she lived in the
desert keeping watch for any travellers or the odd animal that walked through.
No plant ever grew in the land after that. Thataka’s rage made the land
permanently dry and terribly hot, and breathed out this rage in the form of
fire. Once everything in the land had been eaten or destroyed, Thataka stopped
and looked around at her new home. And now, she was okay with it.
A/N - I decided to do a story about Thataka (the demon) from Reading A of Raraya's Ramayana. Rama and his brother were traveling through the desert when they hear her story and meet her. It seemed weird to me that Thataka could go from being a virtuous and pure woman to a demon, so I wanted to show that she tried to stay her original self as long as she could control herself.
Image: pixabay
Wow, that was a really entertaining read! I had to go back and look up who Thataka was at first, even though I read about her in part A of the readings as well. When I looked her up, I noticed that you cleverly kept several things about her true -- the river sarayu, that she ate travelers and rishis and desired blood, and the backstory of her sons and husband. The way that you had her create mountains and destroy them, creating a desert with her rage was marvelous! As the story unfolded, I couldn't predict what you were doing, which made the way it turned out all the more delightful. The way that you rounded out the character to give her a more understandable reasoning for why she acted the way that she did was really great.
ReplyDeleteI really like the idea of this story and it's well done. It is very interesting that she is said to have been such a pure woman in the past and it seems like it's that way with almost all the demons we meet in the reading. They were almost always good people in the past and then through their deaths, they can be set free. It's an interesting theme we see in these pieces.
ReplyDeleteThis story itself is really good though. The character development is very well done and it's mostly well written. Great job!
This was a great transition piece. Showing the change was great. It's such a specific thing to focus that I doubt most people even thought about it. You managed to turn that tiny idea into a whole story. You even drew ideas and the river in from the book. I definitely think I'll be back to read more of your stuff for extra credit!
ReplyDelete