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No. 11
Heroes of the Jain Legends as firm believers in the Jaina cult. Ordinary people of the Brahmania faith look upon the Rakshasas as superhuman demons of man-enting and other evil habits and the Vanaras, as monkeys. But instead of looking upon them as imaginary beings like the devils of the Jewish testaments, one may feel tempted to hold that the Rakshasas and the Vanaras, at least of the Râmāyaña, were human beings, perhaps, with a culture and civilisation, lower than that of the pure Aryans and perhaps, of a stock, different from theirs. While giving support to this view, we may point out that the descriptions of Lanká and Kishkindhyā, which we meet with in Valmiki's Rāmāyaña, do not show that the Rākshsas and the Vanaras were uncivilised barbarians. As a matter of Tact, in the Vedic Sastras, notably in the Mahabhårata, there are indications in many places that the Rākshasas were very wise, even exceptionally pious people. There are instances, cited in the Vedic Sastras, where a full-blooded Indo-Aryan became a Rakshasa; there are also passages in those books to show that some of the Rakshasas were descendants of high-caste Aryans of India. All these facts go to show that the Rakshasas (and the Vānaras) of the Rāmāyana were not legendary creatures of imagination but were actually human people with a culture, scarcely lower than that of the Indo-Arvans and constantly coming in contact with them. It is needless to mention that the Jaina scriptures expressly and in so many words, maintain this view,-viz, that the Rákshasas and the Vānaras were but human beings. Perhaps, the attribution of an Indo-Dravido-Aryan character to this human stock of the Rakshasas and the Vanaras may not be very wrong.
The Rakshasas, as is well known, are generally painted in darkest colours in the Brahmañic literature. In Valmiki's Rāmāyasia, they are described as disturbers of the sacrificial ceremonies. At many places, they are made to appear as thoroughly bad, cruel and immoral people. In the Jaina Purăñas, as we have said already, the Rakshasas are described as believers in the Jaina faith. Considering these two accounts together, some of the present day scholars vehemently urge that the Vedic people denounced the Rakshasas, because they were Jainas. One of the protagosnits of this remarkable theory goes so far as to say that the descriptions of the Rakshasas in Valmiki's Rāmāyana clearly show that they could not be other
