Alluring Afterlives: Decrypting the Parallels Grooved into Yakshi and Pontianak from South Asian Folklore

The concept of vampires is found ubiquitously in folklore and mythologies across civilizations. The notion of a beautiful belle who faces a tragic end in life, usually by the hands of a vile man, then transcends into the afterlife and remains fuelled by vengeance against men as a whole, especially lecherous men, is one that holds timeless fascination and fear, at the same time. Historical records show that the Yakshis were perceived as harmless fairies, salabhanjikas, in earlier times, in many religious belief systems. Several readings about the gender issues, the issues of marginalised subaltern, issues related to patriarchy and misogyny, all leading to exploitation of vulnerable, unwed women, have already been done. This paper is an attempt to look at the notion of these miasmic creatures as found in Malayalam lore, and to use the concept of the Pontianak from Malay lore as a point of comparison, to decode the parallels encoded in them.