The Yakshi at the Crossroads

The Yakshi is a female figure found in the mythologies of three major Indian religions—Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain. Centuries ago, yakshis were considered benevolent nature deities associated with trees, fertility, abundance, or a seductive, male-devouring spirit in the folklore of Kerala. The transformation from goddess to ghost reflects the South Asian culture in which powerful, independent female figures are reinterpreted as dangerous and demonic in patriarchal narratives. While existing studies have examined yakshi in the Malayalam literary and cinematic context, the reinterpretation of yakshi in contemporary English fantasy fiction remains critically underexplored. To address this gap, the study analyzes Sukanya Venkatraghavan’s Dark Things, a novel that is centered on yakshi as both protagonist and antagonist. This study uses Julia Kristeva’s theory of abjection, Barbara Creed’s concept of the monstrous-feminine, and Irina M. Erman’s discussion of the rehabilitated modern monster to read the protagonist Ardra’s transformation from a weapon of destruction to a self-aware subject. This article argues that the novel charts new territory in yakshi representations by placing her in a hybrid global setting, making use of tropes inspired by Hindu–Buddhist–Jain traditions and Nordic, Greek, and Roman mythology. At the same time, it contends that the novel’s representation of female monsters toes a middle line in contemporary monster discourse: the monster protagonist is humanized, and her journey from a mindless weapon to an agent of her destiny follows contemporary discourse of the reformed monster, yet in the representation of Hera, the antagonist, one can observe the perpetuation of the discourse of the monstrous-feminine.