Rakshasa

Rākshasa are a race of usually malevolent beings prominently featured in Hindu mythology. They reside on Earth but possess supernatural powers, which they usually use for evil acts such as disrupting Vedic sacrifices or eating humans. They are offered a distinction from yakshas, their cousins who are depicted to be forces of destruction.

Quotes

• Normally, looking at the Ramayana story externally, we would be tempted to call the Vanaras and Raksasas Anaryas. However, the Ramayana depicts situations where members of these societies use the term 'Arya' to refer to each other.
  • Madhav M. Deshpande, What to do with the Anaryas? Dharmic discourses of inclusion and exclusion in : Aryan and Non-Aryan in South Asia: Evidence, interpretation, and ideology, Proceedings of the International Seminar on Aryan and Non-Aryan in South Asia, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 25-27 October, 1996, ed. by Johannes Bronkhorst and Madhav M. Deshpande. Harvard Oriental Series, Opera Minora, 3. 1999 , page 112.