The Rakshas couple of the forest palace

Overview

In Anna Liberata de Souza’s tale The Rakshas’ Palace, two princesses fleeing their stepmother find a magnificent house in the forest while its owners are absent. They cook rice, eat and tidy the rooms. The returning Rakshas notices the orderly house and courtyard, then smells flesh and blood. His wife dismisses the warning by saying he has just killed and eaten a hundred thousand people. Her exaggerated number belongs to their dialogue, not a calculated historical toll. The sisters hide on the flat roof among sheaves of grain.

Both owners go to a nearby well to draw drinking water. The younger princess descends from the roof, catches a heel of each as they lean over the edge, and pushes them in. The text explicitly says that both drown. Neither returns, revives or changes form. The sisters take possession of the palace, whose wealth includes clothing, jewels, gold and silver stolen from the male Rakshas’s victims, as well as flocks and cattle. Their domestic possessions and ordinary vulnerability coexist with the man-eating characterization; no exceptional size, horns or extra limbs are described.

The remainder of the complete tale concerns the sisters’ separation and eventual reunion through marriages to two princes. The younger sister later conceals herself in a dead beggar-woman’s skin, but this is presented as a physical disguise used by a human princess, not the return of the Rakshas’s wife or a new demon identity. The couple’s involvement ends at the well. This profile concerns those unnamed spouses in Frere’s collected account and does not generalize their drowning or household behaviour to all beings called Rakshasa.

Origins & earliest records

Told by Anna Liberata de Souza and collected in English by Mary Frere; introduction and notes by Bartle Frere.

Records & interpretation

Complete XVII236–247 read through the sisters’ reunion; no attached footnotes or separate XVII endnote in this edition. Introductory provenance previously checked.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

1. 01

   Old Deccan Days; or, Hindoo Fairy Legends Current in Southern India

   Anna Liberata de Souza, narrator; Mary Frere, collector; Bartle Frere, introduction and notes · 1870

   XVII, The Rakshas’ Palace, pp.236–247; Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co. Complete narrative read.

Family & connections

A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.

Primary records and illustrations

References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

1. Historical collected oral narrative in EnglishOld Deccan Days — XVII, The Rakshas’ Palace, pp.236–247Research access: 2026-10-06

Image credits

A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.