Vampire Myths Originated in India

Hindu Vampire

There is some research that suggests ancient India was the original source of the vampire legends. Stories of undead, bloodsucking creatures may have traveled from India to places like Romania, Russia, and other lands, to form what our ideas of the vampire are today.
Earliest myths of vampire-like creatures seem to come from India, and other places in the East like Tibet and China. The “Gypsies” or the Roma people, actually began as nomadic tribes in northern India, taking stories of vampire legends with them as they traveled westward.
They traveled to places like Turkey and Romania, Hungary, the Slavic lands, and soon all across Europe. The vampire legend traveled with them. The ancient India beliefs about the vampire creatures still exist in Indian culture today. Since this was all oral tradition, it’s easy to understand how the vampire legend changed over time from its original source in India.
In India, the vampires were generally viewed as demonic beings that could reanimate the corpse of a human. It would use the body of the human to destroy others and drink their blood. Typically this was a human who was buried improperly or not given the proper funeral rites. These ideas persisted about vampires as the Gypsies spread the legends throughout Europe.
The Gypsy vampires changed to be more like revenants; humans who come back from the dead. These versions of vampires usually come back and destroy their families and friends first. This idea was very common among the earliest vampire myths of Europe.
A common theme in these early vampire legends were that any living thing could become a vampire. This included dogs, cats, and farm animals. Even plants! There was, of course, the myth of the vampire pumpkin! These myths had changed a whole lot from the original India legends.
The Gypsies also had some interesting ideas about protecting against vampire attacks. They would drive steel or iron through the corpse, or put steel in the mouth or over the eyes of the corpse of a suspected vampire. They would place hawthorn in the socks of the corpse or drive a hawthorn stake through the body. They would also pour boiling water over the grave or the corpse. If all else failed, they would decapitate the corpse and burn it. This is more similar to the Western idea of vampires we have today. And to think, it all began in ancient India!

By Holiday

Holiday is a secretive squonk from deep in the darkness of the forests. She loves helping people, reading about obscure myths and folklore, and having adventures.

97 comments

  1. becoming a vampire is so easy , but survive with this situation is very rough,. and don’t even thing about to become a vampire, . it is very lucky to born as a human.

      1. Rough because you will suffer terribly if you do not frantically run around without rest hunting poor humans who have still got a soul (unlike you) and stealing life-force from them. Real vampires don’t drink physical blood, that’s a symbol (although many real vampires practice occult/satanic blood rituals and things like that). It’s about life-force, subtle psychic energy (prana, chi, etheric energy etc). Having separated from your soul and your humanity, become a demon without a heart and conscience, you are in a state of horrifying suffering; you may be able to escape from consciously feeling that hell for a limited time while you are still allowed to prey on the living, but in the end you can no longer avoid feeling that torment, in the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, according to Jesus.

  2. who ever say’s that vampires are not real , they have to understand that, truth is out there, before u argue about something , u have to research the situation., vampires , ware wolf, jinn,yeti, incubus, sucubus, ghost, what ever. i believe in this vampire crap , coz, me and my family suffering with this,its not like in the movies. i am not joking.

    1. Talk to me can we talk on insta – tigerjais.Sharma plz dm . I think you have something tgat i wanted to know and make sure that im waiting…… Tik tok,!

    2. Well, it’s really difficult not to relate with the Collins but if you say so. You talked about truth out there, show us and we’ll decide you are suffering or not. And more importantly breathing.

    1. See my reply to Daniel, asking how it would be a rough existence. Becoming a vampire is possible for real, I know some of them and I know how you become one. Being a vampire is like being an extreme drug addict. You feel ‘high’ as long as you get your drug, but it you don’t get it, pure hell. Becoming a vampire is dooming yourself to a state of unbearable torture, which you will be doomed to face sooner or later. And the vampire will do ANYTHING to avoid it, like raping and killing a baby for example. It’s not ‘cool’.

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