Satanic verses

City-based scholar finds a century old manuscript Vetal Stotra, which confirms the existence of a sect that worships the folktale demon; plans to upload it on the Internet

Satanic verses

City-based scholar finds a century old manuscript Vetal Stotra, which confirms the existence of a sect that worships the folktale demon; plans to upload it on the Internet

The discovery of a 100-year-old handwritten manuscript called Vetal Stotra demon prayer has pointed out that Vetal, the vampire spirit in the folktale of Vikram-Vetal that you grew up listening to, has a sect of worshippers.
Manuscript scholar D V L Manjul found it with the Argade family in Pune. He plans to upload this poetic script comprising of 60 stanzas on the Internet for scholars to study.

"Vetal Strotra is one of my recent findings," said Manjul. "Interestingly, Pune has a Vetal temple on Vetal Hill near Symbiosis Institute where the demon god is worshipped. Women are forbidden from entering that temple," he added.

Ramchandra Argade, descendent of a Hindu priest of Nrusinha Temple in Neera village, near Sholapur, re-wrote the original Vetal Stotra, which must be years older. "Manuscripts were re-written to ensure that they were well-preserved," added Manjul.u00a0

Vetal Strotra explains how the demon-god can save people from diseases and protect them from ghosts. "The manuscript describes how to worship this God," said Manjul.

Pandit Vasant Gadgil, a Sanskrit scholar from BORI confirmed that Manjul's work is authentic. "The reference to Vetal as a god exists in Sanskrit and Marathi. Temples devoted to Vetal are found in the Konkan region. "The Vetal Stotra will throw a new light on Vetal, who was a disciple of Lord Shiva," he said.

Manjul has a huge collection of manuscripts including Vasudeo Tika, Dnyaneshwar Sahastranaam, Dnyaneshwar Pancharatna and Amrutanubhav. "They are 400-years-old and need to be digitized," Manjul said.

Manjul has already uploaded 3,000 Marathi manuscripts with the help of South Asian Studies Centre of Chicago University and British Council Library of London. After retiring as the librarian of Pune's Bhandarkar Research Oriental Institute (BORI) in 1999, he has been collecting manuscripts available in Maharashtra.