Yam Bhaya Akhoot

Variations: Abang Aku (Malay, corruption), A Bao a Qu (corruption)

The Yam Bhaya Akhoot is a mysterious, amorphous being that lives at the bottom of the stairway of the Vijay Stambha, the Tower of Victory, in Chittorgarh, India. By night it haunts the Bhimlat Kund water tank.

Normally the Yam Bhaya Akhoot is in a dormant state, and is invisible. But when visitors start climbing the tower, it follows them up the stairs, remaining on the well-worn outside the steps. It can see through its whole body. Blue light starts to glow through its skin, which is translucent and feels like the skin of a peach. With each step covered its shape becomes clearer and its blue glow stronger. Tentacular appendages appear at the halfway point of the staircase.

It will only follow a fully self-realized person to the top of the stairs. If the Yam Bhaya Akhoot realizes that the person it’s following is unworthy, it lets out a sigh like the rustling of silk and tumbles down the stairs all the way back to the first step, where it awaits the next visitor. But if the person it follows is fully self-realized and blameless, then it will reach the top with them, become their aura, and guide them to Nirvana. This event has happened only once, and sadly is probably impossible today since the top of the tower was covered by a dome in more recent times.

Ethereal and benign, the Yam Bhaya Akhoot’s origin may be more sinister. One suggestion is that it is the ghost of the leader of the Nakshatra Meenu, the giant brittle stars that invaded the Konkan Coast. It had been captured and presented generations later to the ruler of Mewar.

In Malaysia the Yam Bhaya Akhoot is known as Abang Aku, probably a corruption of its name and which can be read as “elder brother”. This is turn was further corrupted to “A Bao A Qu”, a term which was used and popularized by J. L. Borges. Furthermore, Borges also confusingly attributes it to either C. C. Iturvuru’s On Malay Witchcraft or Richard Francis Burton’s The Thousand and One Nights depending on the version of his book.

References

Bhairav, J. F. and Khanna, R. (2020) Ghosts, Monsters, and Demons of India. Blaft Publications, Chennai.

Borges, J. L.; trans. di Giovanni, N. T. (1969) The Book of Imaginary Beings. Clarke, Irwin, & Co., Toronto.

Borges, J. L.; trans. di Giovanni, N. T. (2002) The Book of Imaginary Beings. Vintage Classics, Random House, London.

Borges, J. L. (1978) El Libro de los Seres Imaginarios. Emece Editores, Buenos Aires.

Borges, J. L.; trans. Hurley, A. (2005) The Book of Imaginary Beings. Viking.

Borges, J. L. (2009) Manual de Zoologia Fantastica. Fondo de Cultura Economica, Mexico.

31 Comments

  9. Now this I’ve drawn before, years and years ago, but I didn’t have the whole story (or the right spelling). Incredibly, I somehow managed to incorporate echinoderm-ey elements to it without even knowing about its relationship to a ghost brittle star king. Pretty chuffed (also happy my OCD won’t force me to redo the whole thing because I’m actually pretty happy with my original illustration, complete with … a boss fight manual? In case a persistent individual like Kratos attempted to force their way into Nivarna? Clearly I was a more violent person back in the day …).

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