Tatakā or Tadaka was a yakshasi (female yaksha) in Indian mythology. Her father Suketu

Suketu

Suketu was a Yaksha King in the epic Ramayana, and the father of the demoness, Thataka. After being childless for many years, Suketu meditated upon the Creator Brahma and was granted the gift of a beautiful daughter...

, a yaksha

Yaksha

Yaksha is the name of a broad class of nature-spirits, usually benevolent, who are caretakers of the natural treasures hidden in the earth and tree roots. They appear in Hindu, Jain and Buddhist mythology. The feminine form of the word is ' or Yakshini .In Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist mythology,...

 king performed tapasya (Principle and practice of physical and spiritual austerity and discipline to achieve a particular aim) for an offspring. Suketu had desired a son, but Lord Brahma blessed him with a strong and beautiful daughter.

She was Ravana

Ravana

' is the primary antagonist character of the Hindu legend, the Ramayana; who is the great king of Lanka. In the classic text, he is mainly depicted negatively, kidnapping Rama's wife Sita, to claim vengeance on Rama and his brother Lakshmana for having cut off the nose of his sister...

's grandmother. She was married to Sunda

Sunda (asura)

A mythological character from the great epic Mahabharata, Sunda was an asura prince and the brother of Upasunda. Their father was Jambha. The brothers grew up to be very powerful and were always of one mind. Together, they embarked on a campaign of world domination that began with a program of...

. She had two sons Maricha

Maricha

Maricha or Mareecha was a rakshasa who played a small but important part in the Indian Ramayana epic. He was thrown into a remote island by the arrow of Lord Rama when he tried to interrupt Sage Vishwamitra's yagna. After that he became very afraid of the very mention of the name Rama...

 and Subahu

Subahu

Subahu is a rakshasa character in the Ramayana. He and his mother, Tataka, took immense pleasure in harassing the munis of the jungle, especially Vishvamitra, by disrupting their yajnas with rains of flesh and blood....

. When Sunda was killed due to a curse from the sage Agastya

Agastya

Agastya was a Tamil/Vedic Siddhar or sage. Agastya and his clan are also generally credited with uncovering many mantras of the Rig Veda, the earliest and most revered Hindu scripture, in the sense of first having the mantras revealed in his mind by the Supreme Brahman...

, Tataka attacked the sage along with her sons. The sage cursed them to become demons (Rakshasas). The curse particularly transformed Tataka into a man-eater with an ugly and fierce figure.

After being cursed by Agastya, Tataka started living in a place near the habitations of Malaja and Karusha in a forest near the River Ganga opposite the confluence of the River Sarayu. The area was came to be known as the Forest of Tataka. She terrorized the people, devouring anyone who dared to set foot in that forest.

When Rama

Rama

Rama or full name Ramachandra is considered to be the seventh avatar of Vishnu in Hinduism, and a king of Ayodhya in ancient Indian...

 and Lakshmana

Lakshmana

Lakshmana was the brother and close companion of Rama, and himself a hero in the famous epic Ramayana...

accompanied the sage Vishwamitra to protect his sacrificial rituals, they had to pass through her forest. The sage asked Rama to slay the monster Tataka, but Rama demurred, because he did not want to slay a woman. However, when it was explained to him that evil has no gender, his mind was eased and he slew the demoness with his arrows.

External links

• http://mythfolklore.net/india/encyclopedia/taraka.htm