Image Credit: Ro-Langs are one of the more gruesome stories from Tibetan folklore (Rajesh Dhungana / CC BY-SA 4.0)

The zombie is a staple of global horror media, movies, songs and even advertisements often feature a reference to the monster as a part of their catchy narrative. Usually seen shuffling without direction or conscious autonomy, with a rotting corpse and a craving for flesh, the zombie as typically portrayed within Western entertainment is rooted in Haitian Vodou practices (Eldridge 2024). 

Vodou is said to have emerged as a response to the institution of slavery. A means of centering the body as a divine vessel at a time when populations were forcefully displaced and treated with cruelty and malice. The visual, cultural and oral aspects of the religion are based on a premise of establishing humanity and the potential divinity in their being when they are no longer treated as humans (The Guardian, 2015). It is in these conditions that the concept of the Zombie seems to arise- a representation of the brutal reality of slavery (History, 2025).  Vodou practitioners called ‘Borkors’ are said to use “herbs, shells, fish, animal parts, bones and other objects to create concoctions including zombie powders.”(History, 2025).

Then, how does the Zombie find its way into diverse narrations and Indian folklore?

This article explores the possibility of zombie-like beings not remaining foreign to Indian soil but as being deeply embedded in its imagination and sacred geographies. Its traces are found in early literary Indian texts, dating between 0–100 CE that depict undead beings not simply as entertainment but as metaphors for scientific hubris, ecological imbalance, viral contagion, and metaphysical rupture (Khan 2024). The article also engages with Devdutt Pattanaik’s cultural commentary to contextualise India’s unique relationship with death, body disposal, and undead anxieties.

Zombies in Western Discourse

In early narratives influenced by Haitian Vodou, the process of becoming a zombie involved the ritual removal of a person’s soul and reanimating the corpse as a docile servant of the said dark forces. Over time, this folklore evolved into dystopian visions of mass contagion and “zombie apocalypses” in Western fiction, where the condition is transmitted through bites. Modern zombie narratives, as metaphors for excessive greed and numbing capitalist breakdowns, are often shaped by Western socio-political contexts. The zombie figure is often tied to Christian eschatology and burial traditions, be it magical zombies transformed by sorcerers or reanimated corpses infected by viruses (Eldridge 2024). In lands or communities where bodies are entombed and embalmed, like Christian or Muslim traditions, the possibility of the buried and dead returning seems to seep into both theology and horror.

In this context, Devdutt Pattanaik chalks out a possible reason for zombie films in India being located in places like Goa instead of Gaya or Kashi. Goa hosts a significant Catholic population which practices burial methods, thus providing the precondition for the rise of zombies (Pattanaik 2013). This precondition is the presence of the dead body, preserved to a certain extent after death (Pattanaik 2013). In his article “Mythology of the Undead” published in Devlok, Pattanaik argues that the Hindu metaphysical framework, by contrast, sees death as a journey of release. Cremation is not simply a method of disposal but a form of liberation from the physical. A burning body has no lingering flesh to be reclaimed by a sorcerer or experimented upon by a scientist, Pattanaik postulates. Examined in this manner cinematic and contemporary literary zombies’ obsession with flesh, gore and resurrection has strong attributions to theology as it does with popular fiction.

Breaking the Myth: Zombies in Ancient Indian Literature

Against the assumption that zombies have attributions to particular religious communities or practices of body disposal, Sami Ahmad Khan’s literary trail locates certain texts that describe zombie-like beings, contagion, and reanimation in Indian narratives, texts associated with Hindu practices in particular (Khan 2024). These stories are wholesome folkloric narratives that involve biohazards, quarantines, and even point towards possible climate collapse. The following three stories have been picked from Khan’s journal article titled “Ancient Zombies.” Published in the Indian Literature, vol. 68 by the Sahitya Akademi. 

This play follows Jeetendra, a village headman who rescues an eagle in distress. The eagle being symbolic of ‘rebirth and renewal’ transforms into a sage and grants Jeetaendra a boon as a reward for his actions. Looking forward to the chance of eternal life, Jeetendra requests immortality for himself and his village. He then receives seeds from the Rakshas disguised as a sage.

The seeds soon grow into a red-green Banyan-Neem hybrid tree within a week of sowing. The fungal pollen of this tree turned all those who came near it into mindless monsters. Those infected seemed to exhibit classic zombie behaviour such as the loss of agency and transformation through contamination (Khan 2024).

The play later introduces the concept of “karna-tana,” a method of isolating the infected. This is India’s earliest recorded literary reference to quarantine (Khan 2024). It also marks a scientific awareness of airborne infection and ecological collapse through natural agents too small to notice with the naked eye.

The play also offers a cure, a cure for this plague in seeking a tree associated with faith.

This story is narrated from two perspectives. First, Gautam, an explorer, in search of his son. Second, the voice of the “zhambie,” an undead creature haunting the base of the Zhambie mountain amidst the Himalayan ranges. The monster, a result of radioactive warfare between two ancient tribes, spreads infection through its presence alone (Khan 2024). Those infected are consumed and tortured with thoughts of ingesting living flesh. They exhibit signs of loss of memory and agency.

The word “zhambie” seems to have direct connections to the term ‘zombie.’ Khan points to this as a possibility of etymological appropriation. How Western zombie lexicon might be a borrowed product, having Sanskrit roots (Khan 2024). This monster’s origin in an ancient war is a reflection of the modern anxieties of environmental degradation and devastation.

Gautam finds that the monster can be subdued by arrows carved of sandalwood and neem. While this tale does not offer us a method of reversal, it does give us a resolution to the problem.

This treatise documents the work of Sabhyata Devi, a healer and alchemist who accidentally unleashes a zoonotic infection in her attempts to cure the brain tumour plaguing King Vijayagupta. The infection spreads from a goat to her assistant, who soon turns violent and develops a longing for flesh (Khan 2024). Later the infection escapes the confines of her workspace and spreads to the town.

Here too, the protagonist, Devi develops a herbal cure. A mixture made of copper, mercury, and forest herbs. (Khan 2024).

This is a poem describing the trials of a young student in a gurukul, who loses his friend to an unknown infection. Suryaprakash, keeps the corpse of his dead friend in the hope to revive him. He conducts various experiments but to no avail. Having lost all hope he prays for a bolt of lighting to strike his dead friend and imbue his body with life. And so the wish is granted. However, Suryaprakash soon realises that the revived body is no longer his friend. Only his flesh remains and this re-animated monster is violent and bites others, turning them into monsters too.
Khan mentions a few lines of this poem by Dutt in his paper-

This story revolves around Veer Singh, a soldier with an elite force, stationed at the Indraprastha-Han  border. One day, while on his patrol Singh finds a glowing object in an algae covered pond. As he draws closer, he finds the object opens by itself and tiny mechanical beings enter his body. Overcome by pain, he passes out. When he regains consciousness he finds that his body has turned blue, he has lost hair and has an insatiable want for flesh. This novel traces the Singh as he gives into his want for flesh and bites others in the nearby village, infecting them with similar afflictions. 

The resolution later arrives in the form of divine intervention. A hermit appears, whose blood when sprayed on the infected, rids them of their ailment. The story reaches a conclusion when the hermit uses the last of his blood to recover all the infected to their original state. 

Folklore, Undead, and Appropriation

Khan’s research calls out the cultural appropriation that overlooks the Zombie’s emergence in Indian texts (Khan 2024). These tales reveal how Indian folklore envisioned the undead. Not just as sources of dread and horror, but as reflections of accelerated advancements in science and technology, ecological crises, and ethical-moral dilemmas (Khan 2024).

Pattanaik too critiques the Western narrative monopoly over the undead, drawing attention to the religious and ritual contexts that shape how societies imagine resurrection. In India, the majority Hindu’s cremation practices unlink the body from its former presence in the physical world. Thus, the undead must be imagined differently, through rakshasas, pisachas, Brahmarakshas, pretas, and other spirits and monsters who linger and possess (Pattanaik 2013). These monsters are culturally specific expressions of grief, fear, and the unresolved.

While stories from Indian mythological and speculative traditions mention fantastical elements like mushroom clouds, head transplants, or alien life, these cannot be strictly read as conclusive evidence of ancient nuclear science, plastic surgery, or interactions with extraterrestrial life forms. Drawing from Khan’s article, I look at the presence of these ideas in these narratives as metaphorical, cautionary tales. They are a window into the expansive imagination surrounding potential biohazards and the predicament of proper waste management that manifested in ancient and medieval Indian tales.

These narratives where corpses are reanimated and alien technology spreads viral infections, reveal inquisitiveness towards discussions that question the boundaries of life, death, and ethics (Khan 2024). They are teachings against overreach, imbalance, and ecological neglect, that were passed along long before such themes entered modern science fiction (Eldridge 2024; Khan 2024).

Another significant feature of such tales is the cure, resolution or at the very least, the moral lesson they offer. These tales do not end in despair (Khan 2024). This narrative tendency to seek balance and healing is another reason to value these folkloric texts. Their belief in restoration, regeneration and assuming responsibility for one’s actions is an essential aspect of these stories (Khan 2024; Pattanaik 2013).

The Zombie Economy & Pop Culture

Let us have a look at the statistics mentioned in Khan’s article-

“Between 2019 and 2022 alone, there have been zombie films produced in the world’s top three languages; 16 videogames produced by Anglo-American and Chinese corporations ; and over 700+ narratives across graphic novels, comics, novels, and short stories in the US alone . This “mental zombie infection” rakes up more than INR 750 million per year”

(Khan 2024)

As Khan elucidates in his article, zombies are no longer just metaphors. They are embedded in the wider socio-cultural sphere, in videogames, literature, cinema, and even public policy campaigns in India: “Only zombies don’t register for Aadhaar”.

The pieces above will give you an insight into the vibrant imagination of the so-called ‘zombie culture’ being present in India and the global south long before their appearance in the western world. Yet we notice that one of the earliest zombie films in India appeared only in recent years in 2015- Go Goa Gone. Our efforts must be to step out of the mold created by western influences who claim ownership of all creative imaginations of beyond- human, unearthly, supernatural beings. 

While Hollywood cashes in on undead franchises, India’s millennia-old zombie narratives remain untranslated, uncredited, and understudied. Khan’s work urges us to reverse this trend. To reclaim literary heritage and to intervene in the knowledge hierarchies that portray the Global South as derivative or mythic (Khan 2024). 

Indian literature is brimming with unique social, cultural and political imagination. The idea is to revisit such texts and oral retellings with a keen sense of wonder and exploration. To reimagine such narratives as our own, not as a western import. A significant hurdle is in our thoughtless categorising of rich imaginations as stemming from a particular cultural context and thus sidelining the rest. In a country so rich in diversity, stories from across religious groups and cultural groups are available in abundance. The issue remains in the lack of interest in investing in stories from marginalised communities and inadequate research into such culturally diverse subjects matters. 

Conclusion

Zombies are far from being an imported Western concept. They have long been part of Indian oral-visual storytelling traditions and spiritual critique that have gone unnoticed in our contemporary retellings. From forest-dwelling pisach¹ to radiation-leaking zhambies, ancient Indian literature explored the very themes modern zombie fiction thrives on- contagion, apocalypse, devastation, resistance and unexpected cure.

Through the lens of folklore, ritual and narrative analysis, we see how the zombie in India is not only older than its Western counterpart but arguably richer in symbolism and relevance today. While this article focuses on India, it is important to acknowledge the equally significant origins of the zombie in Haitian Vodou, where the figure of the undead emerges from African spiritual traditions rooted in colonisation and resistance (Eldridge 2024; Pattanaik 2013).

Notes:

¹“In Indian mythology, Piśācas are malevolent, flesh-eating demons known for their grotesque appearance and sinister behaviors.” https://centreforcontemporaryfolklore.org/2025/02/26/strange-beings-of-indian-mythology-mythical-creatures-beyond-the-known/

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BIO: Aashika holds a Master’s degree in Philosophy, with research interests spanning art history, epistemology, and the cultural dimensions of folklore. Her work engages critically with knowledge systems, visual culture, and historical narratives, with a particular focus on the intersections between tradition, interpretation, and the construction of meaning.

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References

Eldridge, Alison. 2024. “Zombie.” Encyclopedia Britannica.

Khan, Sami Ahmad. 2024. “Ancient Zombies: Six Indian Narratives of the Undead.” Indian Literature 68, no. 1 (339): 32–47. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27292211.

Pattanaik, Devdutt. 2013. “Why Zombies in Goa, Not Gaya?” Devlok. https://devdutt.com/mythology-of-the-undead/

Charles, Jacqueline. 2015. “Vodou, an Endangered Faith: Haiti’s Soul Is at Stake.” The Guardian, November 7, 2015. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/07/vodou-haiti-endangered-faith-soul-of-haitian-people

History.com Editors. n.d. “History of Zombies.” HISTORY. https://www.history.com/articles/history-of-zombies