First published in 1870, ‘Vikram and the Vampire: Classic Hindu Tales of Adventure, Magic, and Romance’ by Richard Francis Sir Burton, a British explorer, writer, scholar, and soldier. He was famed for his travels and explorations in Asia, Africa, and the Americas, as well as his extraordinary knowledge of languages and cultures.
The Baital-Pachisi or Twenty-five Tales of a Baital is the history of a huge Bat, Vampire, or Evil Spirit which inhabited and animated dead bodies. It is an old, and thoroughly Hindu, Legend composed in Sanskrit and is the germ that culminated in the Arabian Nights, and which inspired the ‘Golden Ass’ of Apuleius, Boccacio’s ‘Decamerone,’ the ‘Pentamerone,’ and all that class of facetious fictitious literature.