Bestiary.us

Baalu is a dwarf-spirit that lives high in the mountains of Ladakh.

It is said that if you stand at a crossroads and wait for a Baalu to walk by, you can catch him. Keeping a captive Baalu brings tremendous luck and riches to one’s household.

However, the Baalu will continually throw tantrums and demand to be let out. It is vitally important to ignore it. As soon as you let yourself get drawn into a discussion with a Baalu, it will hypnotise you and persuade you to let it out of its cage.

The people of the remote Himalayan settlement called Sumda Chen claim that they are descended from Baalus. There is also a ruined fortress in the area called Baalu Mkhar, or Dwarf’s Castle, which is so inaccessible that not many people even from the closest village have ever set foot there. The fort is said to have been built one thousand years ago by Baalus. To support this claim, people point to the tiny doorways, and the fact that the architecture is very different from other ancient structures in the surrounding area.

Tibetans claim that Baalus derive their power from the Yül Lha, the ancient gods of the soil.

Ref: 397. Vohra, R. (1982). Ethnographic Notes on the Buddhist Dards of Ladakh: The Brog-Pā. Zeitschrift Für Ethnologie, 107 (1), 69-94.