Vendhya

is a country of the Hyborian Age.

History and politics
Vendhya, more than anything else, resembles Vedic India. It is the cradle and stronghold of Asura worship. "Asura" is the Indian version of the Persian "Ahura", as in Ahura Mazda, father of the god Mithra (Mitra in the Indian version). This cult has spread westwards and is present for a long time, albeit often persecuted, in the Hyborian lands. In Aquilonia, it finds a protector in king Conan.

In the days off King Kull, a sage named Raamaa had much the same role as later Epimetrius the Sage to the Hyborians. The Hindu deity Rama, an earthly avatar of Vishnu,The preserver, was allegedly born in historical Ayodya - which is also the name of the capital of Vendhya. In the Kull story "The altar and the scorpion", the scorpion is a symbol for good. The one tradition where the scorpion is viewed favorably is in Buddhism, originally from India = Vendhya; there, the scorpion with its raised stinger is seen as the image of the spirit warrior wielding the sword of truth. Perhaps Kaa-uu, spoken of in "By this axe I rule" is an old name of Vendhya. The serpent men are probably based on the Nagas, the wise and often good serpent beings from Indian (Vendhya) mythology. These live under lakes, like the apparently serpent men that Kull meets and befriends in "Delcardes cat". There, he learns that his earlier view was highly one-sided and probably abandoned his wow about a final solution of the serpent man question. One may wonder how the Lemurian slaves after thousands of years suddenly were able to topple the evil empire to the far east - unless having aid and support from outside or/and this empire were weakened after a lost conflict with an external enemy. In either case, Vendhya seems the likeliest. The same for the Hyborian barbarians being able to topple Acheron, a daughter kingdom of this evil empire - and perhaps Mu, also mentioned in "By this axe I rule." The Moon-goddess riding a tiger from the Kull stories looks like Durga, a great hindu-goddess often identified with Kali, among other things the mother of the god Ganesha. Yag-Kosha from The Tower of the Elephant looks like Ganesha and did live in this area. Dark priest Rotath in The Curse of the Golden Skull calls himself "of The Moonstone and the asphodel". This Moonstone is arguably identical with "The red heart of the Night" = The heart of Ahriman from Conan. "Ahriman" means "The Destroyer" in Persian. The father of Ganesha was Shiva The destroyer. The asphodel is a flower that the Greeks dedicated to Persephone, the queen of Hades (both the realm of the dead and its ruler). With time, the fields of Hades were thought to be covered with asphodel. In The Scarlet Citadel, Conan saves the wizard Pelias from a diabolical flower allegedly rooted in Hell. This flower is said to stem from Yag, the home-world of Yag-kosha. All in all it seems likely that the feud between the earthly empire of the dark gods and the earthly kingdom of Asura goes back to the dawn of time. Perhaps more than ever now in the days of Conan - and the devi Yasmina. Perhaps Vendhya like real India is the cradle of unarmed combat and martial arts. Perhaps the Turanians are scions of the more high-ranking and privileged of the Lemurian slaves of the sons of ancient Mu, as opposed to the Hyrkanians - and, of course, Vendhya.

Population and culture
Vendhyans are brown-skinned and all in all as in real Vedic India. In the only Howard story that takes place in Vendhya, The People of the Black Circle, no caste-system is mentioned.

Characters from

 * Bunda Chand: young king of Vendhya, murdered by magical means by the black seers of Mount Yimsha on behalf of King Yezdigerd of Turan.
 * Yasmina, proud brave,wise, warm-hearted and also young and beautiful queen (devi) of Vendhya. Sister and successor of Bunda Chand. With Conan's help, she takes revenge on the black seers. Probably, she is highly motivated to continue like this.