The Twelve Sisters

Did You Know?

• Two mountains near Luang Prabang on the right bank of the Mekong are named Phu Tao and Phu Nang, after Putthasen and Kankari.
• The story has been adapted into Thai films, Thai television soap operas, and Khmer films, including a 1966-67 film based on the legend of Kompong Chnnang.
• The theme of the Twelve Sisters appears in traditional theatre, dances, poetry, and songs.

Thai version

A wealthy merchant and his wife, childless despite their prosperity, offered twelve banana hands to a tree spirit. The wife then gave birth to a daughter, and eleven more daughters followed. The merchant's business declined, his ships were robbed, and he fell into debt. Unable to feed so many children, he decided to abandon them in the forest.

The youngest daughter, Phao, overheard the plan and marked the path, allowing the sisters to return home after the first attempt. On the second attempt, the father left them without markings, and they became lost. The twelve packets of rice they carried contained only one with rice; the rest held sand. They shared the meager rice and wept.

Eventually they reached a lake, where each caught a fish. Eleven sisters playfully poked both eyes of their fish, but the youngest poked only one eye. They then arrived at the Yaksha kingdom, where an ogress named Santhumala, disguised as a pleasant human woman, adopted them. She raised the twelve girls as her own daughters, and they grew into beautiful young women.

Cambodian version

An affluent couple unable to have children prayed to a giant Banyan tree deity, and soon the wife gave birth to twelve daughters. The cost of raising them drained the man's fortune, and he abandoned them in the wilderness. The girls wandered, eating leaves and wild fruits. At a pond each caught a fish; the elder sisters poked out both eyes of their fish, while the youngest, Neang Pov, carved only one eye.

An elderly man warned the youngest sister about the Yakk, but she ignored him until she discovered a barn full of human carcasses. She then alerted her sisters, and they fled, stealing a crown and valuables from the queen. They reached the neighboring Kingdom of Injakbat Borey, where they bathed in a pond and adorned themselves with the stolen jewels. A noble's servant saw them and reported to his master, who presented them to the king, Preah Bath Rothtasith. The king fell in love with all twelve at first sight and married them en masse.

[[Jātaka]] version

Several stories written in the style of a jātaka appeared in Southeast Asia and were assembled into collections known as the Fifty Jātaka, though the number of stories varies. The Rathasena story was included in a collection assembled at the National Library of Thailand in the 1920s by Prince Damrong Rajanubhab, translated from Pali into Thai; it does not appear in any other such collection. The folktale is often said to be based on the jātaka, but the jātaka version is much shorter and omits the romantic finale, and some verses are taken from classical jātaka stories like the Vessantara Jataka.

In the jātaka, a rich man ruined by having twelve daughters abandons them in a forest. An ogress, Sandhamāra, adopts them, but they escape to Kutāra, where the king makes them all his queens. Sandhamāra then enraptures the king, becomes his major queen, and persuades him to pluck out the twelve queens' eyes, leaving only the youngest with sight in one eye. The eleven others become pregnant.

Sakka sends the Bodhisatta Rathasena to be conceived by the youngest. The king imprisons all twelve in a cave. The eleven give birth and share their babies' flesh as food; the youngest gives birth to Rathasena. Rathasena appeals to Sakka for cloth, ornaments, and gambling lessons.

He gambles with cowherds and then with the king. When the king learns Rathasena is his son, Sandhamāra sends him to the ogre realm with a letter. A rishi changes the letter's wording, and the ogress's daughter falls in love with Rathasena. He learns how to restore the sisters' sight, escapes, and the ogress's daughter dies of a broken heart. Sandhamāra dies of defeat, and Rathasena restores the sisters' sight, making them queens again.

Shan version

Anthropologist Mrs. Leslie Milne collected a tale from the Shan people titled The Story of Twelve Sisters, though she noted the number of sisters may be seven. In this version, a man tries to teach twelve sisters not to take life, but they catch fish in a river. The eleven elder sisters kill their fish by passing a string through both eyes; the youngest passes a string through only one eye. In their next reincarnation, they are reborn as sisters again and given to a local king as co-wives.

Meanwhile, famine ravages the land of the ogres. The ogress queen bathes in a magical pond to become a human maiden, marries the king, and becomes his favorite co-wife, arousing the jealousy of the twelve sisters. One night, she summons the ogre realm next to the human realm and steals the eyes of the twelve sisters, leaving the twelfth blind in one eye. She then lies that the sisters are cannibal ogres who devoured her own eyes.

The king banishes them. The sisters take refuge in a cave, where each gives birth to a child. The elder eleven devour their own children, but the youngest spares her baby boy. After seven days, hole men come to the cave, place a wand on the child, and he grows instantly to a fifteen-year-old youth.

Deity Sakya gives him a magic mak-nim, which he uses to win twelve portions of rice and curry and twelve gourds of paddy from village boys, giving them to his mother and aunts. The king hears of this, becomes fond of the youth, and dresses him in fine clothes. The ogress queen realizes the sisters survived and plans to kill the boy by sending him with a letter to her father in the land of ogres.