The Twelve Sisters

[3] It is a long story about the life of twelve sisters abandoned by their parents and adopted by an ogress (a Rakshasa in Hinduism) (Lao Sundara; Khmer: Santhamea (យក្សសន្ធមារ); Thai: Santhumala) disguised as a beautiful lady.

The conclusion is the sad love story about the only surviving son of the twelve sisters, Rathasena (Thai: Phra Rotthasen (พระรถเสน); Khmer: Puthisen (ពុទ្ធិសែន) or Rithisen; Lao: Putthasen) with Manora (Thai: Meri เมรี; Khmer: KongRei (នាងកង្រី); Lao: Kankari;[a] ), the adopted daughter of ogress Sundara.

Finally they arrived to the Yaksha kingdom, where an ogress named Santhumala saw the exhausted and emaciated girls resting under a tree and decided to adopt them.

To take her revenge from the Twelve Sisters, Santhumala, the favorite queen, feigned sickness and the king became worried.

Since the women were being starved under Santhumala's strict orders, each one chopped her baby's body into twelve pieces to share with the other sisters to eat.

When the king heard of him, he invited him to the palace where he played games of dice with the monarch displaying great skill.

So she wrote the following letter to her adoptive daughter, Meri, in the language of the ogres: "If this young man arrives to our kingdom in the morning, devour him in the morning; but if he arrives in the night, devour him in the night" On the way to the kingdom Phra Rothasen met an old Rishi who gave him a flying horse named Pachi to ride and who gave him hospitality.

Meri was surprised and pleased at seeing the virtuous-looking and handsome young man and she fell in love with him, celebrating her wedding with him straight away as directed.

Meri was a kind-hearted and beautiful lady and Phra Rothasen lived with her very happily for some time, but he remembered his blind mother and aunts who still stayed in the dark cave.

To stop her, Phra Rothasen threw a magic branch that turned the space between them into a deep lake and a high mountain.

Then Phra Rothasen flew away and left Meri with a broken heart crying bitterly at the shore of the lake.

He then went into the deep dark cave and healed the eyes of his mother and aunts by putting them back in their place with a special magic ointment.

In Tambon Mon Nang, Phanat Nikhom District, Chonburi Province, there is a shrine to the Twelve Sisters with the rock they used as pillow when they wandered in the wilderness and a Carissa carandas tree.

[5] Sa Siliam (สระสี่เหลี่ยม), also in Chonburi Province, is said to be the pond where Phra Rothasen brought his cock to drink water when he ran cockfights to make a living for the twelve sisters while they were banished in the deep dark cave, according to a legend of the area.

They continued their journey after their meal until they arrived to the Kingdom of the Yakk (Rakshasa), which was ruled by a Yakkani Queen named Neang Santhamea (យក្សសន្ធមារ).

Neang Santhamea was enraged by the news, so she concealed her identity using the Maya illusion magic, which was no small feat given her physical stature and reputation.

She charmed Preah Bhat Rothtasith into making her his 13th concubine but most beloved consort, and was soon raised to the Queen position, the highest rank in the royal harem court.

After gaining her new husband's affection and sympathy, Santhamea pretended to be ill with a fatal ailment that no doctor or medicine could heal.

Neang Santhamea took advantage of Rothtasith's rising desperation and told him that only a concoction made from the eyes of her 12 pregnant co-wives could save her life.

When KongRei learned her husband had departed, she followed him, sobbing and begging him to return, but he had to reject since he valued filial piety over personal romantic passion.

As Puthisen took medicine to cure the eyes of his mother and royal aunts, King Rothtasith realized his mistakes and allowed his 12 wives back to the palace.

Unfortunately, Puthisen discovered his wife's corpse, as she wept till death and became a mountain (Phnom Kong Rei) in Kampong Chhnang.

[9] The Lao version of the Twelve Sisters, the story of Putthasen (Buddhasen), was translated into French by Louis Finot in 1917.

Rathasena appears in the collection assembled at National Library of Thailand in the 1920s by Prince Damrong Rajanubhab, and translated from Pali into Thai.

After a dalliance, he takes her to the royal park, gets her drunk, learns from her the means to restore the sight to the twelve sisters, and escapes.

The ogress queen tells her husband, the ogre king, will find him food, then bathes in a magical pond to become a human maiden.

The ogress queen, in disguise, goes to marry the local king and becomes his favourite co-wife, to the jealousy of the other twelve sisters.

The next day, the ogress queen lies that the twelve sisters are cannibal ogres who, in desperation, devoured her own eyes.

After seven days, hole men come to the cave and, seeing the beauty of the child, place a wand on him and he grows up in moments to a fifteen-year-old youth.

News of the youth's requests reach the king's ears, and the monarch becomes so fond of him he dresses him in fine clothes.