Ro-langs

Ro-langs literally means "a risen corpse" (Tibetan ro = corpse; langs = risen). Sources present two principal causal frameworks: (1) tantric or necromantic ritual raising by a sorcerer or tantric practitioner to serve the raiser (the "tantric" type), and (2) occupation of the corpse by an evil spirit (gdon or bgegs) entering before burial producing a demonic, autonomous Ro-langs. Scholarly treatments classify Ro-langs narratives into three storytelling formats — "Legendary," "Epidemic," and "Comatose" (Turrell Wylie as summarized in secondary literature) — which shape how origin and temporality are presented in individual accounts.

Descriptions emphasize corpse-like motor constraints rather than detailed gore: a ro-langs cannot bend any joints (producing a stiff-armed, lurching gait), cannot bend at the waist, cannot speak, and signals victims by wagging its tongue back and forth. Summarized sources do not provide consistent, detailed descriptions of skin color or stages of decomposition; some comatose-type accounts note blue rather than white eyes in waking individuals, a detail linked in sources to misidentified comas.

Ro-langs locomote with a stiff-armed lurch because they cannot bend joints or stoop. The tantric-raised variety is described as created to serve the raising practitioner (analogized in summaries to other ritual servitude motifs), while demonic Ro-langs are described as autonomous and capable of infecting other humans by touching them on the head; epidemic stories depict rapid spread (sometimes within a single night). They cannot speak. Texts and summaries frame neutralization not as ordinary killing but as making the ro-langs "fall over" (Tibetan brgyal-ba) by exploiting specific physical vulnerabilities.