Everything about Asura totally explained
In Hinduism
In
Hinduism, the
Asura (
Sanskrit: असुर) are worshipped as deities among the Hindu
dharma. Asuras were considered to be a group of power-seeking deities, sometimes referred to as
devas or
demi-gods. Some Asuras were corrupted while some were gods in heaven. Both are children of
Kashyapa.. Asuras shouldn't be confused with
Pishachas, or
demons.
The name Asura is cognate to
Ahura – indeed, the
Oxford English Dictionary recognises the use of the term in reference to
Zoroastrianism, where "Ahura" would perhaps be more appropriate – and
Æsir, which implies a common
Proto-Indo-European origin for the Asura and the Æsir.
The negative character of the Asura in Hinduism seems to have evolved over time. In general, the earliest texts have the Asuras presiding over moral and social phenomena (for example
Varuna, the guardian of, or
Bhaga, the patron of marriages) and the devas presiding over natural phenomena (for example
Ushas, whose name means "dawn", or
Indra, a weather god).
Asura kingdoms existed in
Kerala and possibly in other parts of India. The people of Kerala celebrate
Onam in the memory of the last of the Asura kings
Mahabali whom they consider themselves to be subjects of.
Mitra,
Varuna and
Vritra are the most well known Asuras; some others include
Indra and
Agni.
Other Asuras:
In later writings, such as the
Puranas and
Itihasas, we find that the "devas" are the godly persons and the "asuras" the demonic. According to the
Bhagavad Gita (16.6), all beings in the world partake either of the divine qualities (
daivi sampad) or the demonic qualities (
asuri sampad). The sixteenth chapter of the Bhagavad Gita describes the divine qualities briefly and the demonic qualities at length. In summary the Gita (16.4) says that the asuric qualities are pride, arrogance, conceit, anger, harshness and ignorance.
The
Padma Purana says that the devotees of Vishnu are endowed with the divine qualities (
viṣṇu-bhaktaḥ smṛto daiva) whereas the asuras are just the opposite (
āsuras tad-viparyayaḥ).
In an Indo-Iranian context
The term
asura is linguistically related to the
ahuras of
Zoroastrianism, but has in that religion a different meaning.
For one, the term applies to a very specific set of divinities, only three in number (Mazda, Mithra and Apam Napat). For another, there's no direct opposition between the
ahuras and the
daevas: The fundamental opposition in Zoroastrianism isn't between groups of divinities, but between
asha "Truth" and
druj "Lie/Falsehood." The opposition between the
ahuras and
daevas is an expression of that opposition: the
ahuras, like all the other
yazatas, are defenders of
asha; the
daevas on the other hand are in the earliest texts divinities that are to be rejected because they're misled by "the Lie" (see
daeva for details).
The notion of an "inverted morality" and the supposition that a dichotomy between
ahuras/
asuras and
daevas/
devas already existed in Indo-Iranian times isn't supportable from either the Iranian or Indian perspective. Not only is such a dichotomy not evident in the earliest texts of either culture, neither the RigVeda's
asuras nor the Gathas'
daevas are demons. The
demonization of the
asuras in India and the demonization of the
daevas in Iran both took place "so late that the associated terms can't be considered a feature of Indo-Iranian religious dialectology."
The idea of a prehistorical opposition between the *asurás/*devás, originally presented in the 19th century but popularized in the mid-20th century had for some time already been largely rejected by Avesta scholars when a landmark publication (Hale, 1986) attracted considerable attention among Vedic scholars. Hale discussed, "as no one before him" (so Insler's review), the attestations of ásura and its derivatives in chronological order of the Vedic texts, leading to new insights into how the
asuras came to be the demons that they're today and why the venerated Varuna, Mithra, Indra, Rudra, Agni, Aryaman, Pusan and Parjanya are all
asuras without being demonic. Although Hale's work has raised further questions - such as how the later poets could have overlooked that the RigVeda's
asuras are all exalted gods - the theory of a prehistoric opposition is today conclusively rejected.
Following Hale's discoveries, Thieme's earlier proposal of a single Indo-Iranian
*Asura began to gain widespread support. In general (particulars may vary), the idea runs as follows: Indo-Iranian
*Asura developed into Varuna in India and into Ahura Mazda in Iran. Those divinities closest related to that "asura [who] rules over the gods" (
AV 1.10.1, cf.
RV II.27.10) inherit the epithet, for instance, Rudra as
devam asuram (
V 42.11).
In Buddhism
Asuras also appear as a type of supernatural being in traditional
Buddhist cosmology.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Asura'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://asura.totallyexplained.com">Asura Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
