Asuras

(South and Central Asian mythology)

In the Rig Veda the word asura describes the supreme spirit and means ‘spiritual, divine’. An equivalent was Ahura Mazdah, the ancient Persian deity. Afterwards the word ceased to denote a god and acquired an entirely opposite meaning, that of an anti-god or demon. Asuras descended from Prajapati, ‘the progenitor’, an aspect of Indra, Soma, and other early deities. Their dwelling-places are the caverns of Mount Sumeru and the depths of the ocean. Gods and asuras are complementary: these contenders, locked in a series of perpetual wars, never gain complete victory, since the elimination of either side would make the other redundant.

In a sense, asuras are demons in Hindu mythology. That is, they oppose the devas—the celestial gods. But when taken individually they are of equal status with the devas, and a great god such as Varuṇa (see Varuṇa) can be an asuras. In the Vedic tradition (see Vedism), devas and asuras are both offspring of the creator Prajāpati (see Prajāpati), or later of Brahmā (see Brahmā). But the constant struggle between these two forces is a theme of later Hindu mythology, in which the devas occupy Heaven, humans the earth, and asuras the dark depths.