Asura

“ Agha, the youngest born of Putanâ and Baka, the Asura whom even the Devas, rendered immortal by Amrita, dreaded, burning with a spirit of revenge at the death of his brother and sister, thought of killing Krishna and all his attendants. He stretched himself forth as a huge serpent, spreading over one yojana, the extremities of his open mouth touching the clouds and the earth. The Gopa boys took the Asura to be the goddess of Vrindâvana. "Or if it really be a serpent opening its mouth to kill us, it will instantly be killed like the Asura Vaka." ”

“ The word Deva, from the Sanskrit Div, signified “brilliant,” “shining.” In its spiritual sense, the “Shining Ones” applied originally to the ministering spirits, the bright messengers of Asura. From the word Deva, we have the word Deus, God; Divus, divine; dæmons, and other similar forms in various branches of Aryan speech.
At first, Asura is the most sacred name used [152] for Deity. Later on, with the increase of gods in the Hindu pantheon, the term Asura is conferred as a highest dignity upon the greater gods, as Asura-Varuna, Asura-Indra. ”

“ This asura became in Zend ahura, and if it assumed the general meaning of Lord, this is as much a secondary meaning as the meaning of demon or evil spirit, which asura assumed in the later Sanskrit of the Brâhmanas.
After this, Dr. Spiegel proceeds to sum up his evidence. He has no more to say, but he believes that he has proved the following points: a very early intercourse between Semitic and Aryan nations; a [159] common belief shared by both in a paradise situated near the sources of the Oxus and Jaxartes; the dwelling together of Abraham and Zoroaster in Haran, Arran, or Airyana vaêga. ”

“ The mighty Asura Krathana gifted with great energy became noted on earth as the monarch Suryaksha. The great Asura of handsome features known by the name of Surya, became on earth the monarch of the Valhikas by name Darada, that foremost of all kings. And, O king, from the tribe of Asuras called Krodhavasa, of whom I have already spoken to thee, were born many heroic kings on earth. Madraka, and Karnaveshta, Siddhartha, and also Kitaka; Suvira, and Suvahu, and Mahavira, and also Valhika, Kratha, Vichitra, Suratha, and the handsome king Nila ”

“ The wife of Śiva, in her dread aspect, slays the Asura Mahiṣa. Standing in an attitude of triumph on the demon, who, as his name implies, is in the shape of a buffalo, she drags his soul (symbolized in human form) from him. ”

“ Asura-daiva represent originally two distinct races of gods (like the Northern Aser and Vaner) —two different aspects of the conception of deity, comparable to δαίμων and δεός. Asura indicates the more sublime and awful divine character, for which man entertains the greater reverence and fear: daiva denotes the kind gods of light, the vulgar—more sensuous and anthropomorphic—deities. This twofold development of the idea of God formed the point of leverage for Zoroaster's reformation. ”

“ But it is when we turn our thoughts not only to Ahura Mazda but to his Assyrian representative Assur, that the parallelism between him and Rudra becomes more marked.
Rudra is not only a wise and great Asura, he is above everything else celebrated in the Rig Veda as an archer. He has “the sure arrow, the strong bow.” [82] He is “the divine Rudra armed with the strong bow and fast flying arrows.” ”

“ Assuming the form then of a Man-lion (Narsingha) , I shall, for benefiting the deities, slay Hiranyakasipu the son of Diti, who will be a great destroyer of sacrifices. Unto Virochana (the son of Prahlada) will be born a mighty son of the name of Vali. That great Asura will be unslayable in the whole universe consisting of deities, Asuras and Rakshasas. He will hurl Sakra from the sovereignty of the universe. When after routing the Lord of Sachi, that Asura will take unto himself the sovereignty of the three worlds. I shall take birth in Aditi's womb, by Kasyapa, as the twelfth Aditya. ”

“ This Asura, [41] who is acquainted with all things, has propped up these heavens, he has fixed the boundaries of the earth. He is enthroned above all the worlds, universal king; all the laws of the world are the laws of Varuna.
“In the bottomless abyss the king Varuna has lifted up the summit of the celestial tree. [42] It is the king Varuna who has traced out to the sun the broad path he is to follow: to footless creatures he has given feet so that they may run. ”

“ Whether one puts the place of separation at the Kabul or further to the north-west is a matter of indifference. The Persians borrow the idea of Varuna Asura, whose eye is the sun. They spiritualize this, and create an Asura unknown to other nations.
Of von Bradke's attempt to prove an original Dyaus Asura we have said nothing, because the attempt has failed signally. He imagines that the epithet Asura was given to Dyaus in the Indo-Iranian period, and that from a Dyaus Pitar Asura the Iranians made an abstract Asura, while the Hindus raised the other gods and depressed Dyaus Pitar Asura ”

“ If now on the authority of Herodotus and the Medo-Persian writers we assume, at least as a possibility, that these Manda were Medes, we should expect to find them worshippers of Ahura Mazda. Ahura, it is on all hands admitted, is the Iranian form of the Vedic Asura, just as Mithras is the Iranian form of the Vedic Mitra. At whatever date the separation between Iranian and Vedic [82] Aryans took place, the worship of Ahura (still probably under the form Asura) must have existed amongst the Iranians ”

“ All discarded portions of the human body still remain part of it, attached to it by intangible connections. The priests of Asura have a dim inkling of this truth, and so all nail-trimmings, hair and other waste products of the persons of the royal family are carefully reduced to ashes and the ashes hidden. ”

“ And thus on the shores of the sea of salt-water, commenced the dreadful battle of the gods and the Asuras. And sharp-pointed javelins and lances and various weapons by thousands began to be discharged on all sides. And mangled with the discus and wounded with swords, saktis, and maces, the Asuras in large numbers vomitted blood and lay prostrate on the earth. Cut off from the trunks with sharp double edged swords, heads adorned with bright gold fell continually on the field of battle. Their bodies drenched in gore, the great Asuras lay dead everywhere. ”

“ Ahura Mazda, according to Darmesteter, can be traced back to Asura, the supreme god of Indo-Iranian times, and is the representative of Varūna, Zeus or Jupiter, that is the sky or heavens. Similarly Ahura Mazda is described in the Zend-Avesta as righteous, brilliant, glorious, the originator of the spirit of nature, of the luminaries and of the self-shining brightness which is in the luminaries. Again he is the author of all that is bright and shining, good and useful in nature, while Ahrimān called into existence all that is dark and apparently noxious. ”

“ Then the gods exclaimed " Bravo !" and followed up their acclamation with a rain of flowers, and Muktáphaladhvaja used the bewildering weapon against those enemies. That made the Asuras and their king fall senseless on the earth, and then by means of the weapon of Varuna the prince bound them all with nooses.
Then the hermit Tapodhana said to king Merudhvaja, " You must by no means kill those Asura warriors that have escaped the slaughter: but you must win them over and enter Rasátala with them. ”

“ Or how could Ayodeha have given his own body to Viśvakarman? What more shall I say? The Asuras are ever generous, and if they are not treacherously injured, they cherish no animosity.” When the Asura Maya had said this, Siddhi made a speech, which induced the gods and Asuras to make peace and embrace one another.
In the meanwhile a female warder, named Jayá, sent by Bhavání, came there and was honoured by all, and she said to Sumeru, “I am sent by the goddess Durgá to you, and she gives you this order—‘You have an unmarried daughter named Kámachúḍámaṇi ”

“ The opinion that the symbol of Ahura Mazda, and of Assur, was of ancient Aryan origin, naturally suggested the further thought that the name Assur, so closely resembling the earlier Indo-Iranian form Asura, of the Iranian Ahura, had, together with the emblem of the god, been borrowed from the Aryan ancestors of the Medo-Persians by the Semitic settlers who, early in the second millennium B.C., established themselves to the north of Babylonia. It may here be pointed out that no very certain Semitic derivation at present holds the field which the proposed Aryan derivation would occupy. ”

“ It has been found, for instance, that Aryans were associated with the Kassites who overthrew the Hammurabi dynasty of Babylon prior to the invasion of the Punjab, and that the Assyrians were for a period vassals of the Mitanni kings, who had Aryan names and worshipped Indra, Varuna, and Mithra in Mesopotamia and Asia Minor. The weak point in the Ashur-Asura theory is that it throws no light on the process which caused the Persian “daeva” to be applied to demons instead of to gods. ”

“ When he heard that, Śrídatta agreed to undertake the adventure, and after that day had passed, on the morrow he took those Daitya maidens with him as guides, and went to that city, and there he overcame in wrestling that haughty lion. He being freed from his curse assumed a human form, and out of gratitude gave his sword to the man who had put an end to his curse, and then disappeared together with the burden of the sorrow of the great Asura's daughter. ”

“ These Asuras never care for learning and cultivation of the intellect; the only thing they understand is fighting. Very little of the warlike spirit is possible without a mixture of that blood; and it is that Tartar blood which is seen in the vigorous, martial spirit of Northern Europe, especially in the Russians, who have three-fourths of Tartar blood in their veins. The fight between the Devas and the Asuras will continue yet for a long time to come. The Devas marry the Asura girls and the Asuras snatch away Deva brides—it is this that leads to the formation of powerful mongrel races. ”

“ Those possessed of power never give way to anger. Neither in religious discussion, nor in social concerns, nor in appropriating the right sense of the scriptures, is there any that can approach thee, O hero. Verily thou art the foremost among celestials and Asuras. Invincible to the gods and Asuras themselves gifted with prowess, high spirits and intelligence, thou hast in battle oftentimes put to the rout the chiefs of celestials and monarchs. ”

“ A new feature is his constant identification with the sacrifice. The demons, now regularly called Asuras, perpetually appear as a group of evil beings opposed to the good gods. Their conflicts with the latter play a considerable part in the myths of the Yajurveda. The Apsarases, who, as a class of celestial nymphs endowed with all the seductive charms of female beauty, occupy so important a place in post-Vedic mythology, but are very rarely mentioned in the Rigveda, begin to be more prominent in the Yajurveda, in which many of them are referred to by individual names. ”

“ And the Daitya maiden made the king sit down on a priceless jewelled throne, and offered him the arghya in due form, and said to him, “I am the daughter of Kálanemi the high-souled king of the Asuras, but my father was sent to heaven by Vishṇu, the discus-armed god. And these two cities, which I inherit from my father, are the work of Viśvakarman; they furnish all that heart can wish, and old age and death never invade them. ”

“ It is said that when they came forth from the waters (at the churning of the ocean) neither the gods nor the Asuras would have them for wives, so they become common to all.... The Apsaras, then, are fairy-like beings, beautiful and voluptuous. Their amours on earth have been numerous, and they are the rewards in Indra’s paradise held out to heroes who fall in battle.”—Prof. Dawson’s “Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology,” etc.
[79] This is only a single instance of the perpetual and undying hostility between the celestials on the one hand and the demons on the other. ”

“ Then the serpent-maidens of Patâla and the wood-nymphs ordered their train of demon Asuras to go and search for the seven sons of the Brahman woman. The seven demon Asuras spurred their horses and rode off in all directions. In a little time the giant captain of the demon guards rode up carrying in his arms the body of a little boy of six. Then another rode up carrying the body of a little boy of five. And four others rode up carrying a little boy of four, a little boy of three, a little boy of two, and a little boy only one year old. ”

“ Strong, bellowing, he goes, like one who slays the folk; he lets this hue of Asuras flow off from him, Throws off his covering, seeks his father's meeting-place, and thus makes for himself the bright robe he assumes. ”

“ The gods are the Suras and the demons the Asuras or “non-gods”. This distinction, however, did not obtain in the early Vedic period. Originally the deities, and especially Varuna and Mitra, were called Asuras, but in the later part of the Rigveda the term is applied chiefly to the enemies of the gods. In the Atharvaveda, as in subsequent Epic literature, the Asuras are simply demons and giants and goblins. ”

“ And those Dánavas, who formerly existed under the names of Sunda and Upasunda, have been born as his ministers Sarvadamana and Bhayankara. And the two Asuras, who used to be called Vikaṭáksha and Hayagríva, have been born as his two ministers here, Sthirabuddhi and Mahábuddhi. And the others connected with him, these fathers-in-law, ministers and friends of his, are also incarnations of Asuras, who have often vanquished Indra and his crew. So your party has again gradually acquired strength. Be of good courage; if you do not depart from the right, you shall obtain the highest prosperity. ”