Devas and Asuras

The oldest Indian scripture, the Rigveda, is full of devas. The word comes from a root meaning “to shine”, and the devas are the radiant powers of the world: Indra, wielder of the thunderbolt; Agni, the fire of the sacrifice; Varuna, guardian of cosmic order; Surya, the sun. A traditional count gives thirty-three of them. The hymns also use another word, asura, “lord”, and in the earliest layers it is a title of honour, applied to Varuna above all and sometimes to other gods.

Over the following centuries the meaning shifted. In the Brahmanas, prose texts that explain the Vedic sacrifice, the devas and asuras appear as two rival groups, both children of the creator Prajapati, who compete for the power that sacrifice brings. The asuras are older and often stronger, but the devas win through truth, ritual knowledge or cunning. By the time of the epics, asura had come to mean the gods’ enemies, and related groups such as the daityas and danavas filled the ranks of their opponents.

In ancient Iran the same two words took the opposite path. In the Avesta, the scripture of Zoroastrianism, the supreme god is Ahura Mazda, the “Wise Lord”, and the daevas are false gods and, later, demons. Scholars agree that Sanskrit asura and Avestan ahura, and Sanskrit deva and Avestan daeva, share their origins, but they disagree on why their values were reversed. The old idea of a single religious split between Indians and Iranians is now regarded as too simple.

Hindu myths do not draw the line between devas and asuras as a simple line between good and evil. The two are often kin, and the asuras are learned, ascetic and strong. Their teacher Shukra knows the secret of reviving the dead, and asura kings win boons from the gods through severe austerities. What sets them apart in the stories is usually the use they make of power: pride, a wish to rule all three worlds, or the overturning of cosmic order.

Many asuras are remembered with affection. Prahlada, son of the tyrant Hiranyakashipu, is a model devotee of Vishnu, who saves him by appearing as the man-lion Narasimha. His descendant Bali, known in Kerala as Mahabali, was so generous a king that Vishnu, as the dwarf Vamana, had to trick him out of the three worlds; the festival of Onam celebrates his yearly return to visit his people. The Bhagavad Gita moves the contrast into the human heart, describing “divine” and “demonic” qualities that every person can grow or overcome.

The devas, for their part, are not flawless. Indra, king of the gods, is often shown as jealous of ascetics who might rival him, and in many myths the devas cannot defeat the asuras by themselves. They must turn to the great gods of later Hinduism, Vishnu, Shiva or the Goddess. In the Devi Mahatmya, a text of the mid-first millennium CE, the gods pool their powers to create the goddess Durga, who slays the buffalo asura Mahishasura when none of them can. The festival of Navaratri and Durga Puja in Bengal celebrate that victory. In these stories the old Vedic devas become the servants of a higher divine power, and the war between devas and asuras becomes a picture of the constant contest between order and chaos.

The most famous story of devas and asuras is the churning of the ocean of milk, told in the Mahabharata, the Ramayana and the Puranas with many variations. Weakened, the devas seek the nectar of immortality, amrita, and Vishnu advises them to churn the cosmic ocean with the asuras’ help. Mount Mandara becomes the churning rod and the serpent king Vasuki the rope, the devas holding one end and the asuras the other, while Vishnu, as the tortoise Kurma, supports the mountain on his back.

The churning brings forth wonders, traditionally fourteen treasures, among them the moon, the wish-granting cow, the goddess Lakshmi and the physician of the gods carrying the nectar. It also releases a deadly poison, which Shiva swallows to protect the world, so that his throat turns blue. When the asuras seize the nectar, Vishnu takes the form of the enchantress Mohini and serves it to the devas alone. One asura, Rahu, slips into the line and drinks, but is beheaded before the nectar passes his throat; his immortal head, the story says, still pursues the sun and moon and swallows them at eclipses. Tradition links the drops of nectar that fell to earth with the four sites of the Kumbh Mela.

Buddhism adopted both groups into its picture of the cosmos. Devas live in a series of heavens, from the Heaven of the Thirty-Three, ruled by Sakka (Indra), to the subtle realms of meditation. Their lives are long and happy, but they are not immortal, and when their merit runs out they fall to another birth. Asuras, counted as a separate realm in some schools, are jealous beings who wage endless war against the devas. Buddhist texts show devas listening to the Buddha, and tradition holds that the god Brahma Sahampati persuaded him to teach after his awakening.

Devas and asuras remain part of living religion. Hindus worship the great gods in temples and homes, celebrate festivals that recall victories over asuras, and honour figures like Mahabali at Onam. The churning of the ocean is retold in temple art, dance, children’s books and television, and Kurma and Mohini appear in many images of Vishnu.

Across Asia, the beings travelled with Buddhism. In Thailand and Cambodia spirit houses and temple murals show thewada, the devas, as graceful guardians. In Japan, asura became Ashura, one of the eight protectors of the Buddha’s teaching; the slender, three-faced dry-lacquer Ashura made for Kōfukuji in Nara in 734 is among the most admired statues in Japan. The relief of the churning of the ocean at Angkor Wat, carved in the twelfth century, stretches for dozens of metres, with devas and asuras pulling the serpent in opposite directions.

In Zoroastrianism, Ahura Mazda is worshipped by Parsi and Iranian communities today, and the word div, from daeva, lives on in Persian for demons and ogres of folklore. The two words thus carry, in different lands, opposite meanings that grew from a shared root.