Asura

The asura (Sanskrit: असुर, ásura) is, in Vedic, Hindu, Buddhist and Jain literature, one of a class of powerful beings related to the devas, and the word changes value across the literature: in the Vedas it "is applied more frequently to the gods themselves than to their enemies", while in the later writings "the term 'asura' is used only for the enemies of the gods". Its Iranian counterpart ahura ("lord") stayed among the terms for divine beings, and the Iranian counterpart of deva, daēva, became the Zoroastrian word for "demon". Michael Salla's 2026 briefing for public officials lists "asuras" among the names that different religions give the Level Seven beings, the highest of its seven levels of the phenomenon.

Three further writers read the asuras as a real order of non-human intelligent beings. The Vaishnava author Richard L. Thompson calls the asuras "the most famous rebels" against the cosmic hierarchy and holds that "the basic plot of the Mahabharata has to do with an invasion of the earth by the Asuras"; the author David Hatcher Childress describes the Daityas and Asuras as giants "demonized in the ancient epics"; and the philosopher Jason Reza Jorjani identifies the Asuras with the Greek Titans, the rebel faction against the devas' "control system", a through line that runs from Enki in Sumerian myth and Prometheus in the Greek to "a leader of the Ashura in a Hindu context".

The religion scholar Robert Pearson Flaherty reports that folklorists and mythologists hold the extraterrestrials of contemporary lore to be the gods, angels and demons of tradition "euhemerized as humanoid, albeit superhuman", which would make the likeness between asuras and UFO occupants a borrowing from the religions and leave the writers who report it sincere. Jorjani says Thompson writes "out of a Hare Krishna tradition" with "his own religious commitments".

Honorific and enemy

W. J. Wilkins found deva and asura "synonymous expressions in a multitude of texts" and showed the Vedic hymns addressing Varuna as "wise asura and king". Wash Edward Hale's 1986 monograph on ásura- in early Vedic religion takes the Saṃhitā verses that use the word to ask how it went from an epithet of gods to the name of a class of demons. By the Bhagavad Gita the word describes a human nature: "the qualities of those who possess a demoniac nature are hypocrisy, arrogance, conceit, anger, harshness, and ignorance." Thompson, setting out the Puranic cosmos, describes the asuras as "close relatives of the Devas" among whom are the Daityas, descendants of Diti, and the Danavas, descendants of Danu. Childress records that Hindu scholars hold the "demon-worshippers" of Lanka to have been so called because they "did not make what was termed proper sacrifices", and concludes that "some sort of “change of rituals” was going on".

Ahura and the Zoroastrian inversion

Gherardo Gnoli writes that the Iranian daiva "originally signified 'god'" and that its change to "demon" is a "demonization" characteristic of Zoroastrianism, while ahura ("lord") remained among the terms for divine beings. In an inscription at Persepolis the Persian king Xerxes records "a place where previously demons (daiva) were worshipped" and says "by the grace of Ahuramazda I destroyed that sanctuary of demons". A 1998 contributor to the INDOLOGY scholars' mailing list holds: "In the common Indo-Iranian period the asura/ahura vs. deva/daeuua dichotomy didn't exist." In that account asura/ahura "meant 'lord' and could be applied to any 'lordly' figure, whether human or divine, friend or foe".

Buddhist and Jain usage

In the Pali canon the Buddha tells of a time "the devas & asuras were arrayed for battle". The Jain Tattvārtha Sūtra lists the asurakumāra first among the ten kinds of residential devas, with Camara and Vairocana as its two lords, so that in Jain classification the asura is an order of deva. Jorjani reports the Buddhist asuras as "the rebels against the Devas and the control system of the Devas".

Level Seven beings

Salla's briefing lists the asuras beside gods, angels, Elohim, devas, demons, planetary spirits and solar beings as Level Seven entities, among the interdimensional beings of its top level, that influence surface humans; they "compete in influencing humanity's evolution and timelines", and their views of humanity "range from us being a valuable resource to be exploited, to us being agents for positive transformative change in galactic conflicts".

Invaders of the earth

Thompson's Parallels finds in the Puranas and the Mahabharata a war that reaches the earth. A common theme of the Vedic literature, he writes, is that "there are wars in the heavens between the Devas and the Asuras", and "certain relatives of the Devas rebelled against this system, and their descendants have engaged in repeated and extended wars with the Devas." The Asura Maya Danava built "three invisible residences" that "resembled airplanes made of gold, silver, and iron", so that "the commanders of the Asuras remained invisible to the Devas", and Childress cites the Asura Maya's "animated golden car", which "possessed the wonderful power of flying at will to any place", one of the vimanas of the epics. After Indra slew Vritra, "the ruler of a group of Asuras", the Kaleya Danavas "decided to seek revenge by terrorizing humans on the earth", which Thompson calls "similar to what happens with cattle mutilations and the more frightening UFO manifestations". The Asuras also entered the earth by incarnation: "in their subtle bodies into the wombs of the wives of kings", or by possession, "Other Asuras will take possession of Bhishma, Drona, Krpa, and the others", which Thompson sets beside the Wanderers and Walk-ins of contactee literature, the idea that "the Devas and Asuras could take birth on earth with specific missions to perform". He holds that "the word 'demon' acquired its negative connotations under the influence of Christianity."

Childress adds that the Daityas "are a race of giants", descended from the Asuras, who by intermarriage "apparently became more of a normal size", placing the asuras among the giants of other traditions, and that "the Daityas and Asuras became demonized in the ancient epics, and it is from the Asuras that people known as the Rakshasas sprang."

Titans and rebels

Jorjani maps the pair onto the Greek and the Sumerian: "The Hindus refer to them as the Devas, and the Asuras are the Titans. The Devas are the Olympians. In Sumerian myths, it's the faction of Enlil, which are the Devas, and the faction of Enki, which are the Titans." He says the Sanskrit tradition "preserves this distinction between Asuras or Titans and devas or gods", and that the Titanic forces are "what wind up being called Satanic or Luciferian forces in the Judeo-Christian tradition". He sets the "so called fallen angels led by The Satan" against the Elohim, and says that in Islam the jinn follow the same pattern: Iblis, "the leader of the Jinn in the Islamic context, is basically the same group of rebels against the control system". The Enki faction, he says, is "for human progress", and he sees the Prometheus figure's Indian counterpart in "a leader of the Ashura", a "demi god figure that transgresses on behalf of man against the gods, brings forth some sort of sacred technology". In Thompson's reading of the same epics the rebels are the invaders.

Open questions

References

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