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The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c13.s3: § 4. The term Deva

The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c13.s3

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§ 4. The term Deva

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The word Deva undoubtedly denotes a being connected with the heaven, and there can be doubt only regarding the precise sense which had been developed during the Aryan period when the word was common to the Indians and the Iranians to be. Such evidence as there is suggests that the term had already come to be applied generically as a term for the gods of all kinds, though this must remain doubtful. What is clear is that in the use of the Rigveda the word has essentially this sense; the Devas stand out against the demons whether Dāsas, Dasyus, or Rakṣases, while the Brāhmaṇas show the term Asura degraded from its old higher sense and opposed to Deva.⁴ The generic sense of Deva is revealed in the negative Adeva which is opposed to Deva and is used of the demon Vṛtra.⁵ So also we have the terms *mūradeva* used of those who had roots as their gods, and *çiçnadeva* of those who were phallus worshippers.⁶ It is, therefore, clear that the connexion with the heaven had long been lost. That the term Devas when used in the Rigveda and other Vedic literature normally denotes the narrow circle of the sky gods, and that the term Viçve Devās applies to the gods as a whole, in opposition to this narrower group, is a hypothesis ⁷ wholly without plausibility or support. It is absurd to suggest that when gods are opposed to demons the sky gods alone are meant, still more absurd to find them alone designated when gods, fathers, and men are discriminated, and in the Gṛhya ritual when a sacrifice to the gods and one to Bhūtas is found, the two classes, as the enumerations of the Sūtras prove, do not correspond in the slightest degree to a distinction between heavenly gods and others.¹

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⁴ Cf. Macdonell, *Ved. Myth.*, pp. 156 ff.; Oldenberg, *Rel. des Veda*², pp. 160 ff.

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⁵ RV. vi. 22. 11; iii. 32. 6.

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⁶ RV. vii. 21. 5; x. 99. 3.

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⁷ Arbman, *Rudra*, p. 154.

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¹ Cf. Chap. 21, § 2.

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Did Deva ever include demons in Vedic usage? It has been suggested² that the popular religion of the time used the word widely to cover demons as well as gods, while the priests developed the special use as heavenly gods, or—as it should rather be put—restored to the term its primitive denotation. The answer cannot be given in the affirmative with any certainty; that gods may be hostile on occasion is recognized, and thus gods that disturb the sacrifice³ may be real gods, and, if the Atharvaveda⁴ gives a conjuration against Devas, we cannot assume that these were demons, and not possibly hostile gods, Gandharvas or serpents. Still less possible is it to regard as a demon a god who sends disease,⁵ and the Yajurveda⁶ certainly does not refer to a class of demons as being gods, but explains that Beings is a generic term applying to deities. The term Devajana is used of the serpents⁷ who are certainly divine, and it has no demoniac sense, but naturally enough we come across cases where the term is extended beyond the strict limit of deities, so that the Rakṣases may figure as Devajana.⁸ But there is no hint that this is a normal usage, or that Deva applied to anything demoniac save incidentally. The Devajanas who are invoked with Yama and Çarva⁹ are divine, not demon hosts, like the Rakṣases, and, when in the epic¹⁰ we hear of the Rākṣasī who became the house deity (*gṛhadevī*) of the king, we are not to imagine that the term house deity really means house demon; the Rākṣasī, as the tale shows, took the place of a beneficent house spirit.

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² Arbman, *Rudra*, pp. 149 ff.

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³ TS. iii. 5. 4. 1.

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⁴ AV. iii. 26, 27; TS. iv. 5. 10.

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⁵ MGS. ii. 14.

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⁶ TS. vi. 2. 8. 3.

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⁷ CU. vii. 1. 2, 4; 7. 1; AGS. ii. 1. 9, 14; AV. vi. 56; xi. 9.

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⁸ KB. ii. 2; in MGS. *l. c.* the Devas *may include demons*, but are not all demons. Devajana, opposed to Itarajana in GGS. iv. 8. 1, of course, cannot mean demons or Yakṣas as Arbman (p. 99) holds.

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⁹ AV. vi. 93. 1.

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¹⁰ MBh. ii. 17 f.

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Naturally enough, we find the term Deva expanding in use with the development of religion and the spread of the doctrine of transmigration which ultimately allows of no vital difference between gods and demons, so that the epic¹¹ can talk of the gods beginning with Brahman and ending with Piçācas; but here again it is idle to antedate and to read into Vedic times an obscuration of sense which was a natural later development. To attribute to the Vedic period all that is in the epic is at least as rash as to deny to it everything not explicitly found in Vedic texts.

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¹¹ MBh. xiii. 14. 4. This is abnormal; Hopkins, *Epic Myth.*, p. 3, n. 1.

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