The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c13.s3.7

v1.c13.s3.7

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.