The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c23.s1: § 1. The Enemies of the Gods

The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c23.s1

Language: English

§ 1. The Enemies of the Gods

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THE enemies of the gods *par excellence* throughout the Yajurveda, the Atharvaveda, and all the subsequent Vedic literature are beings called Asuras, but this connexion can be traced only in the latest parts of the Rigveda and even there but occasionally. In the singular the meaning is found but three times certainly, used of Varcin,¹ Pipru,² and the wolfish Asura;³ a fourth case is very doubtful, and may instead refer to Varuṇa.⁴ In the plural there are at most eight cases, predominantly in the tenth book: in them the gods as a body appear opposed to the Asuras as in the later texts, or Indra scatters them.⁵ The term Āsura is applied also to Namuci, and to Svarbhānu, while Indra, Agni, and the sun are called slayers of Asuras. In the Atharvaveda,⁶ on the other hand, the singular is used in the hostile sense three times, the plural thirty times, and the application of the term to the gods, which is found very occasionally in the later literature,⁷ is confronted with a regular application to the enemies of the gods. In the Rigveda, on the contrary, it is the normal attribute of Varuṇa and, more rarely, of other high gods.

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¹ RV. vii. 99. 5.

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² RV. x. 138. 3.

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³ RV. ii. 30. 4.

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⁴ RV. x. 124.

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⁵ RV. viii. 96. 9; 97. 1; x. 157. 4; 53. 4; 82. 5; 124. 5 (dubious); 151. 3; *Āsura*, v. 40. 5, 9; x. 131. 4; *Asurahan*, vi. 22. 4; vii. 13. 1; x. 180. 2. Cf. Macdonell, *JRAS.* xxvii. 168-77.

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⁶ Von Bradke, *Dyāus Asura*, pp. 101 ff.

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⁷ Ludwig, *Rigveda*, iv. p. xvii; TS. i. 6. 6.

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The theory of Haug⁸ that the change of meaning of Asura as between Asura in India and Ahura Mazdāh in Iran was due to a divergence in religion in the Indo-Iranian people, which ended in the schism of the two nations, is hopelessly opposed to the fact that the change of meaning takes place in India itself, and, since Darmesteter,⁹ the theory has prevailed that the change by which Asura became the name of demons in India, while in Iran the Devas became demons, is an internal change of meaning in the two languages, brought about by causes which can be made more or less clear. In the case of India the development of Asura into a hostile sense is traced to its use in connexion with the word Māyā, ‘wile’¹⁰ or ‘occult power’, assisted by the popular derivation which saw a negative in the first letter of the word, and vaguely conceived the meaning as ‘not heavenly’, this view leading to the creation of the term *sura* for god in the Upaniṣads, and perhaps also by the absence of any collective name for the enemies of the gods proper. The change of Deva was by Darmesteter attributed to the misunderstanding under the régime of Zoroaster of the old phrases ‘wrath of gods and men’, and ‘trouble made by gods or men’, but this argument is of very problematic value indeed.

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⁸ Criticized by Justi, *GGA.* 1866, pp. 1466 ff.; Ludwig, *Rigveda*, iv. pp. xvii f.

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⁹ *Ormazd et Ahriman*, pp. 266 ff.; Geldner, *Ved. Stud.* i. 142.

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¹⁰ Hillebrandt, *VOJ.* xiii. 320. The derivation from *mī*, ‘injure’ (Geldner, *Glossar zum RV.*, p. 135), is clearly wrong; it is from *mā*, ‘fashion’, RV. v. 85. 5; i. 159. 4; iii. 38. 7; ix. 83. 3; cf. Neisser, *Festschrift Hillebrandt*, pp. 144 ff.; Schayer, *Mahāyān. Erlösungslehre*, pp. 22 f.

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Hillebrandt¹ has recently opposed the prevalent doctrine, and asserted the opinion that the difference of view is due to religious relations with the early Iranians before the reform of Zoroaster, but after the period of the Rigveda in its main portions. He points out that the real cleavage in view is considerable: that the fall of the Nāsatya, Indra, Vāta, and Çarva to be demons as Nā̊ṅhaithya, Indra, Vātō, and Çauru (Saurva) is significant; that the Vedic Kavis and the Uçij family of priests fell in rank; and that there is no trace of the gradual change of sense, which would be expected, if the prevailing view were correct. He also points to the fact that among the names of Asuras, who appear in the accounts of the Brāhmaṇas, there are some with an Iranian aspect: namely Çaṇḍa and Marka, the latter being Avestan Mahrka,² Kāvya Uçanā, who is comparable with Kai Kāōs, Prahrāda Kāyādhava,³ perhaps Avestan Kayadha, and Sṛma,⁴ Iranian Salm, son of Thraētaona. The evidence is, however, clearly inadequate to prove the thesis, and the efforts of Hillebrandt to show that in the Rigveda occur names of Persian princes who patronized the singers, a fact which would indicate the possibility of close intercourse during the late Rigveda period natural, must be definitely taken to have failed to produce conviction.⁵

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¹ *Ved. Myth.* iii. 430 ff.; cf. Moulton, *Early Zoroastrianism*, pp. 115, 140; von Bradke, *Dyāus Asura*, pp. 108 f. Greek influence for Vedic times (V. Smith, *JASB.* 1889, p. 133; 1892, p. 60) is implausible.

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² TS. iv. 4. 10. 1; MS. iv. 6. 3; ÇB. iv. 2. 1. 16. Hillebrandt treats him as Death; these demons receive the Çukra and Manthin cups at the Agniṣṭoma, invented by the gods to rid themselves of them, and the Manthin cup brings disease. Çaṇḍikas in RV. ii. 30. 8 are foes of Indra. The Avestan Karapans who are in evil odour he connects with the *kalpa* of the Vedic priests.

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³ TB. i. 5. 9. 1.

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⁴ MS. iv. 2. 9.

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⁵ Macdonell and Keith, *Vedic Index*, i. 29, 349, 450, 509, 518; ii. 63. Jackson (CHI. i. 319 ff.) adds nothing new to Hillebrandt’s conjectures. It is noteworthy that Bloomfield’s evidence (*Rig-Veda Repetitions*, p. 645) shows book vi as by no means early as it should be if it deals with events in Iran before the invasion of India.

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Another suggestion is made by von Schroeder,⁶ based on von Bradke’s view⁷ of the term Asura, as applied to the gods, as meaning not ‘spirit’ as usually held, but ‘master’ or ‘lord’, and cognate with Latin *erus*. The name would thus normally have applied specifically to Dyaus, as the great sky god, or rather the god created by the moral sense of men, and also regarded as a nature deity, but as usual with the Vedic poets would have been extended by henotheism to other gods, such as Varuṇa, Parjanya, Indra, Agni, and Savitṛ. The degradation of such a term seems unlikely, and accordingly von Schroeder believes that there originally existed two distinct words, *asura*, ‘lord’, and *asura*, ‘spirit’. In India the latter use prevailed, and the older or contemporaneous *asura*, ‘lord’, was given up, because perhaps of risk of confusion with the other term, while the Iranians retained the use of Ahura as ‘master’. This suggestion is ingenious, but purely hypothetical, and hardly necessary to explain the facts. Moreover, the idea that *asura* as ‘spirit’ is naturally applied to evil beings is decidedly fantastic. The precise sense which *asura* had in the minds of those who used it is unknown to us, but there is nothing to show that it had any connexion with the worship of the spirits of the dead, as frequently suggested.¹ On the contrary, even from its possible connexion with *asu*, ‘breath’, the word may rather have meant that which is essentially alive and possessed of power and strength.²

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⁶ *Arische Religion*, i. 317 ff.

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⁷ *Dyāus Asura*, pp. 29 ff.

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¹ Thus Moulton (*Early Zoroastrianism*, p. 150; *Early Rel. Poetry of Persia*, pp. 34 ff.) argues that the high Ahura worship comes from ancestor worship as contrasted with the inferior worship of Daēvas, nature deities. But he himself (*Early Zoroastrianism*, pp. ix, 344, &c.) renders Ahura by ‘lord’, which disposes of any connexion with ancestor worship. Varuṇa sufficiently refutes for India and Ahura for Iran Schroeder’s doctrine that morality and ancestor worship are more closely related than the worship of the gods and conduct.

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² Cf. Oldenberg, *Rel. des Veda*², p. 160, n. 2. On the whole, the sense ‘lord’ seems adequate for Veda and Avesta alike. On the Gaulish Esus, see Rhys, *Celtic Heathendom*, pp. 60 ff.

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The view of these personages taken by the Brāhmaṇas is that they are equally sons of Prajāpati, though born of a less worthy part of the god, from the descending breath, not the mouth, and that they are in constant conflict with the gods, and have to be defeated by some ritual performances. They are associated with the darkness, untruth, and error, as opposed to the gods. The term ‘pertaining to the Asuras’ is freely given to any ritual performance which the priests do not approve. Thus the Asuras are said to have only a morning and afternoon pressing,³ not three as the Vedic Indians, a point which has some affinity to the Avesta, and the mode of making the grave differs.⁴ We have one fairly clear proof that Aryan enemies are included, for the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa⁵ has preserved to us two barbarous (*mleccha*) words used by the Asuras, *he ’lavo*, which, despite various efforts to interpret them as Assyrian or something equally implausible, seem merely a Prāktitic version of the Vedic *he ’rayaḥ*, ‘O enemies’, pointing to an eastern dialect as in Māgadhī.

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³ TS. vi. 2. 5. 3.

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⁴ ÇB. xiii. 8. 2. 1.

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⁵ iii. 2. 1. 23, 24; Macdonell and Keith, *op. cit.* ii. 181, 279, 517.

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Among names of Asuras we learn of Kirāta and Ākuli,⁶ Araru (with which may be compared the Arurmaghas or Aruñmaghas, foes of Indra), Aru, Kustā,⁷ in opposition to Aditi, Etadu, from the use of *etad u* in a formula, Daivya as their messenger as opposed to Agni, Dābhi as the address of the Gāyatrī metre,¹ in place of Viçvakarman, Asita Dhānva, their king,² Pūru, the name of a Vedic prince, Vibhinduka and Viṣād. More important are the Kālakañjas,³ who figure in a story similar to that of Otos and Ephialtes, the bricks of the altar taking the place of mountains.

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⁶ PB. xiii. 12. 5; ÇB. i. 1. 4. 16; JB. iii. 168 ff.

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⁷ MS. iv. 2. 3.

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¹ TS. ii. 4. 3; MS. ii. 1. 11.

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² ÇB. xiii. 4. 3. 11.

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³ TB. i. 1. 2. 4–6; Eggeling, SBE. xii. 286.

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In comparison with the Asuras the Paṇis are unimportant demons, who play no great part in the literature after the Rigveda. They are the demons who withhold the cows, or, as it is differently put, the ghee in the cow, from Indra or his allies, Agni, Bṛhaspati, the Aṅgirases or Soma, and are overthrown by him. The word is normally plural, but a single Paṇi four times represents the group. The most probable explanation⁴ is undoubtedly that which sees in the Paṇis the personification of the enemy, who will not sacrifice to the gods or bestow gifts on the priests, and who is therefore an enemy of the gods and men alike, and has been brought into the old myth of the winning of the light in cow shape. Hillebrandt⁵ seeks to show that the Paṇis are an historical tribe, comparing the name Parnians, but the suggestion is most improbable.

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⁴ Oldenberg, *Rel. des Veda*², p. 143; Macdonell, *Ved. Myth.*, p. 157.

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⁵ *Ved. Myth.* i. 83 ff.; ZDMG. lxx. 512 ff.

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The Dāsas or Dasyus are also made into enemies of the gods, though, like the Paṇis, their primitive function was doubtless different; in their case it probably was that of aborigines, who opposed the Aryan advance, though Hillebrandt⁶ changes them into Dahae. That in many cases historic men may be meant when Dāsas are overthrown, is true; but gods of the defeated aborigines may also be denoted, and more generally powers of the air opposed to the gods: Dasyus seek to scale heaven,⁷ Indra vanquishes them from birth,⁸ he wins the sun and waters after defeating them,⁹ a Dāsa is husband of the waters,¹⁰ and the Dāsas have seven autumnal forts, doubtless in the air, not on the steppes.

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⁶ *Op. cit.* i. 95; (Kl. Ausg.), pp. 96 f.

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⁷ RV. viii. 14. 14; i. 33. 7.

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⁸ RV. i. 51. 6; viii. 77. 1–3.

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⁹ RV. i. 100. 18; x. 73. 5.

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¹⁰ RV. i. 32. 11.

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Of the individual names of the enemies of the gods Vṛtra ranks first; he is a serpent with power over the lightning, mist, hail, and thunder, when he wars with Indra; his mother is Dānu, apparently the stream or the waters of heaven, but he bears that name himself as well as Dānava, offspring of Dānu. His abode is hidden in the waters, but is also on a summit or on lofty heights, which suggest the waters of the air. He is by name the encompasser of the waters, rather than the holder back by congealing them: the cloud mountain is, therefore, said to be within his belly. He has ninety-nine forts which Indra shatters as he slays him. From the single Vṛtra the Vedic conception, as often, produces many Vṛtras, and we find also the plural used of foes who must be clearly human, perhaps, however, never without a sub-reference to Vṛtra, though, as the neuter is used in this way, it may be that the use is not simply a direct generalization of Vṛtra as a demon. The Brāhmaṇas, which tell many tales about Vṛtra,¹ make him out to be the moon, swallowed at new moon by Indra as the sun.

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¹ Hillebrandt, *Ved. Myth.* iii. 239 ff. Usener (*Götternamen*, p. 206) finds the Danaoi in the Dānava as demons, despite the change of quantity. Implausible is the view that Vṛtra is a creation of the imagination, *vṛtrahan*, as in the Avesta Verethraghna, denoting ‘assault repelling’ (Bartholomae, *Air. Wb.* 1420).

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Vala is a pale figure compared to Vṛtra: he is mentioned in the myth of the Paṇis: Bṛhaspati or Indra takes from him the cows which he had in his forts, his fences are burst by Indra, or his hole is opened. The word means literally covering, and is found often in this sense or in some cognate meaning. The fold of Vala is also mentioned, and he is clearly simply the personification of the pen in which the cows are supposed to be kept, as is indicated by the fact that he is not said to be slain, but to be pierced, broken, or cloven. In the post-Vedic mythology he appears in the epithet of Indra, ‘piercer of Vala’, and is deemed brother of Vṛtra, with whose myth, however, he had, it is clear, little originally to do.²

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² Hillebrandt, *Ved. Myth.* iii. 260–6.

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Arbuda appears seven times as a beast whose head Indra struck off: he seems to be cognate to Vṛtra with whom or Ahi he is mentioned.³ Svarbhānu,⁴ the Asura, is more interesting: he is clearly the demon who eclipses the sun, and who has to be overthrown by Atri or the Atris, and by Indra. Though he is several times mentioned in the Brāhmaṇas, his place is in post-Vedic mythology regularly taken by Rāhu. The Atharvaveda⁵ also knows of Grahas who affect the moon. Of Uraṇa who had ninety-nine arms we know no more.⁶ But we hear a good deal of Viçvarūpa, the three-headed son of Tvaṣṭṛ, slain by Trita and by Indra for the sake of his cows, and who in the Brāhmaṇas⁷ appears as the Purohita of the gods, though akin to the Asuras. Tvaṣṭṛ, it is said, sought to punish Indra for the death of his son, but his effort to exclude him from the Soma sacrifice was defeated by Indra, who insisted on taking a share in it. The legend tells also of the origin of three birds from the three heads of the demon, as they were struck off by Indra, and explains the use of each of the three heads for drinking respectively the Soma, the Surā, and taking other forms of nourishment.⁸ To Hillebrandt⁹ the moon seems to be meant by this form, and he lays just stress on the fact that the Brāhmaṇas are aware of the hostile character of the moon, which they often equate with Vṛtra, and which seems once regarded in a hostile light in the Rigveda; but this view cannot be regarded as probable as that which insists on the identity of the legend with those of Herakles and Geryoneus and Hercules and Cacus.¹⁰

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³ RV. ii. 11. 20; 14. 4; i. 51. 6; viii. 3. 19; 32. 2; x. 67. 12. Cf. the snake priest Arbuda Kādraveya, ÇB. xiii. 4. 3. 9.

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⁴ RV. v. 60; Rāhu occurs in AV. xix. 9. 10, a late passage.

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⁵ *Loc. cit.*

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⁶ RV. ii. 14. 4.

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⁷ TS. ii. 5. 1. 1. For the three heads, cf. Hopkins, *Origin of Religion*, pp. 297 ff.

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⁸ ÇB. i. 6. 3. 1 ff.; v. 5. 4. 2; TS. ii. 4. 12. 1.

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⁹ *Ved. Myth.* iii. 531 ff.

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¹⁰ Oldenberg, *Rel. des Veda*², p. 142, n. 6.

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Of the Dāsa enemies of Indra the chief is Çambara, the son of Kulitara,¹ who had 90, 99, or 100 forts and was the great foe of Divodāsa Atithigva. His historical reality seems reasonably assumed.² Pipru is styled a wild beast, an Asura, and a Dāsa, and is defeated for the sake of Rjiçvan: it seems unnecessary to see in him a spirit of the air.³ Dhuni, the roarer, and Cumuri, whose name is not connected with any known root, are apparently chiefs defeated for Dabhīti. Varcin is both Asura and Dāsa, but his 1,100 or 100,000⁴ warriors do not seem wholly mythical, and the names Anarçani, Ilibiça, Dṛbhīka, Rudhikrā, and Sṛbinda, which are those of other foes, seem human enough. On the other hand, Namuci, as we have seen, seems to be a demon, and Çuṣṇa has been explained not as a human enemy of Kutsa, but as a demon of drought from his name interpreted as scorcher.⁵ But this seems unlikely: he is child of the mist and moves in the water and a Dānava; if, therefore, he is a demon, he is rather the hisser, for Vṛtra’s hissing drove Indra away in fear, and this applies to other enemies than drought demons.

Linked texts (8)

Ṛgvedasaṃhitā — Sanskrit
Taittirīyasaṃhitā — Sanskrit
Śatapathabrāhmaṇa — Yājñavalkya & Śāṇḍilya (Vedic teacher), Sanskrit
Maitrāyaṇīsaṃhitā — Sanskrit
Taittirīyabrāhmaṇa — Sanskrit
Atharvavedasaṃhitā — Atharvan & Aṅgiras, Sanskrit
Jaiminīyabrāhmaṇa — Sanskrit
Pañcaviṃśabrāhmaṇa — Sanskrit