Asura in Early Vedic Religion.

• Author: Insler, Stanley

Students of Indo-Iranian religion have continuously puzzled over a two-pronged problem: (1) In the older Indian Rigveda the term asura is applied to several powerful and beneficent gods who merit equal if not greater respect than their divine counterparts designated by the term deva, whereas in the later Vedic texts asura is employed to describe a group of hostile and demonic forces continuously set in opposition and contention with the deva gods. (2) From the earliest Iranian texts (the Gathas of Zarathustra) the cognate term ahura is essentially used to describe the highest and most benevolent god of the religion (Mazda), while the cognate term daeva is applied to rival and evil gods. What was the Indo-Iranian situation? Were there opposing asura and daiva cults in the religion of the original community and, if so, do our texts simply reflect independent developments in each of the branches? In an attempt to answer these important questions, the book under review examines all the attestations of asura and its derivatives in Vedic literature and offers in an appendix a discussion of the term ahura in the Avesta. Its results are consequential for any scholar seriously interested in the history of Indian and Iranian religions and their textual traditions.

After reviewing and evaluating most fairly the many previous ideas of scholars about the problem, Hale discusses, as no one before him, the attestations of asura and its derivatives in the chronological order of the Vedic texts: the family books of the RV; books I, VIII, X; the AV; SV, RV khilas and the mantras of the YV; brahmanas. This approach reveals many important textual insights: (1) In the family books asura as a designation of gods appears only in the singular or dual (Mitra-Varuna) and is applied to gods who otherwise are called deva. In fact, in one verse Rudra is addressed in the accusative with the appositive devam asuram (V. 42.11). The term employed to describe an evil divinity is asura, applied to Svarbhanu in a single hymn (V. 40).

(2) In the same parts of the RV, asura designates humans four times, twice in friendly, twice in hostile contexts.

(3) For the later RV, singular and dual usage of the term with gods remains the same (all are otherwise called deva), but the employment of asura with humans in the singular is always in an inimical context. It is in these books that the plural use of asura first appears, two times each with favorable gods and humans, thrice with...