ASHURA. - In the most ancient religious texts of India, the word A., which has its counterpart in the Iranian Ahura, means spirit, god (from asu, vital spirit?). It is an epithet of Varuna, the all-seeing god of the starry sky, the highest mythological figure of the Rgveda (v. VEDA). But in the later texts of the same Rgveda and in subsequent literature, A. comes to mean demon, and the reason for this change is not clear. According to Oldenberg, the epithet of A., "spirit," was predominantly given to gods endowed with dark magical powers, which were also common to demons; the meaning of "evil spirit" prevailed and A. became a synonym for demon. From A., erroneously understood as a (privative) + sura, the neologism sura, god, was then derived. The Aryans, invaders of India, called A. the subjugated black-skinned aborigines, who did not pay homage to the gods. It is not certain whether the present-day A., a non-Aryan tribe of Chota Nagpur (Bengal), which numbers 4,894 members, are descendants of the A. subjugated at that time by the Aryans. They are not farmers, but miners like their ancestors, and they work in the iron mines.

Bibliography2 works

BIBL.: H. Oldenberg, Die Religion des Veda, Berlin 1894, pp. 162-66; F. Hahn, s. v. in Enc. of Rel. and Eth., II, p. 157.

Ferdinando Belloni Filippi

@incollection{ec2_asura, author = {Belloni, Filippi Ferdinando}, title = {AŠUra}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {II}, pages = {251}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1949}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/asura} }

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Ashura

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