Gods and Demons

Did you know that as per the Indian mythology, the gods and the demons were related?


Let’s go thru the lineage of the gods and the demons.

Sage Kashyap was the son of Marichi who was one of the sons (Manas-putra) of Lord Brahma. Kashyap was considered to be the father of all. He was married to thirteen daughters of Prajapati, two of which were Diti and Aditi.

Aditi was blessed with children who went on to be known as Aditya’s, the deva’s or the gods. She was also the mother of Indra, who was the king of all gods. Seeing her children, Diti too demanded the company of Kashyap, so that she too could gain motherhood. Kashyap agreed to her request, but asked her to wait for an hour, as the hour was considered to be inauspicious for venturing onto the path of motherhood. But Diti who had been overcome with lust and desire, could not wait and insisted his company immediately, and tugged at his garments, a sign of violation of modesty. Since Diti was overcome with impure thoughts and loaded with lust, she gave birth to two sons who would go on violate all civilised and ethical norms. These sons were Hiranyakashipu and Hiranyayaksha, considered to the predecessors of the Asura's. Though the deva’s and the asura’s were brothers, they never got along with each other ever.

A demon would be a very poor connotation for asura. The simplest form of description could be that the asura’s were just not deva’s or gods. Asura’s were powerful beings who were in constant conflict with the gods/deva’s. Some of them did have evil natures as opposed to the gods, but they were not the incarnation of evil. However, during the Puranic times, these asura’s were painted as demons, but this could be seen more as an effort to highlight the achievements of the gods. One could also see this as an effort by the early thinkers to attribute all ‘bad’ qualities in the asura’s, primarily to differentiate them from the ‘good’ gods and also to tell mankind in general that all such qualities attribute to the asura’s were not to be aspired for or to stay away from.

Sage Kashyap was considered to be the father of all – gods, asura’s, the nagas and the mankind. His sons were the predecessors of the well known Suryavanshi (Solar dynasty) kings and the Raghuvanshi (Lunar dynasty) kings. He fathered the Nagas (the serpents) from his wife, Kadru. Apsaras were born from his wife Muni.

Thus we see that Sage Kashyap was the father of all, the inhabitants of all the three worlds – earth, heaven and the netherworld.