In Hinduism, the Asura (Sanskrit: असुर) are a group of power-seeking deities, sometimes referred to as demons or sinful. They were opposed to the devas. Both groups are children of Kashyapa. The views of Asuras in Hinduism vary due to the many deities who were Asuras then later became known as Devas. The name is cognate to Ahura—indeed, the Oxford English Dictionary recognises the use of the term in reference to Zoroastrianism, where "Ahura" would perhaps be more appropriate—and Æsir, which implies a common Proto-Indo-European origin for the Asura and the Æsir. In entry 48 of his Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Julius Pokorny reconstructs this common origin as *ansu-.
Mahishasura Statue, Chamundi hills, near Mysore.
The negative character of the asura in Hinduism seems to have evolved over time. In general, the earliest texts have the asuras presiding over moral and social phenomena (e.g. Varuna, the guardian of Ṛtá, or Bhaga, the patron of marriages) and the devas presiding over natural phenomena (e.g. Ushas, whose name means "dawn", or Indra, a weather god).
In later writings, such as the Puranas and Itihasas, we find that the "devas" are the godly persons and the "asuras" the demonic. According to the Bhagavad Gita (16.6), all beings in the world partake either of the divine qualities (daivi sampad) or the demonic qualities (asuri sampad). The sixteenth chapter of the Bhagavad Gita describes the divine qualities briefly and the demonic qualities at length. In summary the Gita (16.4) says that the asuric qualities are pride, arrogance, conceit, anger, harshness, and ignorance.
