ColossiansOne

celestial hierarchy

Devas and Asuras

The single most instructive structure in the compendium. Sanskrit deva and asura are cognate with Avestan daeva and ahura — the same two inherited categories, with the moral values assigned in opposite directions by two branches of one religion.

Rigveda · c. 1500-1200 BCE

Entries per grouping

Source base of members

  • 80+6
  • 50–792
  • 25–493

Alignment mix

  • Celestial2
  • Disputed8
  • Infernal1

11 of 14 nodes link to a profile; the rest are structural labels from the source text.

14 nodes

the whole structure as one tree

Devas and AsurasDevas and AsurasIn India: devas divine, …In India: devas divine, asuras demonicIndraKing of the devas. S…Indra — King of the devas. Slays Vritra.AgniFire, and the mouth …Agni — Fire, and the mouth that carries offerings up.VarunaCalled asura as an h…Varuna — Called asura as an honorific in the oldest hymns.RudraSends disease and ho…Rudra — Sends disease and holds a thousand remedies.YamaFirst to die, so kin…Yama — First to die, so king of the dead.The AsurasEqual in power, oppo…The Asuras — Equal in power, opposed in aim.VritraThe serpent holding back the w…Vritra — The serpent holding back the waters.In Iran: ahuras divine, …The identical pair of words, v…In Iran: ahuras divine, daevas demonic — The identical pair of words, valued the other way round.Ahura MazdaAhura as the highest…Ahura Mazda — Ahura as the highest title.AeshmaA daeva — the same w…Aeshma — A daeva — the same word India uses for its gods.Later Hindu figuresPost-Vedic, and often mistaken…Later Hindu figures — Post-Vedic, and often mistakenly read back into the Rigveda.KaliFrom the Devi Mahatm…Kali — From the Devi Mahatmya, two thousand years after the Rigveda.RavanaFrom the Ramayana. A…Ravana — From the Ramayana. A brahmin, scholar and ascetic.

Reading this tree

Nodes with a coloured dot and an underline link to a full profile. Structural nodes — spheres, ranks, offices — are labels from the source text itself and have no separate entry. Where a figure appears in more than one hierarchy, its profile lists every placement.

The book this structure comes from

A hierarchy is one text's arrangement, not a consensus. This is the text.

All hierarchies