Devil is not a Hindu concept. It’s a Christian concept. The Hindi word for devil – shaitan – is actually an Urdu word rooted in Persian thought. We often assume that all religions are the same and every mythology must have the devil. Hindu mythology does not have the concept of devil because Hinduism does not have the concept of evil. Devil is the embodiment of evil in Christian mythology.
Evil is a concept used by religious folk in the West to explain negative events that have no root cause. God is good and kind and so he cannot be the source of hurricanes and tornadoes, and murders and rape. So these negative events are attributed to the devil who spreads evil. Of course, people argue if God is all powerful why does he not defeat the devil and end all negative events. To this, the priests who have appointed themselves as defence lawyers of God say: we are suffering for the evil decisions made by humans who have succumbed to the devil’s temptations. God had given humans the freedom to choose between himself and the devil, the good and the evil.
Such ideas are alien to Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, where all events are the outcome of karma. Every action is karma. Every reaction is karma. Every cause is karma. Every consequence is karma. We live in a web of karma. We have control over our karma, but not on karma generated by others. And so bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people. Good and bad are human judgements, based on how we interpret the world. There is no good or bad in the world itself; it’s an outcome of human understanding. People with lesser wisdom prefer to divide the world into binaries of good and bad, right and wrong. People who are more wise, see the bigger picture, and hold no one responsible for good or bad events. They need neither god nor devil. So there is no need for shaitan. Buddha, Tirthankaras, Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva and all the gurus help the ignorant become wise so we don’t feel the need to describe an event as evil. Every event, even the inexplicable, irrational ones, has a cause. There is no God or devil out there causing it. God, in Hinduism, is our ability to be wise, to look beyond good and evil.
So who are the asuras and rakshasas? How does one describe Andhaka, who is killed by Shiva, or Kansa, who is killed by Krishna, or Ravana, who is killed by Ram, or Mahisha, who is killed by Durga? For this we have to go back to the basics of Hindu mythology.
The puranas say that all creatures are born of Brahma. From Brahma come various rishis and prajapatis who father different kinds of living creatures. So Kashyapa, son of Brahma, has many wives such as Aditi, Diti and Danu, who give birth to different children such as adityas, daityas and danavas. Though born of same father, adityas and daityas are always quarrelling. English writers called adityas the gods of Hinduism and daityas as the demons of Hinduism. Daityas and danavas are clubbed together as asuras. But things are not so simple.
Diti was about to give birth to a child greater than Indra, leader of adityas. Indra cut the embryo into 11 parts. Each part started to cry. Indra said, “Don’t cry and so they called themselves maruttas, the children who don’t cry. They became followers of Indra, and friends of the adityas, and called themselves 11 maruttas. They were also called rudras, the howlers. Thus, the 33 “devas” or gods of Vedic-Hindu mythology were made of 12 adityas and 11 maruttas as well as eight vasus and two ashwins, not all born of the same mother, but everyone traced to the same father, Kashyapa. Enemies of the devas, also born of Kashyapa, were called asuras. Their battle was vertical between earth and sky, with asuras inhabiting realm under the earth (patala) and devas occupying the glittering realm beyond the sky (swarga).
Rakshasas descended from another son of Brahma – Pulatsya. From Brahma came Pulatsya, from Pulatsya came Vishrava, from whom came the rakshasas and the yakhasas, who were led by Ravana and Kubera respectively, according to the Ramayana. Just as devas fought asuras, rakshasas fought yakshas. Rakshasas lived in south while yakshas moved north. Rakshasas also fought rishis. Rishis clubbed the rakshasas with asuras. Hence, in the Mahabharata, the various forest dwellers who oppose the Pandavas and the Vedic lifestyle – Baka, Hidimba, Jata, Kirmira – are all called asuras. Vedic lifestyle was based on yagna, that is exchange, you give in order to receive, while rakshasas lifestyle was based on either grabbing or sharing, suggesting an old tribal order. In fact, rakshasas are described as guardians (raksha) of forest. Thus, the battle here suggests conflict between rishis who preferred agriculture and trade and rakshasas who preferred old hunter-gatherer ways. The battle here is horizontal on earth, between settled village communities and nomadic tribals.
Devdutt Pattanaik is an Indian physician turned leadership consultant, mythologist, author and communicator whose works focus largely on the areas of myth, religion, mythology, and management.