Indian Horror Culture as an Alternative Space The earliest history of the very beginning of what is today known as or called the horror culture in Indian context, begins somewhere during the latter part of the Vedic period, during the existence of Rig-Veda where the distinction between Asura or Demons and Suras or god came into being and the term Asura came to be associated closely with the enemies of god, this view of Asura personifying evil and deva personifying good, was further propagated in the Atharva Veda and the epic tradition however the same did not exist in the early Vedic period, during this period there was no clear distinction between the ideas of Asura and Deva in fact, Asura as a term was used to refer to deities specifically Varun and Mitra in the early Vedic period. The idea of Asura being symbolized as demons is not only the one that crops up during rigveda without any prior signs but also the one that find its critic in the old Persian languages (where ‘h’ is placed before ‘s’ as in Greek), in these languages the words Ahura signifies god which is evident from the fact that the Zoroastrian chief god is called Ahura Mazda, similar to the way in which Varuna is addressed as Asura in early rigvedic hymns again showing how the change in the ideas came suddenly with no documentation available to account the shift in perceptions of ‘Asura’ and ‘Deva’ , another critic of the same idea of ‘Asura’ being evil is presented in the Iranian ideology where ‘Deva’ came to be known as synonymous to ‘Demon’ therefore leaving to us a fragmented picture of unclear transformation of hindu ‘devas’ as demons in Iranian and Persian Ahuras or gods as ‘demons’ in Hindu mythology what we know with certainty is that after Atharvaveda and in subsequent epics asura came to be completely associated with the symbols of “evil, darkness and drought” and were depicted as deceitful, selfish and uncultured in comparison to the higher stature of gods. Other descriptions provided for Asuras are more inclined towards using the idea of asuras as a tool for moral conditioning, whereby Asuras are described as hovering around sacrificial rites and if these rites are not performed properly they shall devour those defaulters. With the firm placing of Asuras as the headstone for creation of more such creature and thus a beginning for horror culture in earliest sense, came the subtypes of asuras, all of which find their reflections in various other mythologies across different cultures. Further there were Daityas who were the asuras of oceans and the decedents of the chaos hags Diti and Danu and were supposed to have a lifestyle matching to the stature of gods, these were the demons who fought against the devas much like the Titans in Greek mythology and the Irish fomorians and were then confined to the Patala by Indra with a prophecy of being let loose to take part in the “last battle” like the Norse giants and in their abode in the patala these demons nurse an “asurafire” which is to burn constantly, fed by water and is never to be extinguished and according to the folklore when the end will come this fire will burst forth and devour all three worlds which is again similar to the idea of fire at rangnarok which must end the world by engulfing it all at “the dusk of the gods”. Another dweller of the underworld are Nagas who symbolize shifting narratives among the Aryan civilizations and Vedic ideologies, initially nagas were to be defined as demoniac cobras who were human to waist and rest of the body was that of the serpent, ruled by the king who was called Shesha or vasuki or Karkotaka and had thousand heads, an idea which is much in sync with the idea of the typhon who fought Zeus .This king ruled with his three host dragons, vritra “the encompaser”, ahi”the confiner” and fierce kushva “the scorcher” who spits fire and burns up the day however as stated earlier nagas shows the shift in ideologies manifested in the form of the later narratives where nagas were considered ‘demigods’ due to an immense increase in serpent worship. This changed the perspective on nagas providing to us the contradictory perspective of naga females as beautiful nymphs who were wooed by mortals as opposed to the earlier view of demonic appearance. Also there came another contra view that they provided drought of nectar for the ones they favoured, the nectar which provided strength. The view of nagas thus changed unlike other creatures or asuras they were not in direct contest with gods. Vol 1.1
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Bitacora
