When you chant hymns
praising the God as destroyer of Mahishasura or other Asuras, have you ever
wondered who are the Devas and the Asuras? We will have to go back in timeline
to find the answers.
It was during 2000-
1000 BCE that the Aryans came to settle in India. They pushed the original
population to further south and east to settle in the land. Then the Vedic era
started. Their kings become heroes of the epics Ramayana and Mahabharatha. The
Aryans were described as Devas and their enemies as Asuras. They popularized the Gods worshiped in
Hinduism and absorbed the local gods into its straggled arena in course of
time. Thus lords Muruga , Ayyappa were
accommodated to the array of Vedic Gods
. Some Asura rajas such as Mahabali and Kubera were so noble that even
the writers could not help themselves from mentioning them .The fairer and
cuter cows they bought along with them got superior place over the black and
beastly buffalos. Thus the buffalo king “Mahishasura” undoubtedly represent the original population
in India. It really pricks to think that the demons mentioned in our prayer
songs were the unsung heroes who resisted the invaders!!!
