These Hindu Asura included various classes of demons: the N agas or serpent demons, the Ahi, the demons of drought, Kamsa, an archdemon, and Rakshasa or “Harm to be guarded against,” a group of demons who haunted cemeteries and caused violent deaths and caused people to commit foolish acts.Īlong with the Devas or gods, Azuras seemed to be a way for Hindus to conceptualize the balance between light and dark in the world. While Zorastarians regarded the Ahura as a force for good, Hindus saw the Asuras as evil. However, they seem to originate in the Iranian Ahura, the celestial beings of the Zoroastrians. The Asuras made their first appearance in the Hindu Vedas, a collection of poems written between 1500-1200 BC. The Asuras exemplified balance between light and dark. The Djinn are not the only demons with an ambiguous reputation. This reputation for malevolence is compounded by the fact the chief Djinn, Iblis is also known as Azazel-the Islamic Devil. Islam teaches that every human has an evil djinn whose sole purpose is to tempt its’ human opposite number into evil. In the worst scenarios, they would raise storms and cause disease, insanity, and death. For although the Djinn could be helpers, they were also known to be malicious tricksters. This unusual attribute gave the djinn a sinister appearance that married well with some of their more suspect traits. Whatever form they took, people could quickly identify them by their flaming eyes which were also vertical rather than horizontal. If they appeared before humans, the djinn could appear as animals, monsters or people. In this sense, they are very much like Roman G eni Loci-spirits of place, and it was customary to ask the local djinns permission before drawing water or even traveling into alien territory. However, the djinn also haunted the human world, with favorite places of residence being the desert as well as rivers, wells, and even marketplaces. In Persian mythology, the Djinn had their own land, Jinnistan, whose capital was The City of jewels. However, a long lifespan compensated them for these disadvantages. They were not immortal, and humans could kill them. The Djinn were spiritual beings formless shapeshifters with magical powers, who are ranked somewhere between humans and angels. Neither good nor evil, the Djinn were supernatural spirits, born of smokeless fire long before the creation of humanity. The Jinn or Djinn of Arabic and Islamic mythology closely match the original, Classical daimon or daemon. The Djinn, a being between an angel and human, whose purpose was to tempt humans with their trickster ways. Imam Ali Conquers Jinn, unknown artist, from the book Ahsan-ol-Kobar (1568). Here are just sixteen of those demons from history. In fact, the demons of any given time or place tell us a great deal about the preoccupations of those cultures. By downgrading fallen deities to the demonic rank and file, they were discredited and made less attractive objects of worship. It also became a way of relabeling the gods of defunct religions. The word demon became a cross-cultural term for the entities behind such events. For across all time periods and cultures, the idea of evil spirits has been used to explain the unexplainable, be that disease, disaster or just plain ill luck. This concept of malign forces at work in the world is a universal one. Whether wholly spiritual or in a physical form, the sole purpose of these diabolical entities was to corrupt or torment humanity. And so, the concept of the demon as an agent solely of evil was born. For a Greek translation of the original Hebrew Bible, the Septuagint Bible, for the Jews of Alexandria used the term daemon in specific reference to evil spirits. However, in the second century AD, the meaning of the word “ daimon” changed. “ Daimons” could be good or evil, dependent on their character or circumstance. To the Romans, they were also guardian spirits of individual people or places. Some were minor gods, others dead heroes. Instead, they were gifted with divine powers to help and harm and acted as intermediaries between the gods and humankind. ‘These Classical ‘demons’ were not evil per se. For the word, ‘demon’ comes from the ancient Greek for spirit ‘daimon’ ( daemon in Latin). However, originally, the term referred to something very different. The word ‘demon’ conjures images of evil entities out to tempt or torment.
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