SHUDRAS AND THE COUNTER-REVOLUTION 419
not communities. The word Asura is generic name given to various tribes known by their tribal names of Daityas, Danavas, Dasyus, Kalananjas, Kaleyyas, Kalins, Nagas, Nivata-Kavachas, Paulomas, Pishachas and Raxasas. We do not know if the Suras and Devas were composed of various tribes as the Asuras were. We only know the leaders of the Deva Community. The well known amongst them were Brahma, Vishnu Rudra, Surya, Indra, Varuna, Soma etc.
Due mostly to the ignorant interpretations of Sayanacharya some very curious beliefs prevail even among the best informed people about these communities namely the Aryans, the Asuras and the Devas and their inter-relation and their consanguinity. It is believed that the Asuras were not a human species at all. They are held to have been ghosts and goblins who plagued the Aryans with their nocturnal visitations. The Suras or Devas are understood to be poetic deifications of nature’s forces. With regard to the Aryans the belief is that they were a fair race with sharp nose and had a great deal of colour prejudice. As to the Dasyus it is asserted that a Dasyu is only another name for a Shudra. The Shudras it is said formed the aboriginals of India. They were dark and flat nosed. The Aryans who invaded India conquered them and made them slaves and as a badge of slavery gave them the name Dasyu which it is said comes from the word Das [1] which means a slave.
Every one of these beliefs is unfounded. The Asuras and Suras were communities of human beings as the Aryans were. The Asuras and Suras were descended from a common father Kashapa. The story is that Daksha Prajapati had 60 daughters, of them thirteen were given in marriage to Kashapa. Diti and Aditi were two among the 13 of Kashapa’s wives. Those born to Diti were called Asuras and those born to Aditi were called Suras or Devas. The two faught a long and a bloody battle for the soverignty of the world. This no doubt is mythology and mythology though it is history in hyperbole is still history.
The Aryans were not a race. The Aryans were a collection of people. The cement that held them together was their interest in the maintenance of a type of culture called Aryan culture. Any one who accepted the Aryan culture was an Aryan. Not being a race there was no fixed type of colour and physiognomy which could be called Aryan. There was no dark and flat nose people for the Aryans to distinguish themselves from [2] . The whole of this edifice of colour prejudice as being factors for division and antagonism between Aryans and the Dasyus is based upon a wrong meaning given to the two words Varna and Anas which are used with reference to the Dasyus. The word Varna is taken to mean colour and the
1 According to Nirukta, Das means to destroy.
2 On the whole of this subject see a brilliant discussion by Mr. Satvalekar in Purusharth Vol. XIII. p.