What is the difference between asuras and rakshasas?
Answer Podcast
Transcript
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as long as the soul has the material body thank you. Asuras and Rakshasas terminology is often not exactly black and white but broadly speaking if we see the way the words are used broadly in the Bhagavad Gita there is daiva prakriti and asuri prakriti in that context we could say the asuri prakriti refers more to a mentality a disposition and thus much of the description that Krishna gives in the Bhagavad Gita can be said to apply even to say a sanyasi sorry not a sanyasi even to a human being even somebody who is supposed to be a virtuous human being normally they may have asuri prakriti temporarily they may temporarily behave in demoniac ways or somebody who is born in a human family like if you see the description of how a person is craving for wealth as given in the Bhagavad Gita that applies very much to Duryodhana that I have earned this much money and that much money I will earn more so this kind of description what does it indicate it indicates that there is a very pronounced demoniac mentality even in a person like Duryodhana so he is not in a rakshasa body so rakshasa broadly refers to a species whereas asura refers to a mentality that so for example somebody may be a human body not a demoniac body but not a rakshasa body but still they might have a demoniac mentality so having said so there can be various lower species so there are daityas, danavas, rakshasas and these are all considered various species so rakshasa refers more to a species now asura now daitya danavas they are all demoniac species but a rakshasa is one particular species having said that we may also sometimes see the word rakshasi used in a mentality sense so I said that words can have contextually different meanings so here when Krishna says rakshasim asurim chaiva so he can refer here that one can get a demoniac mentality or even a demoniac body and so it can generally speaking rakshasa refers to a species so a particular body with who with say nails coming out of their head or something like that of course all demons might not have that kind of body also but but generally demons are considered more powerful than humans in physical prowess not in moral virtue or spiritual inclination and they are a lower conscious they have a particular level of physical strength which is on on almost on par with the devatas although lesser so rakshasas can rakshasas usually have a asuri mentality although manavas can also have asuri mentality and temporary devatas can also exhibit asuri mentality when say Indira tries to destroy the vajvasis for example now of course there can be rakshasas who do not have an asuri mentality like Prahalad is born in rakshasa family Uttarasur was born in rakshasa family but of course technically he was born in a daitya family Prahalad not exactly a rakshasa family the son of Diti they are called daityas so there can be technical classifications but generically generally you could say rakshasa refers to body species and asura refers to mentality