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66 are enemies both to gods and to men and whom the gods overthrow for the benefit of men no less than of themselves. The Asuras, as the demons are called throughout Indian literature subsequent to the age of the Ṛgveda, have not yet attained that position at the earliest period. Asura there means a spirit who is normally benignant; in four passages only (and three of those are in the tenth and latest book) are the Asuras mentioned as demons, and in the singular the word has this sense only thrice, while the epithet "slaying Asuras" is applied once each to Indra, Agni, and the sun. Much more commonly mentioned are the Paṇis, whose cows are won by the gods, especially Indra. Their name denotes "Niggard," especially with regard to the sacrificial gifts, and thus, no doubt, an epithet of human meanness has been transferred to demoniac foes, who are accused of having concealed even the ghee in the cow. Other human enemies who rank as demons are the Dāsas and Dasyus; and by a natural turn of language Dāsa comes to denote "slave" and is found in this sense in the Ṛgveda itself. Besides the historical Dāsas, who were doubtless the aborigines, rank others who seek to scale heaven and who withhold the sun and the waters from the gods; and the autumnal forts of the Dāsas can hardly have been mere human citadels. While, however, the transfer of name from men to demons is clear, can we go further and equate the Paṇis and Dāsas to definite tribes, and see in them Parnians and Dahae, against whom the Vedic Indians waged warfare in the land of Arachosia? The conjecture is attractive, but it shifts the scene of Vedic activity too far west and compels us to place the events of the sixth book of the Ṛgveda far distant from those described in book seven, the interest of which centres in the Indian "Middle Country," the home in all probability of the greater part of the Vedic poetry.

Much more common as a generic name of the adversaries of the gods is Rakṣas, either "the Injurious," or "That Which is to be Guarded Against." Rarely these demons are called Yātus or Yātudhānas ("Sorcerers"), who represent, no doubt,