The son of God turned into Asura

Indian mythology has always mentioned the atrocities committed by the asuras. They were sometimes powerful rulers and their notorious conduct on the kingdoms ultimately leads a God to emerge and create peace on earth. Did you know, a dynasty of asuras existed in India at one point in time?

The war between the gods and the Asuras. Image Source: Godhead

In normal tales, asuras are not born. They are religious people who at first worship whole heartedly and get a boon from some Gods (usually Lord Brahma does the blunder). After getting the boon, they turn arrogant and consider themselves to be gods for which the Gods and Goddesses have to come on earth and save humankind.

This is the story of Naraka, aka Narakasura. The legends of Nakara can be found in both the epics, a few vamsas, and also in a few puranas. According to the legends, Naraka was the son of Mother Earth, Prithvi through the boar reincarnation of Lord Vishnu, i.e. Varaha. This story gave him another name of Bhauma (meaning born of the earth) and all the ruling family of Ancient Assam trace their descents to him.

After being born, Naraka was left on the sacrificial grounds of king Janaka of Videha (the father of Sita in Ramayana). He picked up baby Naraka from inside the skull of a dead, took him home, and bought him up along the royal princes. Goddess Prithvi took human form and nurtured him as a nurse named Katyayani.

Naraka excelled in every field which alarmed his foster parents to fear that he might take over the kingdom. When Naraka realized that he was the cause of their peril, he left the kingdom with Katyayani along with a company of followers. With the help of his real father Vishnu, he became the ruler of Pragjyotishpura (ancient name of Assam).

During the early years of his rule, he seemed to be very pious and a great administrator. He settled Brahmanas in this part of the country, began the worship of Shakti goddess Kamakhya. But after meeting Banasura, (a neighbouring king) he turned atheistic and egoistical. He turned so haughty that he wanted to make Goddess Kamakhya his wife!

The Goddess gave him an impossible task: to erect the road leading to the temple in one night. He took upon the challenge and would have been successful lest the Goddess herself signalled a cock to crow indicating dawn. The Goddess was, thus, saved but furious Narakasura killed the cock.

This nefarious character considered himself so self-important that he refused to allow the famous seer Vashisth to worship at the Kamakhya temple, for which he was even cursed that any worship at this temple will turn fruitless. With Lord Shiva to the rescue, this curse was decreased from forever to 300 years.

Naraka does not stop his atrocities here. He also stole the chattra (umbrella) of God Varuna and the gold earring of Aditi, who is considered to be the mother of all Gods.

The news of his transgressions reached Lord Krishna in Dwarka (a reincarnation of Vishnu). Krishna went all the way to Pragjyotishpura, fought Narakasura, and defeated him. He placed Naraka's son, Bhagadatta, on the throne and returned the belongings of God Varuna and Aditi. He also rescued 16,000 ladies imprisoned in his harem and 14,000 horses and elephants and sent them to his kingdom at Dwarka.

An interesting legend, isn't it? While reading the misdoings of Naraka, one forgets to notice how the story has jumped from the time of Ramayana (adopted by King Janaka) to that of Mahabharata (killed by Lord Krishna). Ramayana took place in the Satya Yuga, while the Mahabharata war supposedly took place in the Treta Yuga (Yuga=Indian denotation of Ages). If Naraka is assumed to have lived during both ages, he would have been probably more than at least 3000 years old. This is what makes the legend of the asura-dynasty amazing. But how could that happen? We shall try to find the answers to this tricky question in the next section.