The Asuras are partly—but not completely -- demonic in Buddhism. Buddhism takes the basic idea from Hinduism.
Mostly the Asuras of Buddhism represent some mental state of humans that is not nice. For example, anger or pride or violence. There are many different kinds of Asuras. They are always angry with everyone and are always fighting. Their leaders are called the Asurendra, which means "Lord of Asuras".
The Asuras are almost human in their emotions. On the Buddhist scale of supernatural beings, the Asuras are almost at the bottom.
Buddhism is very popular in the far east. So, many of the Asuras also have Japanese, Chinese and Korean names.
The Vedas are the most holy books of the Indian religions, especially of Hinduism. There are four Vedas, and they are all very, very old. The oldest of the Vedas is called the RigVeda, and it is more than 3,000 years old.
In the RigVeda the Asuras are not yet demons. At that time the Asuras and the Devas were both still groups of gods. In fact, many of the figures of the RigVeda are both "asura"s "and" "daeva"s. This is because, at that time, the two words were not yet names of groups. They were just names of characteristics. "Asura" means "life", and so the gods who were called "asura"s were thought to give life. And the "daeva"s were shining. This is the original meaning of the names. In later books they became different.
In the RigVeda many of the devas are called asuras, and many of the asuras are called devas. Sometimes they are also called both at the same time: Like "daev"ic" asuras" or "asur"ic" devas". The "-"ic"" makes those words a part of the other word. There are some beings who are both ahuric daevas "and" daevic ahuras. This shows that there was no big difference between 'ahura' and 'daeva' in the RigVeda.
The forefathers of the people who wrote the Vedas spoke Sanskrit. Sanskrit is the source of many Indian languages. The stories in the Rig Veda are seen in the books of various North Indian peoples, and also in the books of some Iranian peoples like the Zoroastrians.
One of the books of the Iranian peoples is called the Avesta. It is not really one book, but a collection of many books, but together they are called the Avesta. The Avesta is the holy book of Zoroastrianism. The language of the Avesta is very similar to the language of the RigVeda. The Avesta also has asuras and devas. But in Iran they are written as "ahura" and "daeva".
The old part of the Avesta is almost as old as the RigVeda. In this old part of the Avesta the ahuras and the daevas are almost like they are in the RigVeda. In both books they are groups of supernatural beings. But they are very different in character.
Some time after the RigVeda was written, stories were told about the asuras and devas that made them not friends any more. A similar thing also happened in the Avesta. Only that the two groups had been switched: The Asuras became demons in regions where North Indian languages were spoken, and the Daevas became demons in regions where Iranian languages were spoken.
It is not known for sure why this happened. It was a very, very long time ago.
One possible reason why the Asuras became demons in India is this: Some time after the RigVeda was written Indians started to think that "asura" means "a-sura", which means "not a hero". So, maybe that way the "asura"s got a bad name.
One possible reason why the Daevas became demons in Iran is this: At about the same time as the Indians were writing the last part of the RigVeda, a very thoughtful man named Zoroaster appeared in Iran. He thought and thought a lot about why there was goodness and badness in the world. Finally, he told everyone what he had been thinking about. And one of those things was that Daevas were not to be trusted because they could not tell the difference between truth and lies. After some time Zoroaster became very popular for his ideas. And so, with time, the Daevas became demons in Iran.
In both cases, the one side did not know what the other side was thinking. So in India only the Asuras became demons. And in Iran only the Daevas became demons.
Many, many centuries before the RigVeda and before Zoroaster, a name that sounds like "Asura" was the proper name of a very mighty god. Some scholars say his name was "Ansu" but this is not sure. So that is why they write the name as "*Ansu". That '*' means it is not sure. *Ansu was the god of life from which the name 'asura' and 'ahura' comes. We know that this god existed because far, far away in Northern Europe there was also a god named 'Aesir', who was also a giver of life. It sometimes can happen that a similar name appears in two or three places. But it is very rare that the same name with the same function appears. So, that is why 'Asura' and 'Ahura' and 'Aesir' must be all come from '*Ansu'. And we know that such a god must have been very powerful because he was very popular for so very long.
Although the Asuras and the Ahuras are related, they should not be mixed up. This is not only because their names are slightly different. It is also because they are very different. But the most important thing is that they are from different cultures. Even if they came from the same place, that was very long ago. After such a long much time, people have very different ideas about them.
Intercontinental ballistic missile
ICBM is an acronym. It stands for Intercontinental Ballistic Missile. It is a missile that can travel such distances so it can be used from one continent to another. The missile can then carry a bomb. This can be a conventional or nuclear warhead. Today, most of the time, it will be a nuclear warhead.It is a guided ballistic missile which follows a path and has a range of 5500 km.They are primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery but can also carry chemical and biological weapons.
Elevation
When talking about geography the elevation of a certain point is how high it is compared to some reference point. Very often, the reference point is mean sea level, the level of the ocean midway between high and low tide on an average day. Most land has a positive elevation, which means it is above sea level. A few desert places are below sea level, thus have negative elevation.
Sometimes elevation is measured against the center of the earth. The problem there is that the earth does not really look like a ball, it is slightly squashed (an oblate spheroid). This means, that while still at mean sea level (at the equator), some points are farther away from the center of the earth than others. That way the peak of Chimborazo, a volcano in Ecuador is farther away from the center of the earth than the peak of Mount Everest. Yet, Mount Everest is higher above sea level.
Bastila Shan
Bastila Shan is a character from the "Star Wars" universe.
Bastila Shan was born in the year 3,979 BBY. She is the daughter of Helena Shan and an unknown treasure hunter who joined the Jedi Order despite her protests. She became a valuable member to the Jedi Order despite her young age due to her mastery of Battle Meditation. During the Jedi Civil War, she was responsible for the capture of Darth Revan, with whom she fell in love.
After the amnesic Darth Revan was given an entirely new identity, they worked together for a long time, searching for the Star Forge.
After Revan learnt of his true identity she was captured and tortured by Darth Malak and turned to the dark side. During a confrontation, she tried to persuade the redeemed Revan to return to the dark side and reclaim his rightful place. After being rejected and forced to flee to the Star Forge, Bastila confronted Revan again and lost. She begged him to kill her, but he refused and used the power of their love to bring her back to the light and help the Republic in the Battle of Rakata Prime.