Asura, Buddhist god of war
Asura is the name of god. Asura is god of war in the doctrine of Buddhism. He may be equivalent to Mars in Roman gods and goddesses. The doctrine of Buddhism shows some gods of war, despite its basic principle of love and mercy. They are “Tai Shaku Ten”, “Ma Ri Shi Ten”, “Ji Koku Ten”, “Zou Cho Ten”, “Kou Moku Ten”, “Bi Sha Mon Ten” and “Asura”. All the gods of war are for the defense of the Buddha’s doctrine and Buddhism against all monsters. Ancient paintings and sculptures depict them as masculine traits of general and concerned humans. They look terrible, tough and powerful like their statues. Ashura is different.
The typical feature of Asura for the Japanese is the statue at Ko Fuku-ji Temple in Nara Prefecture. This statue is approximately 5 feet tall. It has 3 faces and 6 arms. There is nothing masculine in the body. His body is quite slim. 6 arms are also thin. Most notable is Asura’s face and appearance. Despite that, any other god of war has a masculine appearance, fierce and angry, Asura’s face looks relatively calm. He looks almost sad. His face looks almost like that of a young woman. According to historians, it is one of the Japanese historical mysteries that the ancient sculptor made Asura in this way.
Asura in the doctrine of Buddhism was a monster that fought against “Tai Shaku Ten”. After several violent conflicts, Asura realized that he never wins against the Buddha’s defense. Asura was spiritually awakened from how foolish he was to fight Buddha. He realized that he was fighting justice. He could never win against justice. Asura regretted his sinful fights. Asura became a god upholding the doctrine of Buddhism.
In some folklore, people respected Asura as a god of performance. He is a protective god of the production and reproduction of Mother Nature. This story reminds me of the ruling god Siva of the Hindus. Siva is famous for being a god of destruction. One can call on Siva so that he is the only God who has the right to destruction. Siva destroys human society when the human world becomes corrupted. He will then produce, nurture, grow and lead a new world. Siva is the supreme god for demolition and reproduction, as Asura is a god for fighting and reproduction.
People can find another similarity of these 2 gods in their statues. Both of them do not seem at all violent in their paintings and statues. Dancing Siva is one of the typical figures of this god. He is rather skinny and dances happily. His face looks like a woman’s, like Asura’s. Asura is as described above. She has the face of a sad girl. According to the myth of her, she may be trying to teach people sadness, vanity, and the meaninglessness of fighting. Asura keeps people attractive. The name Asura has been used several times for the heroes and heroines of cartoon stories. This year was a celebration of Ko-Fuku Ji Temple’s 1,300-year history. Ko-Fuku Ji brought the Asura statue to Tokyo for the exhibition. The exhibition set a world record of 15,000 visitors per day, total 946,172 visitors.