Jawnomicon

Danavas

Also called Danava.

The Danavas are a lineage of Hindu asuras descended from Danu, giants who withhold cosmic waters, deceive and battle Indra, and build for their own side before being driven beneath the ocean.

At a glance

Tradition
Indian folklore
Region
India (place of origin)Underworld
Trait family
The Rain-Holders

Near this figure

Traits

Read from the figure's description, which a model wrote. Open "why" for the sentence a trait came from.

Form

Behaviour

  • Controls drought and flood
    why

    The most-told episode belonging to the Danavas themselves is Vritra's: he coils around and holds back the cosmic waters, choking off rain and rivers from the world, and is broken only when Indra strikes him with a thunderbolt forged from the sage Dadhichi's bones.

  • Master of illusion
    why

    A different kind of Danava act belongs to Maya, an architect and master of illusion who builds palaces and halls, most famously the wonder-filled assembly hall he constructs for the Pandavas in the Mahabharata — craft and sorcery rather than combat.

  • Outwitted by a clever trickster rather than force
    why

    Another Danava, Namuchi, extracts a truce from Indra promising not to be killed by anything wet or dry, by day or by night — a bargain Indra circumvents by striking him at twilight with a weapon of foam, neither one nor the other.

Roles

Judged from the works' own entries, not from the description. Carries: the figure holds the role. Meets: the role is in its stories, held by something it meets.