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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Peaceful Warrior-Demons In Japan: From Empress Kōmyō’S Red Repentant Asura To Miyazawa Kenji’S Melancholic Blue Asura, Jon P. Holt
Peaceful Warrior-Demons In Japan: From Empress Kōmyō’S Red Repentant Asura To Miyazawa Kenji’S Melancholic Blue Asura, Jon P. Holt
World Languages and Literatures Faculty Publications and Presentations
Strife, and the violence begotten from it, has long been a concern of Buddhism. Anger, ignorance, and greed, namely the three great evils, must be understood and overcome in order to advance towards enlightenment. Buddhism, as a syncretic religion, incorporated other religious figures from the Asian continent into it as a part of the process of appealing to new converts. The Asura embodies all three of these vices and yet in the process of being adopted into Buddhism, he was able to change from a violent demon into a peaceful guardian of the Buddha.
The Asura devas battled Indra in …