Danu Vaṃśa: The Dānava Lineage

The dānavas are a race of powerful asuras (beings who oppose the devas). They are the children of Kaśyapa Prajāpati and Danu, and Danu vaṃśa means “the family line of Danu”. Chapter 6 of the Madhyama Bhāga of the Brahmāṇḍa Mahā Purāṇa gives a full family tree of this line.

Danu was the third of the sixteen daughters of Daksha who were married to Kaśyapa. The chapter names Vipracitti as the chief of the dānavas and lists sixty-one or more dānavas by name. It describes the Saiṃhikeya dānavas, with Rāhu as the eldest, and the Pauloma and Kālakeya dānavas. It also records that Mandodarī was the daughter of Maya, the great dānava architect.

Danu and Her Children

Danu is the third of the sixteen daughters of Daksha given to Kaśyapa Prajāpati. The beings born from her take their name from her: they are called dānavas. Like the daityas (the children of Diti), they stand in constant opposition to the devas throughout the long ages of the manvantaras (the ages of the Manus). The Purāṇas describe the dānavas as beings of great power, with deep knowledge of māyā (the power of illusion) and hidden arts, who always strive to take the rule of the three worlds away from the devas.

Vipracitti: Chief of the Dānavas

Vipracitti is named as the foremost and chief of the dānavas, the leader around whom the dānava clans gathered. He is described as a being of great power and authority. His name appears in many Purāṇas as the chief opponent of Indra among the dānavas.

The Names of the Dānavas

Chapter 6 preserves the names of sixty-one or more individual dānavas, a family list of remarkable size. They include beings who appear in many accounts in the Purāṇas and the itihāsas (the Rāmāyaṇa and Mahābhārata) as taking part in the great struggles between the devas and the asuras. The full list shows how wide and deep the dānava tradition is.

The Saiṃhikeya Dānavas and Rāhu

A separate group among the dānavas are the Saiṃhikeya dānavas (the sons of Siṃhikā). Among them Rāhu is named as the eldest. In the science of the stars, Rāhu is the ascending node of the moon. In the Purāṇas, he is the great asura who from time to time swallows the sun and the moon, causing eclipses. His place as a Saiṃhikeya dānava links the eclipse, seen in the sky, to the family history of the dānavas, and places it within the great struggle between the devas and the asuras.

The Pauloma and Kālakeya Dānavas

Chapter 6 describes two more groups of dānavas:

• Pauloma dānavas: sixty thousand dānavas of the line of Pulomā. They are the descendants of Pulomā, a powerful asura whose daughter Śacī became the wife of Indra after her father was killed. So this line holds the unusual place of being the asura clan whose own daughter is the queen of the devas.
• Kālakeya dānavas: fourteen thousand dānavas of great fierceness, known for their power in battle and for resisting the devas through many manvantaras.

Mandodarī, Daughter of Maya

The Purāṇa records that Mandodarī, honoured in the Rāmāyaṇa as the beloved queen of Rāvaṇa, was the daughter of Maya, the great dānava architect. Maya is one of the most famous figures of the dānava tradition. He was the master builder who made the wondrous assembly hall of the Pāṇḍavas (the Maya Sabhā), and his skill in building, illusion and engineering had no equal. Through Mandodarī, the dānava line entered straight into the story of the Rāmāyaṇa. She was the queen of the rākshasa king, who himself had dānava links through his family and marriages.

The Place of the Dānavas in Creation

In the Purāṇas, the dānavas, like all the asura clans, are not seen as simply evil. They express the quality of tamas (darkness and heaviness) in creation, and they serve a purpose in the universe: they provide the opposition against which the devas, who are full of sattva (purity), prove and strengthen themselves. The struggles between devas and dānavas are great dramas in which dharma is tested, made stronger, and in the end upheld. The careful record of dānava families in the Brahmāṇḍa Purāṇa reflects the Purāṇic belief that all beings, even those who oppose the divine order, have their place in the family tree of the universe and their part in the divine drama.

Sources

• Brahmāṇḍa Mahā Purāṇa, Madhyama Bhāga, Chapter 6