Sweet-scented, redolent of balm,
Replete with food, yet tilling not,
Mother of beasts, the Forest-nymph,
Her I have magnified with praise.
On the whole, however, the part played by plant, tree, and forest deities is a very insignificant one in the Rigveda.
A strange religious feature pointing to a remote antiquity is the occasional deification and worship even of objects fashioned by the hand of man, when regarded as useful to him. These are chiefly sacrificial implements. Thus in one hymn (iii. 8) the sacrificial post (called “lord of the forest”) is invoked, while three hymns of the tenth book celebrate the pressing stones used in preparing soma. The plough is invoked in a few stanzas; and an entire hymn (vi. 75) is devoted to the praise of various implements of war, while one in the Atharva-veda (v. 20) glorifies the drum.
The demons so frequently mentioned in the Rigveda are of two classes. The one consists of the aërial adversaries of the gods. The older view is that of a conflict waged between a single god and a single demon. This gradually developed into the notion of the gods and the demons in general being arrayed against each other as two opposing hosts. The Brāhmaṇas regularly represent the antagonism thus. Asura is the ordinary name of the aërial foes of the gods. This word has a remarkable history. In the Rigveda it is predominantly a designation of the gods, and in the Avesta it denotes, in the form of Ahura, the highest god of Zoroastrianism. In the later parts of the Rigveda, however, asura, when used by itself, also signifies “demon,” and this is its only sense in the Atharva-veda. A somewhat unsuccessful attempt has been made to explain how a word signifying “god” came to mean “devil,” as the result of national conflicts, the Asuras or gods of extra-Vedic tribes becoming demons to the Vedic Indian, just as the devas or gods of the Veda are demons in the Avesta. There is no traditional evidence in support of this view, and it is opposed by the fact that to the Rigvedic Indian asura not only in general meant a divine being, but was especially appropriate to Varuṇa, the most exalted of the gods. The word must therefore have changed its meaning in course of time within the Veda itself. Here it seems from the beginning to have had the sense of “possessor of occult power,” and hence to have been potentially applicable to hostile beings. Thus in one hymn of the Rigveda (x. 124) both senses seem to occur. Towards the end of the Rigvedic period the application of the word to the gods began to fall into abeyance. This tendency was in all likelihood accelerated by the need of a word denoting the hostile demoniac powers generally, as well as by an incipient popular etymology, which saw a negative (a-sura) in the word and led to the invention of sura, “god,” a term first found in the Upanishads.
A group of aërial demons, primarily foes of Indra, are the Paṇis. The proper meaning of the word is “niggard,” especially in regard to sacrificial gifts. From this signification it developed the mythological sense of demons resembling those originally conceived as withholding the treasures of heaven. The term dāsa or dasyu, properly the designation of the dark aborigines of India contrasted with their fair Aryan conquerors, is frequently used in the sense of demons or fiends.
By far the most conspicuous of the individual aërial demons of the Rigveda, is Vṛitra, who has the form of a serpent, and whose name means “encompasser.” Another demon mentioned with some frequency is Vala, the personification of the mythical cave in which the celestial cows are confined. In post-Vedic literature these two demons are frequently mentioned together and are regarded as brothers slain by Indra. The most often named among the remaining adversaries of Indra is Çushṇa, the “hisser” or “scorcher.” A rarely-mentioned demon is Svarbhānu, who is described as eclipsing the sun with darkness. His successor in Sanskrit literature was Rāhu, regarded as causing eclipses by swallowing the sun or moon.
The second class of demons consists of goblins supposed to infest the earth, enemies of mankind as the Asuras are of the gods. By far the most common generic name for this class is Rakshas. They are hardly ever mentioned except in connection with some god who is invoked to destroy or is praised for having destroyed them. These goblins are conceived as having the shapes of various animals as well as of men. Their appearance is more fully described by the Atharvaveda, in which they are also spoken of as deformed or as being blue, yellow, or green in colour. According to the Rigveda they are fond of the flesh of men and horses, whom they attack by entering into them in order to satisfy their greed. They are supposed to prowl about at night and to make the sacrifice the special object of their attacks. The belief that the Rakshases actively interfere with the performance of sacrificial rites remains familiar in the post-Vedic period. A species of goblin scarcely referred to in the Rigveda, but often mentioned in the later Vedas, are the Piçāchas, described as devouring corpses and closely connected with the dead.