Asura Kingdom (Sonitpura Kingdom) is a mythological kingdom that is mentioned in a multiple of
Hindu epics
Indian epic poetry is the epic poetry written in the Indian subcontinent, traditionally called ''Kavya'' (or ''Kāvya''; Sanskrit: काव्य, IAST: ''kāvyá''). The ''Ramayana'' and the ''Mahabharata'', which were originally composed in ...
which later came to be associated with modern-day
Tezpur
Tezpur () is a city and urban agglomeration in Sonitpur district, Assam state, India. Tezpur is located on the banks of the river Brahmaputra, northeast of Guwahati, and is the largest of the north bank cities with a population exceeding 100, ...
in central
Assam
Assam (; ) is a state in northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . The state is bordered by Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh to the north; Nagaland and Manipur ...
and
Banasura Hill
Banasura Hill is one of the tallest mountains in the Western Ghats of the Wayanad district, Kerala, India. The hill is named after Banasura, a mythical character of Indian legends. It is one of the highest peaks exceeding 2,000m between Nilgiri ...
in
Kerala
Kerala ( ; ) is a state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile regions of Cochin, Malabar, South ...
. The kingdom was contemporary of
Pragjyotisha
Kamarupa (; also called Pragjyotisha or Pragjyotisha-Kamarupa), an early state during the Classical period on the Indian subcontinent, was (along with Davaka) the first historical kingdom of Assam.
Though Kamarupa prevailed from 350 to ...
. In
Puranic literature, Pragjyotisha and Sonitpura were located to the northwest of the
Indian subcontinent
The Indian subcontinent is a list of the physiographic regions of the world, physiographical region in United Nations geoscheme for Asia#Southern Asia, Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian O ...
in what is modern-day
Punjab
Punjab (; Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising a ...
and
Sindh. In Assam, the name of the legendary kingdom might be applied to the local inhabitants who were outside of the Hindu fold. In
Kalika purana
The Kalika Purana ( sa, Kālikā Purāṇa), also called the Kali Purana, Sati Purana or Kalika Tantra, is one of the eighteen minor Puranas ('' Upapurana'') in the Shaktism tradition of Hinduism. The text was likely composed in Assam or Cooch B ...
,
Banasura
Bana, also referred to as Banasura (), is an asura king in Hindu mythology, ruling from the city of Śoṇitapura. He is described to be the son of Mahabali. His tale of battling Krishna is described in the Bhagavata Purana.
Legend
A mighty ...
, the last ruler of the asura kingdom is represented as an anti-Brahminical character.
[: "(H)e was imagined or represented as an anti-Brahminical character in the ''Kalika Purana''.."]
Dynasty
See also
*
Pragjyotisha Kingdom
Pragjyotisha is a mythological kingdom that is mentioned in a multitude of Hindu Epics. It came to be associated with the historical Kamarupa after Bhaskaravarman of the Varman dynasty by drawing his lineage from Naraka/ Bhagadatta of the leg ...
*
Mahabharata
The ''Mahābhārata'' ( ; sa, महाभारतम्, ', ) is one of the two major Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit Indian epic poetry, epics of ancient India in Hinduism, the other being the ''Ramayana, Rāmāyaṇa''. It narrates the s ...
Notes
References
*
*
{{History of Assam
Kingdoms in the Mahabharata
Mythological kingdoms, empires, and countries