Asura is the name of god. Asura is the god of war in the doctrine of Buddhism. May be equivalent to Mars in Roman gods and goddess. The doctrine of Buddhism shows some gods of war, despite their basic principle of love and mercy. They are “Tai Shaku Ten”, “Ma Ri Shi Ten”, “Ji Koku Ten”, “Zou Cho Ten”, “Kou Moku Ten”, “Bi Sha Mon Ten” and “Asura”. All the gods of war are in favor of defending the doctrine of Buddha and Buddhism against all monsters. Ancient paintings and sculptures describe them as masculine traits of human generals and those who care. They look hideous, tough, and powerful like his statues. Asura is different.
The typical Asura feature for the Japanese is the statue at Ko Fuku-ji Temple in Nara Prefecture. This statue is approximately 5 feet tall. It has 3 faces and 6 arms. There is nothing masculine in the body. His body is quite slim. 6 arms are slim too. The most notable is Asura’s face and appearance. Despite that, every other god of war has a masculine, fierce and angry appearance, Asura’s face looks relatively calm. It seems almost sad. Her face looks almost like that of a young woman. According to historians, it is one of the Japanese historical mysteries that the ancient sculptor made Asura in this way.
Asura in the doctrine of Buddhism was a monster that fought against “Tai Shaku Ten”. After several violent conflicts, Asura realized that he never won against Buddha’s defense. Asura was spiritually awakened from how foolish he was to fight Buddha. He realized that he was fighting against justice. He could never beat justice. Asura regretted their sinful fights. Asura became a god of defense of Buddhist doctrine.
In some folklore, people respected Asura as a god of performance. He is a protective god of the production and reproduction of Mother Nature. This story reminds me of the ruling God Siva of the Hindus. Siva is famous for being a god of destruction. Siva can be called as the only God who has the right to destruction. Siva destroys human society when the human world becomes corrupt. Then it will produce, nurture, grow and lead a new world. Siva is the supreme god for demolition and reproduction, as Asura is a god for fighting and reproduction.
People can find another similarity of these 2 gods in their statues. Both of them do not seem at all violent in their images and statues. The dance of Siva is one of the typical figures of this god. He is quite slim and dances happily. Her face looks like that of a woman, like Asura’s. Asura is as described above. She has the face of a sad girl. According to his myth, he may be trying to teach people the sadness, vanity, and nonsense of fighting. Asura continues to attract people. The name Asura had been used several times for the heroes and heroines of cartoon stories. This year it was a celebration of the 1,300-year history of the Ko-Fuku Ji Temple. Ko-Fuku Ji brought the Asura statue to Tokyo for display. The exhibition marked the world record of 15,000 visitors a day, a total of 946,172 visitors.