(Via Kotaku )

Hey, did you know Asura was a thing long before the conception of untamed action game Asura’s Wrath? It’s true! In fact, the concept of Asura, or “Assura”, dates back thousands of years! 

With roots in Hinduism, the Assura concept crossed over into Japanese consciousness by way of Buddhism. But allegedly, it even shares an etymological connection with the Nordic Æsir. Crazy!

Kotaku’s Brian Crecente recently spoke with Hiroshi Matsuyama, CEO of Asura’s Wrath developer CyberConnect2 to flesh out some of the backstory behind this curious character’s creation.

Quoth the Crecente:

Matsuyama says that the initial concept for Asura and his rage-powered abilities were based on Buddhist deities, ones that were known for their wrath and their anger.

“They had an affinity for their anger,” he said.

In Buddhism there are legends of the Assura, a group of gods cast out from a Buddhist heaven because of their wrath, pride and bellicosity.

The Assura of legend are an entire group of low-ranking Hindu and Buddhist gods or demigods. These demigods, known to be obsessed with violence and anger, got drunk one day on a forbidden wine and were kicked off the mountain where the other gods lived. When they woke up they discovered their new home and have been fighting with the other gods since to return, according to legend.

Because the Asura are unable to solve problems peacefully, that’s led to a lot of in-fighting among the gods until one of the Asura married a full god and a tense peace was established.

But in the game it is a single god on a singular quest.

Fascinating. What Matsuyama forgot to mention, however, is that they also excel at headbutting. Oh, wait, no he didn’t .