medieval-era deities
In the Puranas and the Itihasas with the embedded Bhagavad Gita, the Devas represent the good, and the Asuras the bad.According to the Bhagavad Gita (16.6–16.7), all beings in the universe have both the divine qualities (daivi sampad) and the demonic qualities (asuri sampad) within them.
The sixteenth chapter of the Bhagavad Gita states that pure god-like saints are rare, as are pure demon-like evil individuals among human beings. Instead, the majority of humanity is multi-charactered with a few or many faults.
According to Jeaneane Fowler, the Gita states that desires, aversions, greed, needs, emotions in various forms "are facets of ordinary lives". It is only when they turn to lust, hate, cravings, arrogance, conceit, anger, harshness, hypocrisy, violence, cruelty and such negativity- and destruction-inclined tendencies that natural human inclinations metamorphose into something demonic (Asura)
The Epics and medieval era texts, particularly the Puranas, developed extensive and richly varying mythologies associated with Hindu deities, including their genealogies.Several of the Purana texts are named after major Hindu deities such as Vishnu, Shiva and Devi.
Other texts and commentators such as Adi Shankara explain that Hindu deities live or rule over the cosmic body as well as in the temple of the human body.
They remark that the Sun deity is the eyes, the Vāyu the nose, the Prajapati the sexual organs, the Lokapalas the ears, Chandra the mind, Mitra the inward breath, Varuna the outward breath, Indra the arms, Bṛhaspati the speech, Vishnu, whose stride is great, is the feet, and Māyā is the smile