Various other gods and supernatural beings are credited with having created or generated the gods. Indra's father and mother are constantly spoken of, and both he and other gods are often said to have been originally mortal, and to have reached the heavens by dint of that "austere fervour," that magical asceticism, which could do much more than move mountains. The gods are thus by no means always credited in Aryan mythology with inherent immortality. Like most of the other deities whose history we have been studying, they had struggles for pre-eminence with powers of a titanic character, the Asuras. "Asura, 'living,' was originally an epithet of certain powers of Nature, particularly of the sky," says Mr. Max Müller.** As the gods also are recognised as powers of Nature, particularly of the sky, there does not seem to be much original difference between Devas and Asuras.*** The opposition between them may be "secondary," as Mr. Max Müller says, but in any case it too strongly resembles the other wars in heaven of other mythologies to be quite omitted. Unluckily, the most consecutive account of the strife is to be found, not in the hymns of the Vedas, but in the collected body of mythical and other traditions called the Brahmanas.**** ** Hibbert Lectures, p. 318. *** In the _Atharva Veda_ it is said that a female Asura once drew Indra from among the gods (Muir, v. 82). Thus gods and Asuras are capable of amorous relations. **** _Satapatha Br_. The story in the Brahmana begins by saying that throughout. See the Oxford translation. Prajapati (the producer of things, whose acquaintance we have made in the chapter on cosmogonic myths) was half mortal and half immortal. After creating things endowed with life, he created Death, the devourer. With that part of him which was mortal he was afraid of Death, and the gods were also "afraid of this ender, Death". The gods in this tradition are regarded as mortals. Compare the _Black Yajur Veda_:* "_The gods were formerly just like men_. They desired to overcome want, misery, death, and to go to the divine assembly. They saw, took and sacrificed with this Chaturvimsatiratra, and in consequence overcame want, misery and death, and reached the divine assembly." In the same Veda we are told that the gods and Asuras contended together; the gods were less numerous, but, as politicians make men peers, they added to their number by placing some bricks in the proper position to receive the sacrificial fire. They then used incantations: "Thou art a multiplier"; and so the bricks became animated, and joined the party of the gods, and made numbers more equal.** * _Taittirya Sanhita_; Muir, v. 15, note 22.