Some glimpses about the semantic domain of vira in Indian culture

The concept of bravery is detected in such Sanskrit words as vira. If we look for its occurrences in the Rgvedasamhita, we find it in a significantly high number of passages. It is possible to detect a feeble trend, not particularly significant because it is present only in a limited number of passages, from the more recent strata of the corpus. If from the rigvedic context we shift our focus to the field of the epics, we may concentrate our attention on the Mahabharata. In time, the martial connotation of vira was to produce a further development in the process that led to the forming of a monastic order within the smarta tradition, comparable to the Buddhistic community (sangha). Finally, in the tantric context, the term vira plays an important role in a taxonomy of the three ideal types of devotees: adepts in sakta schools are classified, from lowest to highest level, as pasu, cattle-like, vira, hero-like and finally divya, god-like.