Mada

In theological and ethical literature Mada is presented as a conceptual category — Madh (mad) — one of the Arishadvargas, the six internal enemies of the mind that obstruct spiritual liberation. In the narrative tradition of the Mahabharata the term is personified: when the Ashvins were excluded from a sacrificial honor, the sage Chyavana prepared a sacrifice on their behalf and, in response to Indra's refusal and threat, created Mada as an asura. Mada was thus produced by the sage as a crafted, coercive agent intended to redress the perceived ritual and social injury to the Ashvins; his creation is an act within the epic used to force Indra to concede and allow the Ashvins into Svarga.

As an ethical concept Mada is non-corporeal and has no appearance. In the Mahabharata account the personified Mada is described only in terms of immense, cosmically scaled anatomy: he possessed two sets of gigantic teeth and jaws so enormous that one could engulf the earth while the other swallowed the heavens. The supplied source gives no further pictorial detail or iconography beyond this description.

As a vice Mada produces ignorance and corruption of the mind and, when present in a person, is said to prevent attainment of moksha. In the Mahabharata episode the asura Mada's defined ability is his cosmic-scale appetite and coercive threat: he is able to swallow the entire cosmos (earth and heavens), and that potential for total destruction is the force by which Chyavana compels Indra to yield. The sources describe this power as exercised within the narrative moment; there is no supplied evidence of recurring independent activity beyond that episode.