Banasura
ancient king of Sonitpur according to Hindu mythology

Bana, also referred to as Banasura (Sanskrit: बाणासुर, romanized: Bāṇāsura), is an asura king in Hindu mythology, ruling from the city of Śoṇitapura. He is described to be the son of Mahabali. His tale of battling Krishna is described in the Bhagavata Purana.
Legend
A mighty asura, Bana once ruled over a large kingdom, Śoṇitapura. His influence was so strong and fierce that all the kings – and even some of the devas – shuddered in front of him. Banasura used to worship a rasalingam given to him by Vishvakarman, on instruction from Vishnu. As an ardent devotee of Shiva, he used his thousand arms to play the mridangam when Shiva was performing the tandavam dance. When Shiva offered Banasura a boon, the latter requested Shiva to be his city's guardian: therefore, Banasura became invincible. As time passed, he became even more cruel and arrogant. One day, Banasura's daughter, Usha, saw a young man in her dream, had sex with him, and fell in love with him.
“Banasura” enters the record as ancient king of Sonitpur according to Hindu mythology. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Banasura, ancient and king can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Banasura” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Banasura, ancient and king provides the most credible route into that argument.
Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3269155. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Banasura” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.