the opponents of the preceding two groups of devas, whose nature is to be continually engaged in war. Humans are said to have originally had many of the powers of the devas: not requiring food, the ability to fly through the air, and shining by their own light. Over time they began to eat solid foods, their bodies became coarser and their powers disappeared. There is also a humanistic definition of 'deva' [male] and 'devi' [female] ascribed to Gotama Buddha: a god is a moral person. This is comparable to another definition, i.e. that 'hell' is a name for painful emotions. Powers Devas are invisible to the human eye. The presence of a deva can be detected by those humans who have opened the "Divine eye" (), (Pāli: dibbacakkhu), (Chinese: 天眼), an extrasensory power by which one can see beings from other planes. Their voices can also be heard by those who have cultivated divyaśrotra, a power similar to that of the ear. Most devas are also capable of constructing illusory forms by which they can manifest themselves to the beings of lower worlds; higher and lower devas sometimes do this to each other. Devas do not require the same kind of sustenance as humans do, although the lower kinds do eat and drink. The higher orders of deva shine with their own intrinsic luminosity. Devas are also capable of moving great distances speedily, and of flying through the air, although the lower devas sometimes accomplish this through magical aids such as a flying chariot. Differences from western polytheism Buddhist devas differ from the western conception of gods and angels in several ways: Buddhist devas are not immortal. Their lives as devas began some time in the past when they died and were reborn. They live for very long but finite periods of time, ranging from thousands to (at least) billions of years. When they pass away, they are reborn as some other sort of being, perhaps a different type of deva, perhaps a human or something beyond comprehension. The Lamrim mentions that devas are often reborn into lower realms of suffering like the Narakas and Pretas because their existence consumes a lot of good karma, but they can also be reborn as humans and animals. Buddhist devas do not create or shape the world. They come into existence based upon their past karmas and they are as much subject