What is "krodha"

Krodha may refer to:

• Krodha (Mental factor) - a mental factor in Buddhism, translated as fury or rage; it causes one to harm others
• Wrathful deities - in Buddhism, enlightened beings who take on wrathful forms in order to lead sentient beings to enlightenment
• Krodha (Hinduism) - anger; the father of Kali

Krodha (Sanskrit; Tibetan Wylie: khro ba) is a Buddhist term that is translated as "fury", "rage", or "indignation". Within the Mahayana Abhidharma tradition, krodha is identified as one of the twenty subsidiary unwholesome mental factors. It is defined as an increase of anger (Sanskrit: pratigha) that causes one to prepare to harm others.

According to Herber Guenther, the difference between anger ( pratigha) and fury (krodha) is that anger is a vindictive or hostile attitude in one's mind, but fury is an increase in anger when the chance for harming is at hand and is it very agitated state of mind leading to actual physical harm.

Alexander Berzin states:

Hatred (khro-ba) is a part of hostility ( dvesha) and is the harsh intention to cause harm.

Note that according to Berzin, dvesha is a sub-category of anger (pratigha).