Six Paths of Pain was more than enough to decimate Konoha and take down most of the Hidden Leaf’s shinobi.
While Nagato’s Six Paths technique takes longer than the other wielders, it is still one of the most powerful ones we saw.
Basically, the Nagato chose six dead people and allotted a primary ability, and performed one specific technique through them on any battlefield.
In this article, we bring to you what every Path was capable of and how they stand in the ranking, and their correlation to Hindu and Buddhist mythology.
Naraka Path
While this Path is the one that Nagato protects no matter what by sacrificing the others, it is still far less useful than the others.
Nagato channeled the power of Naraka Path through the body of a priest Jiraiya met, which is better used for interrogation and restoration.
It exceeds Ibiki Morino in an investigation and Hashirama Senju in restoration as it is done by the summoning of the King of Hell.
Naraka is the Sanskrit word for the underworld, or as we call it, Hell. In Hinduism, it is also a place where souls are sent for the atonement of their sins.
Preta Path
Nagato channeled the power of Preta Path through a shinobi from Village Hidden in The Grass. This technique has the power to nullify every ninjutsu attack and absorb the chakra of the opponent.
Chakra can be absorbed from all sides, but over absorption of Chakra could make the wielder turn into a stone too.
This is ranked fifth because it might weaken the enemy, but this falls short compared to others up the ladder.
Nagato uses this technique during the Fourth Shinobi War to restore himself to his old form.
According to mythology, the Preta are humanoid creatures that are constantly hungry and thirsty and cannot satisfy themselves.
In Hinduism, Preta could also mean ghosts, which also relates to the Preta path‘s technique.
Human Path
The wielder of this Path could read the mind of anyone by just placing their hand on the person’s head or chest and yanking the soul out of the body.
Though it looks like it does no harm, by just collecting the memories, it kills the target in the end.
But it is still not that powerful as it needs to be in some contact with the target to do so, and we saw Nagato sacrifice this just to protect Animal Path while it was fighting Naruto.
In Buddhism, the Human realm is based on passion, desire, doubt, and pride.
It is also believed that the Human realm, in the form of rebirth most likely to attain enlightenment as they could avoid being a victim to the obsessive aggression or carnal delights inherited by the higher planes.
Asura Path
Asura Path is basically a Japanese version of Iron Man; just add more gun power and Taijutsu to the mix.
The only difference here is it’s not metal armor like Tony Stark, but it is the wielder’s body that extends into various ballistic and mechanical weaponry.
Nagato channeled this power through a shinobi who was a puppeteer in his mortal life.
In Buddhism, the Asura realm is the plane of semi-divine warring demons.
In Hinduism, Asura and Deva are supernatural beings featured as the lowest tier of divine beings. They are always in pursuit of power and more indulgent in materialistic and carnal pleasure.
Animal Path
This Path is used to summon various creatures and animals, which are immortal. They cause massive destruction and can be summoned anytime the wielder wants.
It took a lot of mighty powerful Toads to get rid of these creatures during Naruto’s fight with Pain.
Another significant advantage of summoning creatures through Animal Path is that it doesn’t need blood sacrifice or hand signs.
Nagato channeled this power at first through a corpse of Fūma clan shinobi and then through Ajisai.
Buddhists believe that animals inhabit a different dimension separated from humans, not spatially but mentally—an unhappy plane of rebirth which revolves around fear, instinct, and survival of the fittest.
Deva Path
The only Pain who was able to push Naruto to his limits even in Sage mode.
The most powerful will be this as this corpse, Yahiko, was able to perform both Almighty Push and Planetary Devastation.
The Deva Path grants the user the ability to manipulate attractive and repulsive forces with objects and people.
In Buddhism, the Deva Realm is compared to Gods as they are powerful compared to humans and on par with the deities.
Devas suffer from pride and the knowledge that their long lives and powers will not prevent their eventual rebirth as they are no exception to rebirth like humans.
