they were in competition with each other to make bigger & bigger fools of people

Jagdish Singh : Is seem, there was a fierce competition between certain class of people in Puranic period, to win a race of making big, bigger & biggest fool of masses. They created unbelievable characters & got them recognised as gods. Many of these gods were not even humans. Even those, who were humans, had lot of characters, which are not in consonance with personality of a civilised human being.
They were also made to be riding on unbelievable animals. If one made some god riding a bull, which can b acceptable, the other went ahead with a goddesses riding a lion. After that, it was a free run of mockery. Now imagine, what kind of things were imagined after that. It seems, they were in competition with each other to make bigger & bigger fools of people & having a free laugh.

From Jagdish Singh FB wall.