Don’t Know Much About® Mythology (47 page)

Another later symbol of the order permeating Indian society was the construction of Hindu temples, which began to be built around 300 CE, during the period of the Gupta Empire (c. 320–550 CE), a period known as India’s Golden Age for its accomplishments in literature, science and mathematics, the arts, and architecture. Constructed to venerate a particular deity, these temples, now located across India, housed the god, whose devotees came to the temple for a glimpse of the divine in order to absorb the god’s power and carry that power with them in their daily lives. When they came to the temple, worshippers expressed adoration, made offerings, and sought blessings. Often adorned with erotic sculptures celebrating the Hindu pantheon, these temples represented another step in India’s evolving society. As Devdutt Pattanaik points out, “Not satisfied with approaching the divine through trees, animals, rivers, and natural rock formations, the kings sponsored the making of idols of Gods and Goddesses in metal and stone that were enshrined in temples. Between 800 and 1300, vast temple complexes came into being. They were controlled and managed by brahmins, who once again came to dominate society…. Caste hierarchy manifested in the temple tradition too, with caste based on occupation determining whether one was allowed to enter the temple or not. With rituals came the idea of pollution. Those at the bottom of the caste hierarchy—sweepers, cobblers, and other menial laborers—were the most polluted.”

If it’s all an endless cycle of birth and destruction, where does the Hindu Creation begin?

Maybe the “One” knows. Maybe the “One” doesn’t know. It all depends.

If these kinds of cosmic conundrums hurt your hair, welcome to the world of Eastern thinking. In Hindu tradition, as in other civilizations, explanations can run the gamut from the sublime to the profound to the profoundly enigmatic, and everything in between. Step up to the buffet table of Hindu Creation stories.

For starters, try the “cosmic egg” variety of Creation tales, of which there are several popular variations. In one ancient folkloric version, a supreme goddess lays three eggs in a lotus, and from them emerge three worlds and three gods—Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. When the first two of these gods refuse to make love to their “mother,” she reduces them to ashes with her scorching gaze. But Shiva agrees to do the deed in exchange for the goddess’s fiery third eye. Once he has received it, Shiva shows no mercy—he uses the third eye to incinerate his mother and revive his two sibling gods. Deciding to populate the world, the godly trio realizes that they need wives. So, they divide the remains of the cremated goddess into three ash heaps and, using the power of the third eye, create three goddesses. Together, these three gods and three goddesses populate the cosmos.

In another cosmic-egg story, a golden egg floats in the primordial waters. The golden egg is broken in half by the god Brahma in his role as the creator. The two halves of the egg shell then form heaven and earth. The mountains, clouds, and mists originate from the egg’s membranes, the rivers from its veins, and the ocean from the egg’s fluid.

There are at least two other cosmic-egg accounts of Creation. In one of these, all of Creation is simply contained within the unbroken egg. In the other, which is included in one of the Puranas, the Creation begins when the god Shiva appears in an androgynous form, and deposits his fiery seed in his female half. A cosmic egg is born of this union.

Unscrambling all of these eggs is tricky. So, set aside the divine hatchery and move to another popular vision of Creation, drawn from the
Mahabharata
, and frequently depicted in Indian art. In this tale, the god Vishnu lies resting on a many-hooded serpent—often a mythic symbol of regeneration, since it sheds its skin—whose numerous coils symbolize the endless cycles of time. When Vishnu assumes the form of an all-consuming fire that destroys the universe, rain clouds appear and extinguish the flames, leaving behind a great sea. Lying on the serpent floating in this immense sea, Vishnu falls into a deep sleep. A lotus sprouts from his navel, and within the lotus is Brahma, the creative force that sets in motion the process of regeneration once more.

Finally, in one Hindu version of Creation, man appears. Manu is the first man, son of Brahma and Sarasvati, and his story has clear parallels to that of Noah, Deucalion, and the other Mesopotamian flood survivors. When the world is threatened by a flood, Brahma takes the form of a fish and tells Manu to build a large boat and store on it all the seeds of living things on earth. As the floodwaters rise, everything is submerged, but Manu’s boat lands on the highest peak in the Himalayas. Eventually the floodwaters recede, and Manu makes an offering to the gods, which produces a beautiful woman named Parsu. She and Manu become parents of the human race.

So, then, one might ask: where did the Hindu Creation begin?

One may never know. Even if the “One” knows.

How do you get ten gods in one?

Simple. Count their “avatars.”

In the breadth of Indian myth, gods often appear in many physical forms called avatars. Based on a Sanskrit word meaning “descent of a deity from heaven” (
American Heritage Dictionary
), an avatar isn’t simply a disguise that a god slips on and off—like Zeus becoming a thunderbolt or a swan and then turning back into Zeus again. Nor is it a simple manifestation, such as the goddess Ganga appearing as the Ganges River. An avatar is an entirely separate entity. In Hindu myth and theology, an avatar can be human or animal and have its own name, personality, physical characteristics, and purpose in life.

That means a goddess like Devi could be a benevolent mother—but her avatar Durga could be dark and destructive. A god’s avatar could also take the form of a fish or a boar. Those are just two of the avatars of Vishnu, the central god most associated with these incarnations. Vishnu comes in at least ten different varieties, ranging from tortoise and dwarf priest to king and warrior hero. As Vishnu and the other divinities in this “Who’s Who” amply demonstrate, each avatar provides the Hindu gods epic opportunities for adventures and miraculous doings.

WHO’S WHO OF HINDU GODS

Although there are virtually thousands of gods in the Hindu pantheon, these lists include some of the chief deities worshipped in India throughout its long history. Part I includes the earliest gods in the Vedic pantheon. These gods are prominent in the Rig-Veda, and are part of the oral tradition that dates to the Aryan arrival in 1500 BCE. Part II comprises the gods and their manifestations who took a dominant role in the period after the establishment of the Hindu pantheon from about 600 BCE on. The earlier gods were not replaced but usually demoted to lesser rank and power.

Part I: “The Old Gods”

Agni
The god of fire, Agni is one of the three chief deities of the ancient Rig-Veda. Although he appears in many guises, he is usually depicted with seven arms and a goat’s head, or as a red man with many arms and legs, riding a ram, belching, and emitting light. Agni is more than simply a bringer of fire—he is the vital spark in nature that sometimes consumes in order to create. Manifested both as lightning and the spark of human imagination, Agni symbolizes the Hindu idea of rebirth through destruction. In his role as a “guardian” deity, he is believed to have made the sun and filled the night sky with stars.
When Hindus burn the bodies of their dead, they believe Agni dispatches their souls to heaven in the form of smoke and grants immortality. Among his symbols are a phallic stick used to start a fire by rubbing it in a wooden hole—a metaphor for the heat of the sexual act.

Indra
In the early Vedic hymns, Indra is the king of the gods, chief god of sky, storms, and thunderbolts—much like the Greek Zeus. Possibly based on a historical Aryan warrior, he is a great fighter, a lusty drinker of soma—the nectar of the gods—and is often shown with a bloated belly full of the intoxicating beverage (see below). Already tall and powerfully built, Indra grows to enormous size and fills the heavens and earth when he drinks soma.
Indra’s position and power result from his defeat of Vritra, the lord of chaos, a serpent-dragon who swallows the world’s water and causes a drought. During their intense battle, the serpent swallows Indra and retains the upper hand until the other gods join the battle and gag him. When Indra jumps out of Vritra’s mouth, he kills him using his thunderbolt, and then unleashes the monsoon, India’s life-sustaining rains. Killing the dragon allows Indra to separate the waters from the land and causes the sun to rise every morning. (Once again, the story of a powerful god’s victory over a sea monster or dragon of chaos is a very ancient and widely shared myth: Marduk-Tiamat, Seth-Apep, Zeus-Typhon, and Yahweh-Leviathan are all examples.)
Over time, as the myths of India evolved, Indra was reduced in rank, and many of his functions and powers were then taken over by Vishnu (see below). In a brief story symbolic of this transfer of power, Vishnu lifts an entire mountain with a single finger and uses it like a parasol to protect the people from Indra’s torrential rains. Clearly bested by Vishnu’s power, Indra assumes his lower station as a rain god.

Soma
A certain American beverage calls itself the “king of beers.” Soma might be the “god of beers.” A most unusual god, Soma is the name of both a deity—the Vedic moon god—and a sacred beverage. As a deity, Soma is said to be the creator and father of the other Vedic gods—a sign of the importance of soma, the beverage of the gods.
In its liquid form, soma was evidently an ecstasy-inducing potion. Judging from its frequent mention in the Rig-Veda, soma was obviously a significant, if not indispensable, element of the ancient Vedic ritual. Either highly intoxicating or hallucinogenic, the “active ingredient” in soma has been the subject of considerable conjecture. In
The Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Substances
, author Richard Rudgley catalogues many of the possible candidates for the source of this powerful party punch—including cannabis, ginseng, opium, some sort of “magic mushroom,” and a plant called Syrian rue. Most of these, according to Rudgley, have been rejected, and the truth behind soma remains a mystery.
If “soma” sounds vaguely familiar, you may recognize it for two reasons. It is the brand name of a modern muscle relaxant, and it is also the narcotic widely used in the novel
Brave New World
by Aldous Huxley, the English writer who was both a student of Hinduism and a noted experimenter with hallucinogenic drugs.

Surya
Another of the oldest among Indian gods, Surya is the sun god, a dark red man with three eyes and four arms, who rides in a chariot. In the ancient hymns of the Rig-Veda, Surya is a god of almost unbearable intensity who causes the great heat of India’s dry season. When Surya’s intensity becomes too much for his wife,
Sanjina
(“conscience”), to bear, she transforms herself into a mare and goes to live in the forest. Surya follows her, transforms himself into a horse, and they mate, giving birth to the warrior Revanta and twin sons who are the ever-young and handsome messengers of dawn.
When Sanjina’s father later comes on to the scene, he cuts away some of his son-in-law’s brightness and these blazing fragments of the sun god fall to earth. These “sun-drops” are transformed into the weapons of the other gods—the discus of Vishnu and the trident of Shiva.
Together with Surya, Sanjina also produces the underworld god Yama.
*

Yama
Originally thought of as the first man in Vedic lore, Yama has a twin sister,
Yami
, who desires her brother. For resisting the incestuous desire, Yama is immortalized and comes to judge those who enter the underworld. As the god of the dead, he represents judgment, bringing happiness to the virtuous and righteous but bestowing suffering on sinners.

Part II: The Second Generation/Later Gods

Brahman
Set aside notions of God as a white-bearded man on a throne. Or any of the many other tangible forms that gods take in myths. Prepare for a separate reality. The most absolute, abstract form of God, Brahman is a concept—the soul of the universe, the essence of life, and the divine force that sustains the entire cosmos. Glorified in the Upanishads over all other forms of God, Brahman (“One that is multiple”) is the absolute godhead—infinite, changeless, and impersonal.
But in Hindu mythology, Brahman becomes a real, living entity that gets involved in the affairs of the world by manifesting through a trinity of gods called the Trimurti. They are Brahma, creator of the universe; Vishnu, its preserver; and Shiva, its destroyer.
Confused by that? Consider for a moment the Christian notion of God—all-powerful, omniscient, creator of everything. But orthodox Christianity also teaches that this God exists in “three persons”—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.