This article is part of an introductory series on Hinduism: 1. What it is · 2. The texts · 3. Key words · 4. The paths to liberation · 5. The deities.
Anyone who walks into a Hindu temple sees statues and images of many deities, with several arms, with animal heads, in the most vivid colours. It is natural to think of polytheism, like that of the Greeks and Romans. The reality is more nuanced, and the texts themselves offer a key to understanding it.
“The truth is one; the sages call it by many names”
A hymn of the Ṛgveda (1:164:46) contains a much-quoted line: ekaṃ sad viprā bahudhā vadanti, “being is one, the sages call it in many ways”. Many Hindus read it like this: the deities are faces, names or manifestations of a single divine reality. This allows each person to choose their own deity of the heart (iṣṭa-devatā) without denying the others.
Viṣṇu, who descends into the world
Viṣṇu is the god who preserves and protects the order of the world. When dharma is threatened, he descends to earth in a visible form: this is the idea of the avatāra, “descent”. Tradition lists ten principal ones, among them the fish Matsya, the man-lion Narasiṃha, Prince Rāma of the Rāmāyaṇa and Kṛṣṇa, the divine cowherd and the teacher of the Bhagavad Gītā. The tenth, Kalki, is yet to come.
Śiva, lord of the ascetics
Śiva is the god of destruction who makes a new beginning possible. He is the great yogin seated in meditation in the Himalayas, but also Naṭarāja, the king of dance, who creates and dissolves the worlds as he dances. In temples he is worshipped above all in the form of the liṅga, an upright stone, a sign of the formless divine.
The Goddess
Alongside the great gods stands the Devī, the Goddess, worshipped as the energy (śakti) that animates the universe. She has many faces: Durgā, who rides a lion and defeats the buffalo demon; Kālī, dark and fearsome, who cuts through illusion and the fear of death; Lakṣmī, prosperity; Sarasvatī, learning and the arts; Pārvatī, the consort of Śiva. For the śākta traditions, she is the supreme reality.
Gaṇeśa and the others
Perhaps the most popular of all is Gaṇeśa, the elephant-headed god, son of Śiva and Pārvatī: he removes obstacles and is invoked at the start of every undertaking. Then there are Hanumān, Rāma's faithful monkey; Murukaṉ, much loved in the south; and countless village deities. People often speak of a trimūrti, Brahmā who creates, Viṣṇu who preserves, Śiva who destroys; but Brahmā has very few temples, and the idea of the trimūrti matters more in books than in worship.
Sacred images
Statues (mūrti) are not regarded as mere representations: through a rite of consecration the deity is invited to “dwell” in the image. Worship (pūjā) is an act of hospitality: flowers, light, food and incense are offered. The central moment is darśan, “seeing and being seen” by the deity.
Compared with other traditions
The Abrahamic religions insist on the oneness of God. Islam makes it the heart of faith (tawḥīd) and rejects all images; yet it knows the ninety-nine names of God, each of which sheds light on a different aspect of the one God. Judaism proclaims the Shema every day: “The Lord is one.” Christianity speaks of one God in three persons: the Trinity should not be confused with the trimūrti, which is three functions entrusted to three different gods. In Catholic and Orthodox piety, however, the veneration of saints and icons carries more than an echo of the affectionate relationship Hindu devotees have with their deities.
The closest parallel is perhaps with the Yoruba religion: a supreme god, Olódùmarè, distant and without altars, and many deities, the orisha, to whom people turn in everyday life, each linked to a force of nature and to a character. There too, as in Hinduism, people choose their deities and the deities choose them.
What can we take from this? That the divine, if it exists, is greater than any name we give it: the traditions that call it in many ways and those that insist on a single name are each, in their own way, trying not to shut it up inside an image. And that a relationship with the sacred can have the warmth of a friendship, made of simple gestures: a flower, a light, a glance.
This is the last article in the introductory series. For a broader comparison of ideas about life after death, read Rebirth or reincarnation?.
Further reading
- Gavin Flood, An Introduction to Hinduism, Cambridge University Press, 1996, chs. 5-8.
- Diana L. Eck, Darśan: Seeing the Divine Image in India, Columbia University Press, 3rd ed. 1998.
- Ṛgveda 1:164, English translation by R. T. H. Griffith, 1896 (public domain), on sacred-texts.com
- Jacob K. Olupona, African Religions: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2014.