Not only did these defining aspects of Vishnu allow him to carry out his duties as the preserver, but his consecutive avatars allowed him to do so as well. Through this avatar, it is evident how Vishnu symbolizes himself as a preserver and protector of the created world. In this incarnation, Vishnu helps the gods, who were cursed by a sage named Durvasa for exhibiting pride because of wealth, fight against the demons. According to Cummins et al. Vishnu, as a result, takes on the form of a lion, known as Narasimha and kills Hiranyakashipu to protect Prahlada and other pious devotees as well as preserve the world from wrathful demons such as Hiranyakashipu, once again carrying out his duty as the preserver and protector of the world.
As this avatar, Vishnu reclaims the earth, sky, and heavens in three enormous steps when King Bali exhibits arrogance to the gods. Vishnu took on the sixth incarnation as Parashurama, a Brahmin warrior who was characterized as carrying an axe. Even today, Rama is a well-worshipped figure in many temples, often depicted with his brother Lakshman, Sita, and his most loyal devotee Hanuman.
There are many Hindus who solely worship Krishna. Hindus have held the belief that this is the age when everything would gradually disappeaer and then the world would end in total destruction. While Buddha is not recognized as much among many Hindus as an incarnation of Vishnu, some Hindus believe Vishnu took on the form of Buddha to preserve the Hindu religion from demons and enemies by teaching demons to devalue neither the Vedas nor the teachings of the true Hindu religion.
Because of the Kali Yuga Age, Cummins et al. Vishnu told the gods and demons they should use Mount Madura as a churning stick, and the giant serpent, Vasuki, as a rope. Vishnu managed to persuade the demons to hold the head of the snake, which was spitting furiously, while the gods held the tail end. The serpent was then coiled around the mountain.
Each side alternately pulled the rope then allowed it to relax, causing the mountain to rotate in the water. At the request of the gods, Vishnu incarnated as a turtle. He placed the mountain on his back to act as a foundation stone, thus allowing the churning to continue. Some reports say it was churned for a thousand years before anything came up.
But Vishnu assumed the form of Mohini, a beautiful woman who captivated all the demons. By sleight of hand she changed the elixir for alcohol and returned the precious liquid to the gods. The churning also brought Lakshmi forth from the ocean. She came as a beautiful woman standing on a lotus flower. Seeing all the gods before her, she chose the god she felt was most worthy of her. Vishnu and she have been inseparable since. Search term:. Read more. This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets CSS enabled.
While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. Others are the dwarf Vamana, who became a giant in order to trick the demon Bali out of the entire universe ; the man-lion Narasimha, who disemboweled the demon Hiranyakashipu ; the Buddha who became incarnate in order to teach a false doctrine to the pious demons ; Rama-with-an-Axe Parashurama, who beheaded his unchaste mother and destroyed the entire class of Kshatriyas to avenge his father ; and Kalki the rider on the white horse, who will come to destroy the universe at the end of the age of Kali.
Most popular by far are Rama hero of the Ramayana and Krishna hero of the Mahabharata and the Bhagavata-Purana , both of whom are said to be avatars of Vishnu, although they were originally human heroes.
Along with these two great male gods, several goddesses are the object of primary devotion. They are sometimes said to be various aspects of the Goddess, Devi. In some myths Devi is the prime mover, who commands the male gods to do the work of creation and destruction. As Durga, the Unapproachable, she kills the buffalo demon Mahisha in a great battle; as Kali, the Black, she dances in a mad frenzy on the corpses of those she has slain and eaten, adorned with the still-dripping skulls and severed hands of her victims.
The Goddess is also worshiped by the Shaktas, devotees of Shakti, the female power. This sect arose in the medieval period along with the Tantrists, whose esoteric ceremonies involved a black mass in which such forbidden substances as meat, fish, and wine were eaten and forbidden sexual acts were performed ritually.
In many Tantric cults the Goddess is identified as Krishna's consort Radha. More peaceful manifestations of the Goddess are seen in wives of the great gods: Lakshmi, the meek, docile wife of Vishnu and a fertility goddess in her own right; and Parvati, the wife of Shiva and the daughter of the Himalayas. The great river goddess Ganga the Ganges , also worshiped alone, is said to be a wife of Shiva; a goddess of music and literature, Sarasvati, associated with the Saraswati River, is the wife of Brahma.
Many of the local goddesses of India—Manasha, the goddess of snakes, in Bengal, and Minakshi in Madurai—are married to Hindu gods, while others, such as Shitala, goddess of smallpox, are worshiped alone. These unmarried goddesses are feared for their untamed powers and angry, unpredictable outbursts.
Many minor gods are assimilated into the central pantheon by being identified with the great gods or with their children and friends. Hanuman, the monkey god, appears in the Ramayana as the cunning assistant of Rama in the siege of Lanka.
Skanda, the general of the army of the gods, is the son of Shiva and Parvati, as is Ganesha, the elephant-headed god of scribes and merchants, the remover of obstacles, and the object of worship at the beginning of any important enterprise. Worship and Ritual The great and lesser Hindu gods are worshiped in a number of concentric circles of public and private devotion. Because of the social basis of Hinduism, the most fundamental ceremonies for every Hindu are those that involve the rites of passage samskaras.
These begin with birth and the first time the child eats solid food rice. Later rites include the first haircutting for a young boy and the purification after the first menstruation for a girl ; marriage; and the blessings upon a pregnancy, to produce a male child and to ensure a successful delivery and the child's survival of the first six dangerous days after birth the concern of Shashti, goddess of Six.
Last are the funeral ceremonies cremation and, if possible, the sprinkling of ashes in a holy river such as the Ganges and the yearly offerings to dead ancestors. The most notable of the latter is the pinda, a ball of rice and sesame seeds given by the eldest male child so that the ghost of his father may pass from limbo into rebirth. In daily ritual, a Hindu generally the wife, who is thought to have more power to intercede with the gods makes offerings puja of fruit or flowers before a small shrine in the house.
She also makes offerings to local snakes or trees or obscure spirits benevolent and malevolent dwelling in her own garden or at crossroads or other magical places in the village. The temple is also a cultural center where songs are sung, holy texts read aloud in Sanskrit and vernaculars , and sunset rituals performed; devout laity may be present at most of these ceremonies.
In many temples, particularly those sacred to goddesses such as the Kalighat temple to Kali, in Kolkata , goats are sacrificed on special occasions. The sacrifice is often carried out by a special low-caste priest outside the bounds of the temple itself. Thousands of simple local temples exist; each may be nothing more than a small stone box enclosing a formless effigy swathed in cloth, or a slightly more imposing edifice with a small tank in which to bathe.
In addition, India has many temples of great size as well as complex temple cities, some hewn out of caves such as Elephanta and Ellora , some formed of great monolithic slabs such as those at Mahabalipuram , and some built of imported and elaborately carved stone slabs such as the temples at Khajuraho, Bhubaneshwar, Madurai, and Kanjeevaram. On special days, usually once a year, the image of the god is taken from its central shrine and paraded around the temple complex on a magnificently carved wooden chariot ratha.
Certain shrines are most frequently visited at special yearly festivals. For example, Prayaga, where the Ganges and Yamuna rivers join at Allahabad, is always sacred, but it is crowded with pilgrims during the Kumbha Mela festival each January and overwhelmed by the millions who come to the special ceremony held every 12 years.
Some festivals are celebrated throughout India: Diwali, the festival of lights in early winter; and Holi, the spring carnival, when members of all castes mingle and let down their hair, sprinkling one another with cascades of red powder and liquid, symbolic of the blood that was probably used in past centuries.
History The basic beliefs and practices of Hinduism cannot be understood outside their historical context. Although the early texts and events are impossible to date with precision, the general chronological development is clear. By about BC , when the Indo-Aryan tribes invaded India, this civilization was in a serious decline.
It is therefore impossible to know, on present evidence, whether or not the two civilizations had any significant contact. Many elements of Hinduism that were not present in Vedic civilization such as worship of the phallus and of goddesses, bathing in temple tanks, and the postures of yoga may have been derived from the Indus civilization, however.
See Indus Valley Civilization. By about BC , the Indo-Aryans had settled in the Punjab, bringing with them their predominantly male Indo-European pantheon of gods and a simple warrior ethic that was vigorous and worldly, yet also profoundly religious. Gods of the Vedic pantheon survive in later Hinduism, but no longer as objects of worship: Indra, king of the gods and god of the storm and of fertility; Agni, god of fire; and Soma, god of the sacred, intoxicating Soma plant and the drink made from it.
By BC the use of iron allowed the Indo-Aryans to move down into the lush Ganges Valley, where they developed a far more elaborate civilization and social system. By the 6th century BC , Buddhism had begun to make its mark on India and what was to be more than a millennium of fruitful interaction with Hinduism.
This was a time of great flux, growth, syncretism, and definition for Hinduism and is the period in which the epics, the Dharmashastras, and the Dharmasutras took final form. Under the Gupta Empire ? Rise of Devotional Movements In the post-Gupta period, a less rigid and more eclectic form of Hinduism emerged, with more dissident sects and vernacular movements.
At this time, too, the great devotional movements arose. Many of the sects that emerged during the period from to are still active in India today. Most of the bhakti movements are said to have been founded by saints—the gurus by whom the tradition has been handed down in unbroken lineage, from guru to disciple chela. This lineage, in addition to a written canon, is the basis for the authority of the bhakti sect.
Other traditions are based on the teachings of such philosophers as Shankara and Ramanuja. Shankara was the exponent of pure monism, or nondualism Advaita Vedanta , and of the doctrine that all that appears to be real is merely illusion.
Ramanuja espoused the philosophy of qualified nondualism Vishishta-Advaita , an attempt to reconcile belief in a godhead without attributes nirguna with devotion to a god with attributes saguna , and to solve the paradox of loving a god with whom one is identical. Medieval Hinduism Parallel with these complex Sanskrit philosophical investigations, vernacular songs were composed, transmitted orally, and preserved locally throughout India.
They were composed during the 7th, 8th, and 9th centuries in Tamil and Kannada by the Alvars, Nayanars, and Virashaivas and during the 15th century by the Rajasthani poet Mira Bai, in the Braj dialect.
In the 16th century in Bengal, Chaitanya founded a sect of erotic mysticism, celebrating the union of Krishna and Radha in a Tantric theology heavily influenced by Tantric Buddhism.
Chaitanya believed that both Krishna and Radha were incarnate within him, and he believed that the village of Vrindaban , where Krishna grew up, had become manifest once again in Bengal. The school of the Gosvamins, who were disciples of Chaitanya, developed an elegant theology of aesthetic participation in the ritual enactment of Krishna's life. These ritual dramas also developed around the village of Vrindaban itself during the 16th century, and they were celebrated by Hindi poets.
The first great Hindi mystic poet was Kabir, who was said to be the child of a Muslim and was strongly influenced by Islam, particularly by Sufism. His poems challenge the canonical dogmas of both Hinduism and Islam, praising Rama and promising salvation by the chanting of the holy name of Rama.
He was followed by Tulsidas, who wrote a beloved Hindi version of the Ramayana. A contemporary of Tulsidas was Surdas, whose poems on Krishna's life in Vrindaban formed the basis of the ras lilas, local dramatizations of myths of the childhood of Krishna, which still play an important part in the worship of Krishna in northern India.
These movements attempted to reconcile traditional Hinduism with the social reforms and political ideals of the day. So, too, the nationalist leaders Sri Aurobindo Ghose and Mohandas Gandhi attempted to draw from Hinduism those elements that would best serve their political and social aims.
Gandhi, for example, used his own brand of ahimsa, transformed into passive resistance, to obtain reforms for the Untouchables and to remove the British from India. In more recent times, numerous self-proclaimed Indian religious teachers have migrated to Europe and the United States, where they have inspired large followings.
Some, such as the Hare Krishna sect founded by Bhaktivedanta, claim to base themselves on classical Hindu practices. In India, Hinduism thrives despite numerous reforms and shortcuts necessitated by the gradual modernization and urbanization of Indian life.
The myths endure in the Hindi cinema, and the rituals survive not only in the temples but also in the rites of passage. Thus, Hinduism, which sustained India through centuries of foreign occupation and internal disruption, continues to serve a vital function by giving passionate meaning and supportive form to the lives of Hindus today.
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