Hindu Deities

Hinduism is the most ancient belief system still widely practiced as a major religion.  Hinduism has no human founder.  It has evolved into various religious beliefs, and a wide range of differing philosophies.  The various Hindu sects have a remarkable tolerance for other sects, and different belief systems. Each individual worships the aspects of supreme consciousness that they are most comfortable with, or that draws their attention at specific stages or times in their lives.

A very simplistic way to describe Hinduism would be to say that most sects believe in one supreme consciousness, referred to as brahman, a state of pure transcendence that cannot be fully grasped by thought, and that each individual has a divine spark within, their atman, an indestructible soul.

The supreme consciousness is beyond human comprehension, and we are only able to absorb various aspects, which have been represented as different deities, statues and other representations of these gods and goddesses are referred to as rupas, the sanskrit word for form, which are meditation aids and channels, that allow us to relate and communicate with the supreme consciousness.

Each rupa, or meditation aid, has various attributes and a specific vahana, that identifies specific aspects of supreme consciousness.  These vahanas are very much like totem animals in other cultures, and the human forms probably evolved over time from each vahana.  Most of the gods and goddesses have benevolent and malevolent representations, this apparent duality, is actually an illusion, the vahana and attributes will help you identify the various forms with a specific deity, god or goddess. The older Vedic gods and goddesses usually represent the elements and other aspects of the phenomenal world.

Each rupa, or statue, conveys information to our subconscious mind, it was known that the meanings of words can change context over periods of time.  The visual representations can be explained in general terms by other who have studied them, but as one meditates on each form, other meanings, and less obvious truths become available to our subconscious mind.

Another bit of information that you may find useful.  Each deity, god and goddess usually has 108 names.  So to an outsider it may appear that their are thousands of deities.  The names I have used to identify the forms, are the most common ones used for each deity.