Hindu Mythology

Kali’s name and imagery connect her with time, death, radical transformation, and power beyond ordinary social control. In many devotional traditions she is also a compassionate mother who frees devotees from fear. Kali and the power of time in the surviving tradition The Devi Mahatmya presents Kali in battle against forces that multiply and overwhelm. […]

Ganesha is the elephant-headed Hindu deity honored at the beginning of undertakings and associated with removing and placing obstacles, wisdom, learning, and prosperity. His worship extends across many Hindu communities and beyond India. Ganesha in the surviving tradition A well-known Puranic story says Parvati creates a child to guard her privacy. Shiva returns, does not

In Hindu traditions, an avatar is a divine descent or manifestation in the world. Vishnu’s avatars appear when cosmic and moral order needs protection. The idea is expressed in the Bhagavad Gita, where Krishna says that he comes into being age after age to protect the good, restrain wrongdoing, and establish dharma. There Is More

The Mahabharata is a vast Sanskrit epic and a living narrative tradition. Its central conflict concerns two branches of the Kuru royal family, the five Pandava brothers and their Kaurava cousins. The struggle ends in the catastrophic war at Kurukshetra, but the work also contains law, philosophy, pilgrimage, myth, political debate, devotional teaching, and many

Kali is a major Hindu goddess whose fierce appearance can express protection, time, death, power, and liberation. She is especially prominent in Shakta and Bengali traditions, where devotees also approach her as Mother. No single myth or symbol explains every form of Kali. Kali in the Devi Mahatmya One of Kali’s earliest major appearances is

Shiva is one of the most widely worshipped deities in Hindu traditions. He can be the supreme God, a great yogi, a householder, a dancer, a teacher, a fierce destroyer, and a source of grace. These forms are not pieces of one simple biography. Texts, temples, regions, and schools of thought emphasize different aspects of