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Belief in the absolute sacredness of life. This prompts avoidance of harming any creature, however small.
Financial security and/or independence, riches, prosperity.
The god of erotic earthly fire. Angi is very involved with Shiva.
The real self. The supreme spiritual principle. (Literally: essence, breath)
The Immense being, The first among the gods, The Creator, the god from whom the universe develops. He is one of the holy trinity which includes Shiva and Vishnu. His name is not found in the Vedas but is refered to as Hiranya-Garbha, the Golden-Embryo. The older part of the Mahabharata defines him as the original deity from whom the world is born. He is not usually worshiped, and there are very few temples to him anywhere. He has a female form in Sakti.
A title given to successive teachers (past and future) of buddhism,
though it usually refers to Siddhartha Gautama (c563BC-c480BC).
Although born an Indian Prince (in what is now Nepal), he renounced
his kingdom, wife and child to become an ascetic, taking religious
instruction until he attained enlightenment (nirvana) through meditation beneath a bo tree in the village of Bodhgaya.
He then taught all who wanted to learn until his death. (Bhud
= to know)
A widespread Asian religion/philosophy, founded c.500BC in NE
India by the Buddha as a reaction against the sacraficial relifion of orthodox Brahmanisim.
It is a religion without a god, of which the central doctrine
is karma. The basic teachings of buddhism are contained in the 'four noble
truths' that:
the eternal law of the cosmos, inherent in the very nature of things, upheld by the gods; in the context of individual action, the term denotes social or caste rules, right behaviour. In one medeval Bengali text, Dharma is the father to the trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva.
Also known as Ganapati, The elephant-headed son of Shiva, and The Lord of Categories; this equates to being Lord of principles and seer of seers, consequently he is also known as the Remover of Obstacles.
Love or erotic love. Also, a god of the same. Kama often becomes Shiva's arch-enemy by distracting him from his meditations.
The world's oldest and most widely read guide to the pleasures and techniques of sex. Compiled in the 4th century AD by religious scholar Vatsysyana, from texts dating from 400BC. The text paints a fascinating portrait of secular life in classical India in sharp contrast to puritanical attitudes of modern India adopted from British and Muslim influences.
The doctorine that the sum of a person's actions in previous states of existence controls their fate in future existences. The doctorine reflects the Hindu belief that life as a human is just one of a chain of successive existences by transmigration, each life's condition being a consequence of actions in a previous life.
The Dark One, an incarnation of Vishnu, he is the embodiment of the devine joy that destorys all pain. He destroys sin and the protector of sacred utterances [symbolised as cows] and the instigator of all the forms of knowledge [represented cowherdesses]
Release from the chain of births impelled by the law of karma.
It is also the name given to the transendant state attained by
this liberation.
The belief that both mental and physical phenomena can be explained in terms of a common substance, that the underlying reality remains the same.
The final goal of Buddhism, a transcendant state in which there is neither suffering, desire, nor sens of self (atman). with release from the effects of karma. (Literally: the extinction of illusion, since suffering, desire and self are all considered illusions)
Daughter of the Mountain and space. Shiva's most revered wife. She is also called Durga and Kali among many other names.
The Perfect husband, married to Sati (the perfect wife). He is an incarnation of Vishnu.
The Goddess, the female form of Brahman. For a great number of Hindus she represents "God" supreme, for others, she is Parvati, Shiva's wife.
The devastatingly beautiful woman who can make a tree blossom merely by touching it with her foot.
The Destroyer, The Lord of Yoga. Of all the gods worshipped in the world today, he is the oldest. He has a third eye in his forehead which can burn or kill. He is described as having matted hair, wearing a garland of skulls, being immutable, bearing the Ganges, and being Lord-of-the-Universe.
Ascetic meditaion. Roughly equivalent to prayers or contemplation of the Gods. The Gods and Goddesses too perform tapas, and when these are particlarly intense, disruption of various kinds (e.g. fires) can break out.
The sacred Indian texts which describe Hindusim. They come from a long oral tradition believed to started around 1000BC, the oldest surviving on paper is the Rig Veda, which dates to 1400AD. Estimates of the creation of the Vedas are as follows:
The preserver, The Pervader. Along with Brahma and Shiva, he is one of the three gods of the trinity. Krishna and Rama are both incarnations of Vishnu.
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