Numina · Book III
Book III
Hindu Mythology
Alone among the eleven, this one was never interrupted. The Vedic hymns are recited today; the Ramayana and the Mahabharata are performed, filmed and argued over; the Puranas are read as scripture rather than as evidence. Writing about it in the past tense would be a mistake.
The corpus is enormous and stratified. The Rig Veda’s gods are Indra, Agni, Varuna, Soma — storm, fire, oath and the pressed drink. By the time of the epics and the Puranas the centre has shifted to Vishnu, Shiva and the Devi, and the earlier gods are still there but subordinate. The same figure appears under a dozen names and in a dozen incompatible genealogies, and the tradition regards this as depth rather than error.
Time is cyclical and vast. Yugas fall into decline and are renewed, kalpas open and close, and the universe has been made and unmade more times than the texts trouble to count.
Contents
- III.1The Vedas1 written
The oldest layer: fire, oath, storm, and the pressed drink.
- III.2Vishnu, Shiva, Devi4 written
The later centre of gravity, and how the earlier gods were kept.
- Vishnu, Shiva, DeviIn the oldest hymns two of them are minor and the third has no single name. A thousand years later everything turns around them. How did the centre move, and what became of the gods who had held it?
- VishnuIn the Rigveda he is a minor god known for one thing: he crosses the universe in three steps. This page follows how the strider became the one who holds the world together, and how to read him when you see him.
- ShivaThe Rigveda fears him and asks him to stay away. A later story has him shut out of the gods' own sacrifice. This page follows the outsider who became, for his worshippers, the one God, and reads his best-known forms.
- DeviThe gods are beaten, and to save themselves they pour their powers into one figure and hand her their weapons. Then she tells a demon that she is alone in the world. This page is about the Goddess and her many names.
- III.3The two epicsto come
Rama and the Mahabharata — myth as inheritance dispute.
- III.4Descentsto come
The avatara idea: why a god would consent to be born.
- III.5Yugas and kalpasto come
Deep time, decline, and a universe on its hundredth draft.