The Trimurti

Trimurti on Elephanta Island, India

Hinduism is one of the world's oldest religions. For well over 3,000 years, it has been accumulating the sacred stories that make up the mythology of Hinduism. Pulsing with creation, destruction, love, and war, the myths changes. Most myths occur in several different versions while characters have multiple roles, identities, and histories. There are three core deities called the Trimurti who correspond to creation, protection, and destruction.

Themes

Around 1700 B . C ., Aryans or Indo-Europeans from the area to the northwest of India began migrating to India. They brought a mythic tradition that became the basis of an early form of Hinduism.

The Vedas are the oldest Indian documents based on ancient Aryan traditions . One of them, the Rig-Veda, is a collection of 1,028 hymns of praise and prayers to the gods with references to myths.

The Brahmanas, date from 900 to 700 B . C . The Upanishads, written around 700 B . C . and after, about ideas through myths. The two great Hindu epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, written down sometime between 300 B . C . and A . D . 300, contain stories about a number of major gods. After that time, the chief expression of Hindu mythology and religion was in texts called Puranas, about stories of the old days in the voices of the gods themselves.

One of key Hindu beliefs is the idea of reincarnation, sometimes called the transmigration of souls. After the death of one body, or incarnation, the soul is born again into a new living body. Even the deities can be reincarnated in human form or animal or another being.

Like individual soul reborn following his or her own dharma, the cosmic is continually created and destroyed. Time moves in cycles of millions of years, endlessly building up and tearing down without beginning or end.

Trimurti

Hindu mythology is populated by an enormous cast of deities, demons, demigods, humans, and animals. Some had a central role in one era but remain in the background in later periods, while others have risen from obscurity to prominence. The attributes and histories of many mythological characters have changed considerably over the many centuries.

     

Brahma as creator

Vishnu, the protector of life

Shiva, the god of destruction

    

Vishnu, the second member of the Trimurti, is the preserver or protector of life. His attributes are mercy and goodness. Some Hindus regard Vishnu as the supreme being and Brahma and Shiva as aspects of him. Shiva, descended from the old Vedic storm god Rudra, is the third member of the Trimurti. He is the avenging and destroying god, but his destruction allows new creation to begin. Sometimes Shiva is portrayed as a dancer who directs the movements of the universe.

Devi, "the goddess," is one of the most ancient deities of the pantheon. Under her name are grouped various female deities, who represent different aspects of Devi. Among them are Parvati, the wife of Shiva; Durga, the warrior goddess and fighter of demons; and the even more ferocious Kali, "the dark one," who also fights demons but sometimes becomes intoxicated with blood and destruction.

The popular elephant-headed, four-handed god Ganesha is Parvati's son. One of the most popular gods in Hinduism today, he is associated with good luck and wisdom. Indra, god of storm and rain, was one of the most important deities of the Rig-Veda and may have represented the warrior chieftains of the ancestral Aryan peoples. Vedic hymns suggest that Indra replaced Varuna, the guardian of justice and order, as the king of the gods. As the mythology of Hinduism developed, however, Indra in turn moved to secondary status below the Trimurti. Krishna is one of the incarnations, or avatars, of Vishnu. He appears in the Mahabharata and the Puranas. Many stories about him focus on his prankish, playful nature and on his many love affairs.

Manu, sometimes described as a son of Brahma, is both a god and the first man, ancestor of the human race. According to one myth, a small fish warns Manu that the earth will soon be destroyed by a great flood. Manu takes care of the fish, which is really an incarnation of Vishnu, and when it is grown, it saves him from the flood so that he can repopulate the earth. The heroine Savitri, whose story is told in the Mahabharata, symbolizes love that defeats even death. She persuades Yama, the lord of death, to release her husband from death.

The Mahabharata and Ramayana

Hindu mythology includes a huge number of stories. Some have proved to be especially enduring and central to an understanding of Hinduism. Among these are the tales told in the Mahabharata and the Ramayana and those described below.

The Mahabharata tells how Daksha, Shiva's father-in-law, held a ceremony of horse sacrifice for the gods. All the gods except Shiva had been invited. Angry at being excluded, Shiva attacked the ceremony with his servants. They threw blood on the fire and ate the priests. A drop of sweat from Shiva's brow fell to earth and formed Disease, an ugly figure that terrified the gods. Brahma promised that Shiva could take part in all future sacrifices, and in return Shiva turned Disease into many small ailments to trouble animals and humans.

As Hinduism developed and the Trimurti gained importance, a complex vision of the creation, destruction, and recreation of the universe emerged. Brahma brings the universe into being through his thoughts. The world then passes through a Maha Yuga, or great age, that lasts 4,320,000 years. The Maha Yuga contains four yugas, or ages. Each is shorter and more immoral than the one before, from the Krita Yuga—Brahma's golden age—through two intermediate ages under Vishnu's protection to the Kali Yuga—Shiva's dark age.

Each dark age in turn gives way to a new golden age, and the cycle of the Maha Yuga repeats a thousand times. Then Shiva destroys all life with scorching heat and drowning flood, and the earth remains empty while Vishnu sleeps. After a thousand Maha Yugas, a lotus flower emerges from Vishnu's navel, and it becomes Brahma, ready to perform his creative act anew.

The Avatars of Vishnu. Many myths deal with Vishnu's avatars, the incarnations of the god on earth. The most common list of the ten avatars begins with Matsya, the fish that protects Manu from the flood. The second avatar is Kurma, a tortoise that holds Mount Mandara on his back so that the gods can use it as a paddle to churn the ocean and produce a drink of eternal life.

Varaha, a boar who appears after a demon giant pulls the earth to the bottom of the ocean, is the third incarnation. Varaha defeats the demon and raises the earth on his tusks. Narasinha, the fourth avatar, is half man and half lion. He defeats a demon who cannot be killed by man or beast. The dwarf Vamana, the fifth incarnation, triumphs over Bali, a being who had gained control of the world. When Bali grants Vamana as much land as he can cover in three strides, the dwarf becomes a giant and strides over heaven and earth. The sixth avatar, ax-wielding Parashurama, frees the priests from the domination of the warriors.

The seventh incarnation, Rama, is the hero of the Ramayana. The eighth is the god Krishna; and the ninth is Buddha. Hindus believe that Buddha came to earth to draw people away from the proper worship of the Vedas so that the world would decline and be destroyed, as the cosmic cycle demands. The tenth avatar, Kalki, will appear at the end of the world to preside over its destruction and the creation of a new, pure world.