Smarta Deities

The Remover of Obstacles

The elephant-headed son of Shiva and Parvati, invoked before every undertaking. Ganesha is worshipped across sectarian lines — Shaiva, Vaishnava, Shakta and Smarta households alike begin with him — which makes him one of the most widely venerated deities in the Hindu world.

Goddess of Knowledge

Goddess of knowledge, music, speech and the arts — and, in the Rigveda, a river. Worshipped at Vasant Panchami by students and musicians, and the deity before whom children are traditionally taught to write their first letters.

The Sun

The sun as a deity — the one major Hindu god who is directly visible. Invoked in the Gayatri mantra, worshipped at Chhath and Makar Sankranti, and once the centre of a distinct sect with its own great temples at Konark and Modhera.

The River Goddess

The Ganges as a goddess — a river worshipped as a living deity along its whole course, held to purify what is immersed in it, and central to Hindu death rites. Also one of the most polluted major rivers in the world, which is a fact the tradition now has to hold alongside the other.

The Nine Grasping Ones

The nine grahas — Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, and the two shadow-nodes Rahu and Ketu — worshipped together in a shrine where no two of them face each other. Not planets, and not gods of fate: the tradition calls them dispensers of one's own past action.

The Three Forms

Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva as creator, preserver and destroyer — the scheme every introduction to Hinduism opens with, and the one almost no Hindu actually worships. A harmonising device rather than a lived theology, and the evidence is that one of the three has a single temple.

The Creator

The creator of the Trimurti — and the most striking anomaly in Hindu practice, a supreme deity with almost no temples. Worshipped chiefly at Pushkar, and present everywhere in cosmology while nearly absent from devotion.

The Slow-Moving One

Saturn among the Navagraha, and the deity most associated with consequence, discipline and delay. Worshipped on Saturdays with sesame oil and black cloth, and approached with a wariness unusual in Hindu devotion.

The Moon

The moon as a deity, and second of the Navagraha. Identified with Soma of the Vedic sacrifice, associated with the mind, and the reason the Hindu calendar is what it is — every festival date is his.

Sister of Death

The Yamuna as a goddess — daughter of the sun, twin sister of Yama, and the river of Krishna's Braj. Second only to the Ganga in sanctity, and among the most polluted rivers in the world.

The Shadow that Swallows

The severed head of an asura who drank the nectar of immortality, and the ascending lunar node. One of two Navagraha that are not bodies at all but points in space — and the tradition's explanation of eclipses.

The Headless Body

The severed body of the asura whose head became Rahu, and the descending lunar node. The ninth of the Navagraha, associated with detachment, loss and liberation — the graha that takes things away.

Mercury, the Wise

Mercury among the Navagraha — the graha of intelligence, speech and commerce. Son of Chandra and Tara, born of an abduction that caused a war among the gods, and ancestor of the lunar dynasty of the Mahabharata.

Jupiter, Preceptor of the Gods

Jupiter among the Navagraha, and Brihaspati — teacher and counsellor of the gods. The graha of wisdom, dharma and expansion, and the one whose name became the ordinary Indian word for a teacher.

Venus, Preceptor of the Asuras

Venus among the Navagraha, and Shukracharya — teacher of the asuras, keeper of the knowledge that revives the dead, and the tradition's most interesting argument against treating its demons as simply evil.

Mars, the Red One

Mars among the Navagraha, better known in North India as Mangala. Born of the earth, red in every attribute, and associated with energy, conflict and land — the graha most closely tied to property and to siblings.

Treasurer of the Gods

Lord of wealth and keeper of the treasures of the earth — king of the yakshas, guardian of the north, and Ravana's half-brother. Worshipped alongside Lakshmi at Diwali, and the deity from whom Venkateswara borrowed for his wedding.

The Three in One, and the First Guru

Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva in a single body — three heads, six arms, four dogs and a cow. The son of Atri and Anasuya, the archetype of the wandering avadhuta, and the deity around whom one of India's largest living guru traditions is organised.

Keeper of the Record

The scribe who sits in Yama's court and reads out what you did. Born from Brahma's body with a pen already in his hand, ancestor of the Kayastha communities, and honoured on the one day of the year when nobody in his lineage is supposed to write anything.

Vishnu and Shiva in One Body

One figure split down the middle — Shiva on the right with the trident and matted hair, Vishnu on the left with the discus and the crown. The image Indian religion produced when two of its sects had spent several centuries insisting the other was subordinate.

The One Without a Body

The god of desire, with a bow of sugarcane and five flower arrows — burnt to ash by Shiva's third eye for interrupting his meditation, and restored bodiless. In the Rigveda he is not a cupid at all but the first thing that ever moved.

The Eight Who Hold the Directions

Indra east, Agni south-east, Yama south, Nirrti south-west, Varuna west, Vayu north-west, Kubera north, Ishana north-east. Eight gods holding eight quarters — carved on temple walls facing outward, and still consulted whenever an Indian building is laid out.

The Arranger

The sage who divided the Veda, composed the Mahabharata, and appears inside it as the grandfather of both armies. Guru Purnima is his day, and the seat a teacher sits on is named after him.

The Sage Who Went South

The Rigvedic sage who drank the ocean, made the Vindhyas bow, and went south and stayed. Tamil tradition makes him the father of its grammar and its medicine, and a star is named after him.

The Father Who Would Not Invite Him

The Prajapati whose refusal to invite his daughter's husband to a sacrifice destroyed his family, his rite and his head. He is the most-referenced figure in this encyclopedia without a page of his own.

The Widow Who Argued With Shiva

Kamadeva's wife, who watched her husband burned to ash for doing what the gods sent him to do — and said so. The lament Kalidasa gives her is one of the great speeches in Sanskrit.