Oh My Gods!

In Hinduism there are many deities such as Vishnu, Shiva, Lakshmi
and Ganesh just to name a few. However, those deities were not always the
predominant and most popular in Hindu religion. Before Hinduism actual existed as
its own religion, it existed as only one piece of the PIE or the Proto- Indo- European
Religion. This religion was to thought to have originated in Volgograd, Russia in
4000 BC and proceeded approx. 0.7 miles/year. This religion gave rise to the Italic,
Greek, Celtic, Baltic, Slavic, Germanic, Indo-Aryan, etc. as well as many central
religious themes such as slaying of a serpent in many stories or the world tree view
(Mount Meru in Hinduism to Mount Olympus in Greek Mythology). After the PIE
religion, Hinduism started developing more independently. At this time the Rig
Vedas were written where there were four major types of deities: Indra- the leader
of Vedic Gods, Gods of Nature such as Sūrya -“Sun”, Vāyu -“Wind”, Maruts -
“Monsoon Winds” and Parjanya -“Thunderstorm”, Gods of Principles and Functions
such as Varuṇa “God of commandments”, Mitra “God of alliances” and Aryaman “God
of customs”, and Gods of Ritual such as Agni- “Fire”. From the Rig Vedas, the
Puranas followed giving a more modern perspective on the Hindu deities, which
was a supplement text to the Rig Vedas outlining genealogy of gods and creation of
universe. After that the shift in perspective lead to the focus on devotion to God
over rituals and caste system and ultimately the four different sects of Hinduism:
Vaishnavism= Vishnu and his incarnations, Shaivism= Shiva as Supreme Being,
Shaktism= Worship goddess Shakti, Smartism= Choose which deity to worship.
Here is where the more familiar deities become popular, such Vishnu, Lakshmi,
Ganesh, Surya, Saraswati, and Parvati. The interesting thing is that most of the
Hindu deities have comparable Greek Gods association with them. For example,
Surya is parallel to Apollo, Saraswati is parallel to Athena, and Laxshmi is parallel to
Hera. However, there are some, like Ganesh, that do not have comparable Greek
gods. This shows that even though all these religions branched from a central
religion, each religion adapted deities that incorporate different aspects of the
different cultures. For example, the elephant is an important animal in the Hindu
culture and Ganesh was adapted to represent that.

Discussion Question #1
Does knowing about the origin of Hindu deities take away from the divine
and mystical origin of the Hindu gods?

Discussion Question #2
Do you see the formation or removal of deities from Hinduism in the future?