To: caww; James C. Bennett
Hinduism is basically not a religion but a meta-religion, a clubbing of various religions together. It has some commonalities like the Ramayana and Mahabharatha, but those are also not common to all hindu groups and many Hindu gods and goddesses are local deities incorporated into Hinduism -- like Bhavani in Maharashtra, like Ayyappa in Kerala. Also, Hinduism itself has changed from Vedic times when it called Varuna and Agni as Asuras (in the sense of senior Gods), to the post-Vedic period when they became lesser supernatural beings, to the post-Buddhist, Christian contact when the Asuras got relegated to demonic personalities.
Hinduism also incorporated deities like Ganesha who started out as a slightly "evil" (not the right term) figure symbolising the might and strength of raging elephants (around 1 AD we see references to Ganapati as such), to the post-Islamic invasion of the 11th century to Tilak's use of Ganeshutsav as a rallying call against British colonialism.
you also see the incorporation of historic personas into godhood like in the Mahabharatha and Ramayana and also Maheshasura (probably a Greek or Indo-Greek or Gandhara-Bactrian-Indo-Greek warrior with bulls horns on his helmet fighting in Bengal and being repulsed by a local cheiftainess who became Devi/Durga).
40 posted on
10/02/2010 2:07:06 AM PDT by
Cronos
(This Church is holy, the one Church, the true Church, the Catholic Church-St.Augustine)
To: Cronos
It would be interesting to know of your take of Blasater1960’s comments I linked in #35 above.
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