5/26/2019 The Homebrewery - NaturalCrit

Sample file

https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/print/S1ImHPgtE?dialog=true 1/14 5/26/2019 The Homebrewery - NaturalCrit Pantheons III Vedic The Gods The deities of the Vedic pantheon are myriad, stemming from This is the Vedic Pantheon, born of the fusion of the swift, multiple cultural matrices throughout their ancient world. chariot-riding Vedic hunters and the ancient Indus valley The original vegetal-lunar goddesses made way for the vision civilization that had already assimilated a previous colonial of cosmic enumeration from the Sumerians, which eventually power sent east from the lands of the Sumero-Akkadians. gave ground to the chariot deities of heroic Vedic lore and Both the Vedic hunter culture and the Indus stockbreeding their demonic enemies the . As the religious landscape culture found their roots in paleolithic beliefs centered on the grew and changed, the central tenant of the faith became that notions of inferiority in the face of the vast and sprawling of an escape of endless reincarnation through a staunch lands of the continent, but responded to this inferiority in dogma of restraint and suffering. The wheel of life was different ways. The Vedic hunters were fierce individualists endless, save for those who have discovered their true selves aspiring to overcome the challenges of the world, while the either through right-living or meditative escape. Indus ranchers looked to the lunar-vegetal cycle for their role The gods of the Vedic pantheon ebbed and flowed as the in the mechanism of nature, and held in highest regard those culture responded to the tumults of history. As such, a full forces of nature responsible for the endless cycles of life. detail of all the deities would be exhaustive. The following is This schism in their response to the vastness and a sizeable but by no means exhaustive list of these deities; indifference of their environment led to eventual conflict once those in bold are presented as creatures in this text: the Vedic people mastered the stirrup and the chariot. Rolling swiftly across the plains, the Vedic hunters brought the fires (CR 33). God of fire and sacrifice. of Agni and the dream of into the lands of the (CR 33). God of dreams and light. primeval agrarian mother goddess. The Indus people had (CR 31). God of the sky and the dawn. already assimilated the Sumero-Akkadian vision of the Ganesh (CR 31). God of clarity and wisdom. hieratic universe and taken on the rigorous caste system (CR 34). God of lightning and storms. imposed by their own literate priest caste. When the Vedic (CR 34). Goddess of blood and war. hunters swept south with their horses and wheels, the Indus (CR 34). Goddess of wealth and fortune. people and their bloody goddess were happy to oblige. Murugan (CR 33). God of war and victory. Before long, the heroism of the Vedic Indra was sublimated (CR 35). Goddess of grain and life. to the great , analogous to the Sumero-Akkadian me Prthivi (CR 32). God of the earth. and the Kemetic ma’at, of the Indus culture, and the Pusan (CR 31). God of travelers, herdsmen, roads. landscape of the Vedic deities radically changed. The great (CR 31). Goddess of life and light. goddesses of the Indus people were wed to the great gods of Raktavija (CR 31). Demon of blood and terror. the Vedic hunters, other gods and goddess traded roles and (CR 32). Goddess of arts and wisdom. powers, and overall a vastly complex system of belief and (CR 35). God of serpents. worship blossomed as fruitful and diverse as the land in (CR 35). God of destruction and . which it was seeded. (CR 31). God of the moon and libation. Between Shiva, Vishnu, and Brahma, the universe is (CR 33). God of the sun. created in infinite cyclicity over tremendous spans of time. Tvastr (CR 32). God of metallurgy and smithing. Their respective wives, Parvati, Lakshmi, and Saraswati each (CR 31). God of the wind and air. play pivotal roles in shaping the universe their husbands Vishnu (CR 35). God of the infinite dream. create, preserve, and destroy in endless rotation. In some (CR 35). God of death, dharma, and justice. sects, the goddesses are merely an aspect of a greater goddess named either Tridevi or . Similarly, the gods The Clergy were also often commerged as . In some sects, Shiva The priests of the ancient Vedic pantheon are a penitent and is the clear head of the pantheon, while in many others it is a ascetic lot. They hold to a belief that the world exists in four shared role with Vishnu and Brahma. In all cases, the gods of distinct world ages, or yugas. The first ( Yuga) was a the Vedic tradition surrendered to the wheel of and period of bliss, yoga, and magic spanning 1,728,000 years. the power most closely associated with the paleolithic gods. The second (Treta Yuga) and third (Dwapara Yuga) ages saw Nonetheless, a strain of Vedic individualism survived the the rise of warlords and empires, oceans and deserts, as well exchange. Only through yoga, derived from the power of the as the arts and labors necessary for society to function. These Vedic god Shiva, could one hope for escape () from ages combined spanned a period of time of over two million the illusion () of the suffering (samsara) of the world years. The world in the fourth and current world age (Kali (padme). This created the primary schism in the new culture: Yuga) is marked by ignorance, in, depravity, and injustice, and that of surrendering to one’s place in the caste (i.e. accepting it is believed that it will last for a total of 432,000 years. one’s dharma), or of rejecting the hieratic world and returning Even these spans of time are dwarfed by the ages of the to the forest, seeking a release from all desires. Brahma, lifespans of whom routinely break into 300 trillion EithSampleer way, the basic message from the gods and the web file years. To combat the despair invoked by such staggering of jewels in which everyone dwells was the same: close your spans of time as well as the tribulations of the Kali Yuga, the eyes, for everything is an illusion. priests of the Vedic pantheon offer two choices: dharma or moksha: i.e. either get with it, or get out of the way.

PANTHEONS III: VEDIC

2 https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/print/S1ImHPgtE?dialog=true 2/14