Hindu Glossary

AGNI. The Vedic god of fire; personification of fire in its various forms; the mediator or priest to men and gods.

AHIMSA. Noninjury, nonviolence, noncoercion; a reverence for all life.

ARYANS. A nomadic group that migrated into India in 1800-1500 BCE, conquered the Dravidians, and began the caste system.

ASHRAM. A community adjacent to an ISKCON temple in which members live.

ATMAN. The eternal self or soul, identical to Brahman; the self or inner essence of the universe and of man.

AVATAR. The "descent" of the divine; the incarnation of Vishnu in different animal and human forms. Traditionally there are ten such avatars: Matsya (the fish), Kurma (the tortise), Varaha (the Boar), Narasimha (the man-lion), Vamana (the dwarf), Parasurama (Rama with ax), Rama, Krishna, the Buddha, and Kalki at the end of time.

BHAGAVAD GITA. "Song celestial"; a scriptural text from the Mahabharata conerning Krishna, who, as an avatar of the god Vishnu, teaches the ways of salvation, particularly through devotion. This is perhaps the most influential of all Hindu scriptures.

BRAHMA. The creator god, who is one of the Hindu Trimurti.

BRAHMAN. The absolute; the ultimate ground underlying everything; the reality that is the source of all being and all knowing.

BRAHMIN. The priests of Hinduism; the highest of the social castes.

DRAVIDIANS. Prehistoric inhabitants of India who initially lived in the Indus Valley and were later conquered by Indo-Aryans.

DURGA. One of the names of the Devi as consort of Shiva; both a mother and warrior.

GANESHA. "Lord of Ganas," the elephant-headed son of Shiva and Parvati and the keeper of the thresholds of space and time. He is honored at the dooorway and at the outset of any venture.

GARUDA. Mythical sunbird and the vehicle of Vishnu.

HARE KRISHNA. The popular name of ISKCON and its adherents.

HARIJAN. "Children of God"; the "out-castes" of India, who were given this name by Gandhi; also known as "untouchables."

INDRA. The Vedic warrior god, wielder of the lightning bold (vajra). He is the liberator from obstructive forces. He set free water and light by killing Vritra, the gigantic and evil snake.

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR KRISHNA CONSCIOUSNESS (ISKCON). A movement centered in devotiohn to Krishan, who is regarded as the supreme lord and is worshiped through service, study, meditation, and chanting.

KALI. Divine Mother; the goddess of destruction who was both mother of life and destroyer; also a consort of Shiva.

KALKI. The tenth and last avatar of Vishnu; a messianic figure who will come to restore the dharma and destroy the wicked at the end of the fourth world period, the current kalpa.

KALPA. An age or aeon; a period in cosmic time equaling one day of Brahma or 1,000 "great yugas"--a total of 4,320 million years. Shiva will administer destrcution to the world at the close of the present kalpa.

KARMA. The moral law of cause and effect by which one reaps what one sows. In Hinduism it becomes a law by which all of one's dees, from all of one's lives, are balanced against each other to determine the nature of one's next incarnation.

KRISHNA. The eight avatar of Vishnu. Vishnu, the cosmic force of goodness, comes to earth as Krishan to reestablish dharma, or law. Krishna is the friend and advisor of the Pandava brothers, especially Arjuna, to whom he reveals the teachings found in the Bhagavad Gita. He is the inner Lord, who personifies spiritual love and lives in the eharts of all beings.

KSHATRIYA. A member of the warrior caste; the second caste of the Hindu social structure whose natural work is heroism, high spirit, resolution, ability, not fleeing in battle, giving, lordship.

KURMA. The second avatar of Vishnu; the tortoise.

LINGAM. A phallic symbol thorugh which Shiva is worshiped as a god of fertility.

MAHA-MANTRA. The "great mantra" chanted by adherents of ISKCON.

MANU. The father of humanity; the Hindu equivalent of Adam, the first man, and Noah. He is also the reputed author of the Laws of manu, a classic text of Indian juridical theory.

MATSYA. The first avatar of Vishnu; the fish.

MAYA. The illusion that there is a reality apart from the one reality of Brahman-Atman.

MOKSHA. A technique of transcending the senses to bring one to release; also, release itself. It is the name of the fourth permissible goal of life.

NANDI. The white bull shiva sometimes rides upon, who also makes music to which his master dances.

NARASIMHA. The fourth avatar of Vishnu; the man-lion.

NATARAJA. "Lord of the Dance"; an incarnation of Shiva who will appear at the end of the present age to destroy ignorance through dancing.

NIRVANA. The oneness with Brahman-atman which extinguishes any sense of individuality and its attained when one is released from the cycle of reincarnation.

PARASURAMA. The sixth avatar of Vishnu; often depicted as Rama with ax.

PARVATI. One of the consorts of Shiva.

RADHA. The wife of Krishna. The love between Krishna and the milkmaid Radha sometimes represents the union of the individual soul (Atman) with the world soul (Brahman).

RAMA. The seventh avatar of Vishnu; one of the most popular Hindu gods, the model of righteousness. As son of Dasaratha and husband of Sita, he is the great hero of the Ramayana.

RAMAYANA. Hindu scripture telling the story of the heroic exploits of Rama, an avatar of the god Vishnu.

RIG VEDA. India's first religious text, and one of the four vedas; essentially a product of Indo-Aryan thought.

RUDRAS. Vedic gods; the terrible gods of storms. Sometimes Rudras are mentioned as a group; at other times they are thoguht of as a single god, Rudra.

SAMADHI. The experience of oneness with Brahman-Atman attainable in this life; the experience of enlightenment which guarantees release from the round of rebirths at death.

SAMSARA. The cycle of rebirths.

SARASVATI. Name of a sacred river; later the wife of Brahma and goddess of knowledge, learning, holy speech, and music.

SESHA. The serpent on whom Vishnu is often depicted as reclining.

SHAKTI. Power or energy; the female, active power of a god, which assumes the creative function; personified as the goddess Shakti, wife of Shiva.

SHAKTISM. The worship of Shakti as the wife of Shiva.

SHIVA. "The Destroyer," the third member of the Trimurti.

SHRUTI. The body of primary revelation in the Hindu scriptural canon, consisting of the four Vedas, the Upanishads, the Aranyakas, and the Brahmanas.

SIDDHARTHA GAUTAMA. the Indian prince who founded buddhism; considered by Hindus as the ninth avatar of Vishnu.

SMRITI. All Hindu scripture not comprised in the shruti, such as the Puranas, the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, and law codes such as that of Manu.

SOMA. A drink used in Vedic ritual; the drink of the gods.

SUDRA. the fourth Hindu caste, consisting of slaves, servants, or menial workers.

TRIMURTI. the Hindu trinity of gods: Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva.

UMA. A consort of Shiva.

UPANISHADS. Ancient mystical documents found at the end of each of the four Vedas.

VAISHYA. A member of the third Hindu caste; a merchant. The Vaishaya is related to the soil; agriculture and trade are his professions.

VAJRA. The lighting bolt controlled by Indra, the atmospheric god.

VAMANA. The fifth avatar of Vishnu; the dwarf.

VARAHA. The third avatar of Vishnu; the boar.

VARUNA. The Vedic god of natural and moral law; probably the sky god in earliest times.

VEDAS. Scriptural books of hymns, charms, and formulas used in Hindu worship; these constitue some of the oldest of the Hindu scriptures.

VISHNU. The second deity of the Hindu Trimurti; the perserver. He is held to be the personal expression of Brahman-Atman and is often worshiped through his two avatars, Krishna and Rama.

VRITRA. The dragon or snake who retained the waters and was slain by Indra.

WORKS CITED
Palmer, Spencer J., Roger R. Keller, Dong Sull Choi, and James A. Toronto. Religions of the World. BYU Press, 1997.

Posted by john at August 14, 2005 05:20 PM