Monsoon rain (Goa) Around 1000 BC, in the Vedic period in India, Varuna was an important Hindu god. Varuna was originally a sky god - his name means "the one who covers everything." Often people think [...]
The Rig Veda in Sanskrit (from the 1800s AD) What is the Rig Veda? The Rig Veda is a group of poems that people in India first sang and recited [...]
Indra, 4-5th c. AD (Mathura, India) Who was Indra? In the earliest Hindu stories that we know of, from the Rig Veda, Indra is the ruler of the Hindu gods, the [...]
Hinduism: Arjuna fighting Karna, with Krishna as his charioteer (Duttapara Temple, ca. 1500s AD) What does "Hindu" mean? The word Hindu comes from the river Indus. So it just means [...]
Ganesh cursed the moon (Musee Guimet, Paris, from Tamil Nadu, ca. 1500 AD) Narada offered a sacrifice Now long ago Brahma was sitting with Shiva when a man called Narada came along. And Narada [...]
The god Zeus is the lightning and the thunder Zeus was, for many people in ancient Greece, the king of the gods. Homer shows Zeus this way in the Iliad, for example. But mainly, Zeus is [...]
The god Dionysos is the god of wine and grapes What is Dionysos the god of? For the Greeks, Dionysos was a fertility god like Demeter. But while Demeter was [...]
