Vac means “word” and “song,” as well as being the name of an early Vedic goddess. Vac refers to both speech and speech-consciousness. Vac enters into the seers (rishis). A Rig Vedic hymn to Vac stated that all actions and powers were grounded in speech. It was the primordial energy…
Subrahmanya means literally “favorable to priests,” often used as an invocation to the devas (gods) in Vedic soma sacrifices. Subrahmanya was also the designation for one of three assistants to the Vedic Udgatri priest. However, this beautiful Sanskrit compound was simply appropriated in the Puranas to name Siva’s most frightening…
Mohini appeared at the churning of the Milky Ocean, again for the birth of a river and a divine monkey, and then for the incarnation of a sage. In order to prevent the asuras (demons) from obtaining their share of the divine nectar of immortality (amrita) that was…
There is scholarly agreement that there was worship of the male generative organ in the Indus Valley civilization. Both archaeological remains and explicit references to “worshippers of the phallus” in the Rigveda support such an interpretation. However one interprets Siva’s origin—as from the Indus Valley, from tribal religion, within the…
Hanuman expanded the notion of the divine, perhaps more than any other being in Hindu mythology. He appeared as an agent governed by dharma like any human, yet while in an animal form he was divine. The myths of his birth from the elements of the gods, usually of Siva…
In the Rigveda (2:27:1) Daksha (ritual skill) was one of the six adityas, deities related so closely to Vedic sacrificial ritual that they may be called personifications of its logic and method. During the Vedic period the six expanded to twelve, with Daksha always among the most important. Ritual skill…
Candrangada’s story has another myth nested within it of a curious gender transformation. The Puranic mythmakers did not portray a supreme god or goddess remedying the situation in this case, as they so often did. In fact, neither sages nor the divine mother (Parvati) seemed able to reverse this permanent…