Images of Brahma are still made. Many temples include one somewhere in their scheme of sculptural decoration, although it is only in extremely rare cases that he occupies the position of the main icon. In the whole of India there are very few temples of Brahma. There is one at Pushkar, near Ajmer (Rajasthan) and another in Orissa.

In Hindu cosmology the basic cycle which through the cosmos, passes through all eternity, is the Kalpa or the Day of Brahma, equivalent to 4320 million years. A night is of equal length, and 360 days and nights of this duration form one year of Brahma’s life. This is expected to last 100 years.

VISHNU

Vishnu is blue coloured and has four or more hands. He is shown holding two of his most characteristic symbols: the wheel and the conch-shell. He is always clothed in yellow. The wheel represents the Universal Mind and the powers of creation and destruction that form the revolving universe. The conch-shell is associated with the origin of existence through its spiral form and its connection with water. Vishnu also holds the club which symbolizes authority or the power of knowledge as the essence of life. He has an open upraised palm in the abhaya mudra, expressing reassurance. He sometimes holds a lotus and is also known as Narayan. His vehicle is Garuda (eagle) half-man, half-bird. 

Vishnu is normally shown reclining on a bed made up of the coils of the serpent king, Sheshanaga, which Lakshmi/Shri, his consort, seated at his feet. Brahma is shown to have been born from a lotus springing from the navel of Vishnu. According to Hindu mythology a cosmological substance is left over from the last age of creation from which a new cycle may be brought into existence. This is symbolized by the many-headed serpent king. Shesha means the leftover floating on the ocean which is thought to be like the Universe. 

During the interval in the cycle of creation, Vishnu lies asleep on the coils of Sheshanaga, protected by its hood, until he is ready to begin a new cycle. 

According to another creation story, Shesha was used as a rope (twisted around the world axis resting on a tortoise) with which the gods and the demons churned the waters of creation. 

Vishnu is a striking example of the way in which the changing demands of religious life in India brought about changes in the status of deities, or the qualities they represented. Although Vishnu is mentioned in the Rig-Veda, he became loosely associated with the sun and eventually, in the Mahabharata and the Puranas, he acquired a prestige that he has never lost. Ultimately he was invested with the qualities of permanence, continuity and preservation. 

With the passage of time, Vishnu acquired the characteristics of several deities including a number of popular folk ones who were observed into the Vishnu cult in the form of incarnations. In the Mahabharata he became identified with Krishna in his more martial aspects but these were subsequently replaced by qualities of romantic love. Vishnu also took on the attributes of several deities in various animal forms such as the tortoise, the boar and the fish. It is likely that these developments took place slowly and were the result of the absorption of the cults that prevailed in different areas of India. Eventually these diverse elements became reduced and systemized into a group of twenty-four Vishnu incarnations. Some of the more common ones were used to form a small group of ten incarnations (avataras), viz. the Fish (Matsya), the Tortoise (Kurma), the Boar (Varhaa), the Man-Lion (Narasimha), the Dwarf(Vamana), Parashurama, Rama, Krishna, Buddha and Kalkin.

Festival: Devuthani Ekadashi

Vishnu sleeps for four months, from June-July to October-November. This four-month period is also the time when many of the other gods are sleeping and it is considered unlucky to perform any ceremonies during this period. When Vishnu and the other gods wake up, it is considered the right time to hold engagements and marriages. To celebrate the event, various ceremonies are held and in some places a cowdung-cake fire is lit and people gather around it singing hymns.

SHIVA

Shiva, the third god of the Hindu triad, has three eyes, the third one (between the eyebrows) being usually closed, except at the time of destruction of things. He wears long hair, supports the holy Ganga river on his head and the crescent moon on his matted hair. He has two to four arms, holds a trident in his hand, is naked except for a tiger-skin, besmears himself with ash and is decorated with snakes on his head, neck and arms. He is very fair-coloured but has a blue throat due to his having drunk poison during the time of the churning of the ocean by the gods. In his other hands he holds an axe, an antelope, and an hour-glass shaped drum called a ‘damru’. He wears a garland of skulls and is also known as the lord of the cremation grounds. His consort is Parvati and he is the father of Ganesha and Skanda (Kartikeya). His vehicle is the bull called Nandi. 

Shiva was not a Vedic god and in his earlier forms he was known as Rudra. In contrast to Vishnu’s reputation as the benevolent creator god, Shiva represents destruction, austerity and the more malignant forces of life. This divergence has the effect that whereas Vishnu manifested himself through avataras. Shiva is represented by different aspects of his own powers and that of his consort. 

His spiritual ancestor, Rudra, was ambiguous, being both benevolent and malevolent, and the latter aspect gradually prevailed. The combination of the ideas of creation and destruction is expressed in his late aspect as the Supreme Being (Mahadeva). In this form he is frequently represented as the phallic symbol (linga) which is worshipped in a Shiva temple. The lingam can be said to represent the powers of regeneration and procreation. 

Shiva is shown in many other forms also, having more than four arms. They are grouped as under: 

Boon giving forms       Six.

Destructive forms       Eight.

Benign forms             Twelve.

General forms             Twenty-eight.

Dancing forms          Eight (some books mentionone hundred and eight different forms).

Festival: Shiva-ratri
Shiva-ratri (night of Shiva) is both a festival and a time to keep a vow. It is celebrated in February-March all over the country and the devotees spend the whole night singing devotional songs in praise of Lord Shiva. The lingam is first washed with Ganga water and then milk, curd, honey, ghee (clarified butter), flowers, etc., are poured over it. Devotees on this day abstain from food, ending the fast with a meal of dates, fruits, nuts, sweet potatoes and beaten rice. Special celebrations are held at important Shiva temples at Chidambaram, Kalahasti, Khajuraho, Varanasi and Kashmir.

SHIVA: NATARAJA

Nataraja or the Dancing Shiva is a very popular image. It illustrates a legend in which Shiva, accompanied by Vishnu disguised as a beautiful woman, set out to subdue ten thousand holy men who were living in a nearby forest. The holy men became angry and invoked a fierce tiger out of a sacrificial fire but Shiva flayed it and wore its skin as a cape. Next he was attacked by a poisonous snake but Shiva tamed it and wore it around his neck as a necklace. A dwarf was also send on whom Shiva put his foot and performed a dance which was so brilliant that the holy men acknowledged Shiva as their master. 

The symbolism of the dance, called Tandava, can be interpreted in many ways. It may show Shiva as the moving force of the universe and his five acts of creation, preservation, destruction, embodiment and release (of the souls of men from illusion). The last can be linked to the fire of the cremation ground, perhaps symbolized by the ring of flames round the dancer. 

In the image of Nataraja, Shiva is caught in the middle of the dance with one foot on the dwarf and the other in the air. The dwarf is said to be the embodiment of ignorance, the destruction of which is the pre-requisite to enlightenment, true wisdom and release. Shiva’s long hair fly out while he plays the drum. The drum indicates that God is the source of sound, the Nada-Brahman. The upper left hand carries the fire, the instrument for the final destruction of the universe. The lower right hand bestows protection. The lower left hand points to the left foot, showing that his feet are the sole refuge of the individual souls. The lifted foot stands for release from illusion.

MOTHER GODDESS (SHAKTI) 

                    Terrible Form            Benign Form

                Kali *                      Bhuvaneshwari *

                Tara *                    Kamala *

                Chinnamasta *         Sadasi *

                Bagala *                 Shailputri ***

                Dhumavati *            Skandamata ***

                Bhairavi *                Parvati

                Matangi *                Mahagauri ***

                Chandraghanta *      Siddhidhatri ***

                Kushmanda *            Indrani ***

                Kairatri *                 Vaishnavi **

                Katyayani *              Kaumari **

                Chamunda *             Lakshmi

                Varahi *                  Saraswati

                Brahmani **

              Maheshwari **

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