Vaishnavism in the context of "Hindu deities"

Hinduism (/ˈhɪnduˌɪzəm/) is an umbrella term for a range of Indian religious and spiritual traditions (sampradayas) that are unified by adherence to the concept of dharma, a cosmic order maintained by its followers through rituals and righteous living, as expounded in the Vedas. The word Hindu is an exonym, and while Hinduism has been called the oldest surviving religion in the world, it is also described by the 19th century term Sanātana Dharma (lit. 'eternal dharma'). Vaidika Dharma (lit. 'Vedic dharma') and Arya Dharma are historical endonyms for Hinduism.

Hinduism entails diverse systems of thought, marked by a range of shared concepts that discuss theology, mythology, and other topics in textual sources. Hindu texts have been classified into Śruti (lit. 'heard') and Smṛti (lit. 'remembered'). The major Hindu scriptures are the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Puranas, the Mahabharata (including the Bhagavad Gita), the Ramayana, and the Agamas. Prominent themes in Hindu beliefs include karma (action, intent and consequences), saṃsāra (the cycle of death and rebirth) and the four Puruṣārthas, proper goals or aims of human life, namely: dharma (ethics/duties), artha (prosperity/work), kama (desires/passions) and moksha (liberation/emancipation from passions and ultimately saṃsāra). Hindu religious practices include devotion (bhakti), worship (puja), sacrificial rites (yajna), and meditation (dhyana) and Yoga. Hinduism has no central doctrinal authority and many Hindus do not claim to belong to any denomination. However, scholarly studies notify four major denominations: Shaivism, Vaishnavism, Shaktism and Smartism. The six Āstika schools of Hindu philosophy that recognise the authority of the Vedas are: Sankhya, Yoga, Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Mīmāṃsā, and Vedanta.

Jāti is the term traditionally used to describe a cohesive group of people in the Indian subcontinent, like a caste, sub-caste, clan, tribe, or a religious sect. Each Jāti typically has an association with an occupation, geography or tribe. Different intrareligious beliefs (e.g. Vaishnavism or Smarthism or Shaivism) or linguistic groupings may also define some Jātis. The term is often translated approximately in English as caste.

The history of Hinduism covers a wide variety of related religious traditions native to the Indian subcontinent. It overlaps or coincides with the development of religion in the Indian subcontinent since the Iron Age, with some of its traditions tracing back to prehistoric religions such as those of the Bronze Age Indus Valley Civilisation. Hinduism has been called the "oldest religion" in the world, but scholars regard Hinduism as a relatively recent synthesis of various Indian cultures and traditions, with diverse roots and no single founder, which emerged around the beginning of the Common Era.

The history of Hinduism is often divided into periods of development. The first period is the pre-Vedic period, which includes the Indus Valley Civilization and local pre-historic religions. Northern India had the Vedic period with the introduction of the historical Vedic religion by the Indo-Aryan migrations, starting somewhere between 1900 BCE and 1400 BCE. The subsequent period of the second urbanisation (600–200 BCE) is a formative period for Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism followed by "a turning point between the Vedic religion and Hindu religions," during the Epic and Early Puranic period (c. 200 BCE to 500 CE), when the Epics and the first Purānas were composed. This was followed by the classical "Golden Age" of Hinduism (c. 320–650 CE), which coincides with the Gupta Empire. In this period the six branches of Hindu philosophy evolved, namely, Samkhya, Yoga, Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Mīmāṃsā, and Vedānta. Monotheistic sects like Shaivism and Vaishnavism developed during this same period through the Bhakti movement. It flourished in the medieval period from roughly 650 to 1100 CE, which forms the late Classical period or early Middle Ages, with the decline of Buddhism in India and the establishment of classical Puranic Hinduism is established.

In Hinduism, the conception of God varies in its diverse religio-philosophical traditions. Hinduism comprises a wide range of beliefs about God and divinity, such as henotheism, monotheism, polytheism, panentheism, pantheism, pandeism, monism, agnosticism, atheism, and nontheism.

Forms of theism find mention in the Bhagavad Gita. Emotional or loving devotion (bhakti) to a primary god such as avatars of Vishnu (Krishna for example), Shiva, and Devi (as emerged in the early medieval period) is now known as the Bhakti movement. Contemporary Hinduism can be categorized into four major theistic Hindu traditions: Vaishnavism, Shaivism, Shaktism, and Smartism. Vaishnavism, Shaivism, and Shaktism worship the Hindu deities Vishnu, Shiva, and Devi as the Supreme God respectively, or consider all Hindu deities as aspects of the same, Supreme Reality or the eternal and formless metaphysical Absolute, called Brahman in Hinduism, or, translated from Sanskrit terminology, Svayaṁ-Bhāgavan ("God Itself"). Other minor sects such as Ganapatya and Saura focus on the deities Ganesha or Surya as the Supreme.

The Agamas (Devanagari: आगम, IAST: āgama) are a collection of several Tantric literature and scriptures of Hindu schools. The term literally means tradition or "that which has come down", and the Agama texts describe cosmology, epistemology, philosophical doctrines, precepts on meditation and practices, four kinds of yoga, mantras, temple construction, deity worship and ways to attain sixfold desires. These canonical texts are in Sanskrit and Tamil.

The three main branches of Agama texts are Shaiva, Vaishnava and Shakta. The Agamic traditions are sometimes called Tantrism, although the term "Tantra" is usually used specifically to refer to Shakta Agamas. The Agama literature is voluminous, and includes 28 Shaiva Agamas, 64 Shakta Agamas (also called Tantras), and 108 Vaishnava Agamas (also called Pancharatra Samhitas), and numerous Upa-Agamas.

Shaivism (/ˈʃaɪvɪzəm/; Sanskrit: शैवसंप्रदायः, romanized: Śaivasampradāyaḥ) is one of the major Hindu religious traditions, which worships Shiva as the supreme being. It is the second-largest Hindu sect, after Vaishnavism, constituting about 385 million Hindus, found widely across South Asia predominantly in India, Sri Lanka, and Nepal. The followers of Shaivism are called Shaivas or Shaivites.

According to Chakravarti, Shaivism developed as an amalgam of pre-Aryan religions and traditions, Vedic Rudra, and post-Vedic traditions, accommodating local traditions and Yoga, puja and bhakti. According to Bisschop, early shaivism is rooted in the worship of the vedic deity Rudra. The earliest evidence for sectarian Rudra-Shiva worship appears with the Pasupata (early CE), possibly owing to the Hindu synthesis, when many local traditions were aligned with the Vedic-Brahmanical fold. The Pāśupata movement rapidly expanded throughout North India, giving rise to different forms of Shaivism, which led to the emergence of various tantric traditions. Both devotional and monistic Shaivism became popular in the 1st millennium CE, rapidly becoming the dominant religious tradition of many Hindu kingdoms. It arrived in Southeast Asia shortly thereafter, leading to the construction of thousands of Shaiva temples on the islands of Indonesia as well as Cambodia and Vietnam, co-evolving with Buddhism in these regions.

The Smarta tradition (Sanskrit: स्मार्त, IAST: Smārta) is a movement in Hinduism that developed and expanded with the Puranas genre of literature. It reflects a synthesis of four philosophical strands, namely Uttara Mīmāṃsā, Advaita, Yoga, and theism. The Smarta tradition rejects theistic sectarianism, and is notable for the domestic worship of five shrines with five deities, all treated as equal – Ganesha, Shiva, Shakti, Vishnu and Surya. The Smarta tradition contrasted with the older Shrauta tradition, which was based on elaborate rituals and rites. There has been a considerable overlap in the ideas and practices of the Smarta tradition with other significant historic movements within Hinduism, namely Shaivism, Brahmanism, Vaishnavism, and Shaktism.

The Smarta tradition developed during (early) Classical Period of Hinduism around the beginning of the Common Era, when Hinduism emerged from the interaction between Brahmanism and local traditions. The Smarta tradition is aligned with Advaita Vedanta, and regards Adi Shankara as its founder or reformer. Shankara championed the thesis that ultimate reality is impersonal and Nirguna (attributeless) and any symbolic god serves the same equivalent purpose. Inspired by this belief, the Smarta tradition followers, along with the five Hindu gods, include a sixth impersonal god in their practice. The tradition has been called by William Jackson as "advaitin, monistic in its outlook".

Hindu deities are the gods and goddesses in Hinduism. Deities in Hinduism are as diverse as its traditions, and a Hindu can choose to be polytheistic, pantheistic, monotheistic, monistic, even agnostic, atheistic, or humanist. The terms and epithets for deities within the diverse traditions of Hinduism vary, and include Deva, Devi, Ishvara, Ishvari, Bhagavān and Bhagavati.

The deities of Hinduism have evolved from the Vedic era (2nd millennium BCE) through the medieval era (1st millennium CE), regionally within Nepal, Pakistan, India and in Southeast Asia, and across Hinduism's diverse traditions. The Hindu deity concept varies from a personal god as in Yoga school of Hindu philosophy, to thirty-three major deities in the Vedas, to hundreds of deities mentioned in the Puranas of Hinduism. Examples of contemporary major deities include Vishnu, Shiva and Devi. These deities have distinct and complex personalities, yet are often viewed as aspects of the same Ultimate Reality called Brahman. From ancient times, the idea of equivalence has been cherished for all Hindus, in its texts and in early 1st-millennium sculpture with concepts such as Harihara (Half Vishnu, Half Shiva) and Ardhanārīshvara (half Shiva, half Parvati), with myths and temples that feature them together, declaring they are the same. Major deities have inspired their own Hindu traditions, such as Vaishnavism, Shaivism and Shaktism, but with shared mythology, ritual grammar, theosophy, axiology and polycentrism. Some Hindu traditions, such as Smartism from the mid 1st millennium CE, have included multiple major deities as henotheistic manifestations of Saguna Brahman, and as a means to realizing Nirguna Brahman. In Samkhya philosophy, Devata or deities are considered as "natural sources of energy" who have Sattva as the dominant Guna.

Durga (/ˈdʊərɡə/; Sanskrit: दुर्गा, lit. 'The Inaccessible One, The Impenetrable One', IAST: Durgā [d̪ʊrɡaː]), also known as Mahādevī(/məˈhɑː ˈdeɪvi/; Sanskrit: महादेवी, lit. 'The Great Goddess', IAST: Mahādevī, [mɐɦaːd̪eːʋiː]), and Ādiśakti(/ˈɑːdiʃækti/; Sanskrit: आदि शक्ति, lit. 'The Primordial Power', IAST: Ādiśakti, [aːd̪ɪ ʃɐkt̪i]), is one of the most important deities in Hinduism. She is regarded as the principal aspect of Adi Parashakti, the Ultimate Reality in Shaktism and widely worshipped by the followers of this goddess-centric sect, and has importance in other denominations like Shaivism and Vaishnavism.

She is associated with protection, strength, motherhood, destruction, and wars, her legends centers around combating evils and demonic forces that threaten peace, dharma and cosmic order, representing the power of good over evil. Durga is seen as a motherly figure and often depicted as a warrior, riding a lion or tiger, with many arms, each carrying a weapon and defeating demons.