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Hindu culture has some of the most colorful and powerful gods out there.
They have fascinating stories that interlace with their culture and traditions and teach
us a thing or two about attachment, life cycles, and even greed.
These Top 10 Most Powerful Hindu Gods of Mythology will teach you a thing or two about who to
stay loyal to, and who you don’t want to make angry.
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10.
Krishna In Western culture, this is probably the Hindu
god we hear about the most.
Krishna is the god of ecstatic devotion, he’s a bit of a Don Juan who lures women with his
wisdom and talent at playing the flute.
He’s portrayed in a variety of ways, often a bit plump, with a crown and lots of accessories,
playing the flute with a flirtatious smile.
What’s there not to like?
He’s also the lord of Bhakti of Devotional Yoga.
This could be a large reason why we know him in the West, seeing as we’ve largely taken
on yoga culture, though without most of the spirituality.
Krishna’s devotees are often singing, playing music, dancing, or chanting.
His presence is said to be entrancing or high-inducing.
9.
Hanuman In Hindu culture, Hanuman is the monkey king
and lord of celibacy.
As his description states, you can often find him represented as a sort of apeman.
He’s featured in an epic called The Ramayana.
His path to becoming a god was forged by a variety of feats of strength, devotion, and
courage in many tasks.
He is a god, but at the same time, he is the devoted servant to a different god, Rama.
Though he does appear in the Ramayana, devotion to him doesn’t become popular until about
a thousand years later, when he became a symbol of nationalism, rebellion, and resistance.
Now, it’s quite common to catch a glimpse of representations of Hanuman, viewed as the
perfect mix of strength, heroism, excellence, and service.
8.
Agni You can’t have a list of powerful gods without
invoking a god of one of the elements.
Fire, of course, comes to mind when we think of power and for this, Agni is the god to
call upon in Hinduism.
Agni is the sacrificer, or priest who performs the ritual.
He’s also the main witness to all rites of the faith.
If you find yourself in a Hindu temple, you can generally see him in the Southeast corner,
since he’s the guardian god of this direction.
He is considered the mouth of the gods, the medium between human wants and actions and
the gods' will and condemnation.
He’s said to have a variety of representations, on earth as fire, in the sky as lightning
and above us all like the sun.
Originally, Agni’s fate had been a cursed one, he had offended the god Bhrigu and been
condemned to become the devourer of all things on earth.
However, Bhrigu must have cooled off because he modified the curse and Agni became the
purifier of all things he touched.
Could this be why we think fire purifies?
7.
Lakshmi Lakshmi is the ruler of money and wealth.
We all like money and wealth, don’t we?
This could be why she’s definitely an A-lister in Hindu tradition.
She can be seen frequently with gold coins in her hand.
Anytime you see Lakshmi, she looks happy in her abundance, holding riches, often portrayed
with animals of the elite, like elephants.
She’s the one to go to when those bills come in and you don’t know how to pay them.
She also gives spiritual wealth, blessings of inner realization and holds the worth of
all the things we find valuable in life.
Now that is power.
6.
Brahma Like in Catholicism, Hinduism also has a Trinity.
The first member of this Trinity is the Creator, Brahma.
According to Hindu tradition, Brahma periodically creates everything in the universe, since
time is cyclical in the Hindu belief.
Everything is created, maintained, destroyed, and then renewed in an ideal form.
Even Brahma himself, which is why they call him: “self-born” or “self-created”.
Brahma is generally represented in a seated position with one torso, two legs, four or
six arms, and three heads.
He is an older man with a white beard and a happy, welcoming face.
It’s said that Brahma isn’t commonly worshipped in contemporary Hinduism and has hardly any
temples in India.
However, some popular Brahma temples include the one in Pushkar in Rajasthan and the Erawan
Shrine in Bangkok, Thailand.
5.
Indra We’re getting to more and more power folks,
though you could argue that you want to stay on the good side of any of these gods mentioned
before.
Number five, Indra, is the King of Heaven and Lord of Gods.
He’s the Zeus of the Hindu culture.
Like Zeus (in Disney, anyway), he holds a thunderbolt and protects others and sometimes
provides rain, because, you know, water.
You often see him riding an elephant with several heads or husks.
He lives on Mount Meru, and is known for killing the evil symbol named Vritra, bringing rain
and sunshine as a friend to all people.
In some literature, he’s also shown as a powerful hero who sometimes falls to his adulterous
and hedonistic habits.
He’s also said to disturb monks as they meditate out of fear that they’ll reach
self-realization and become more powerful than him.
4.
Shiva Ah, the real lord of Yoga.
Krishna gets us into some yoga, but Shiva is the inventor of the art.
He’s the best practitioner, he’s the instructor you want.
On the other side of that, he’s also Shiva the Destroyer, another branch of that Hindu
trinity.
While Brahma is the creator of all things, Shiva is the destroyer, who in our cycle of
time has his place in taking away all the creations that no longer fit their ideal form
and will be renewed.
He destroys all things false, ignorant, and unenlightened.
Shiva is a symbol of consciousness.
He lives on Mount Kailash where he enjoys yoga, divine games with his family and relaxing.
Until he has to destroy, that is.
3.
Kali From money to yoga, to creation and destruction
and, now, of course, wrath.
Nothing shakes the earth like wrath.
I mean, haven’t you heard the saying “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned”?
Imagine now that this woman is a powerful goddess.
She is the archetypal feminine force of shakti.
She is wrathful to her enemies but has a soft and protective side to her devotees, that
way you are clear from the get-go what side you want to be on.
It’s said that she’s represented as time, a force that annihilates everything.
Some depictions of her show the goddess beheading Shiva, because she is the goddess that slays
egos.
She’s even represented as the careless “doesn’t catch feelings” kind of woman you imagine,
with her tongue out, having a good ol’ time.
2.
Durga Devi From one powerful goddess to another.
Durga Devi is very powerful as well.
She’s the restorer of Dharma, which is the moral order of the world.
Like Kali, she’s absolutely terrifying to her enemies, but is a shining ray of light
for her devotees.
She fights fiercely to make things right, balance the world out and is often depicted
on a lion or tiger.
She is also shown with six arms, which she must need because fighting moral order in
today’s world is absolutely impossible, even for a goddess, to do with two hands.
She also has a bunch of different forms and is worshipped and revered around the harvest
time, and especially during the festival of Navratri.
1.
Ganesh Ganesh, in Hindu tradition, is the most popular
god in the world.
He is the son of Shiva and has an elephant’s head and can look quite familiar to many people
in Western countries.
He’s worshipped at the beginning of any endeavor, and when a devotee of his is in
trouble in their life, The Elephant Lord comes to clear the way.
He is wise, he is everywhere, and he is basically the top gun you want in your corner when things
get rough.
Forget about love, tranquility, and wealth, just focus on clearing your path of obstacles
and you’ll be good to go.