(12) ALAIN DANIELOU –

THE MYTHS & GODS OF INDIA /

GODS OF LOVE & ECSTASY: THE TRADITIONS OF SHIVA & DIONYSUS

 

Hindu mythology is the subject of my seventh place entry in my Top 10 Mythologies – and indeed also of the third largest world religion, although it might be more accurately described as mythologies or religions, given the diversity of Hinduism.

It is perhaps the most cheerfully and flamboyantly polytheistic of modern religions, with all its gods and their avatars. The classifications vary, but modern Hinduism is often classified into four major denominations by primary deity – Vaishnavism by Vishnu (or his avatars, often Krisha or Rama), Shaivism by Shiva, Shaktism by Devi (or manifestations of the supreme goddess) or Smartism by a combination of five deities.

That polytheism is on full display here – “This study of Hindu mythology explores the significance of the most prominent Hindu deities as they are envisioned by the Hindus themselves, Referred to by its adherents as the eternal religion, Hinduism recognizes for each age and each country a new form of revelation-and for each person, according to his or her stage of development, a different path of realization.”

Interestingly, Danielou himself was a French convert to the Shaivism or Shiva tradition within Hinduism – which is on full display in his Gods of Love & Ecstasy, drawing parallels between Shiva and Dionysus (as well as Shaivism and Dionysianism)

 

“Shiva and Dionysus are the Hindu and Greek gods of magical power, intoxication, ecstatic s€xuality, and transcendence who initiate us into communion with the creative forces of life…practices that were observed from the Indus Valley to the coasts of Portugal at least six thousand years ago”.

 

RATING:

A-TIER (TOP TIER)