INTRODUCTION
The ritual of all the greater gods and goddesses of modern Hinduism is the result of a syncretism extending over at least three milleniums. The figures of the gods of Vedic times have receded, till to-day Indra, once the greatest, has only one temple in all India; Varuṇa has dwindled into being lord of the sea, an element which touches the life of India hardly at all; and Agni has become a kind of nobler lar domesticus. Their place has been filled by deities whose principal names, in some cases, are not even mentioned in the Vedas. Vishṇu, in his avatārs as Rāma and Kṛishṇa, and Śiva divide the allegiance of the vast majority of Hindus. This allegiance is further divided, by the existence of Śāktas, worshippers of the female energy, śakli, of these deities. Their worship is an expression of the age-long Hindu recognition of a dual principle in nature, purusha, (male) and prakṛiti (female). For practical purposes, Śāktism may be regarded as the worship of Durgā or Kālī. Śiva's consort. About this worship a vast jungle of ritual has grown up, and scholars will probably always be occupied with the effort to disentangle this or that brake of ritual, and to identify its original root. Pārvāti, daughter of Himālaya Umā, the gracious and (as Satī) self-immolating wife; Kālī the terrible; Durgā 'the unapproachable,' less terrible than Kālī—these are all manifestations of the one goddess, Śiva's consort. Kālī and Durgā may be originally goddesses of the savage tribes whom the Aryans found lurking in inaccessible forests; Pārvatī may be a mountain deity—these matters may be studied elsewhere. Their names do not occur in the Vedas.
Śiva—called by many names, Mahādeva, 'The Great God'; Bhairava, 'The Terrible One'—is the Destroyer.
