Explore the pantheons

The boundless mother of the gods, whose sons, the Adityas, include Varuna, Mitra, and Indra. In Puranic telling she is also mother of Vishnu's dwarf avatar Vamana.

God of fire and the mouth of the gods, every offering poured into the sacrificial flame reaches heaven through him. Second only to Indra in Vedic hymns, he is witness to oaths and weddings to this day.

Goddess of love and desire, irresistible to gods and mortals alike. Her very origin is contested: born from sea-foam in Hesiod, but a daughter of Zeus and Dione in Homer, two traditions the Greeks never reconciled.

Son of Zeus and Leto, god of the oracle at Delphi. Patron of music and healing who can equally send plague, his arrows open the Iliad by devastating the Greek camp.

God of war in its raw slaughter, as against Athena's discipline, beloved by neither gods nor Greeks. His affair with Aphrodite, exposed in a golden net before the laughing gods, is his most famous appearance outside the battlefield.

Virgin goddess of the hunt and twin of Apollo, armed with the silver bow. Protector of girls and wild things, and merciless to those who violate her, the hunter Actaeon saw her bathing and was torn apart by his own hounds.

Son of Apollo, taught healing by the centaur Chiron, so skilled he began raising the dead, for which Zeus struck him down with a thunderbolt, then set him among the stars. His serpent-twined staff remains medicine's emblem.

The twin horsemen of the dawn, physicians of the gods who rescue sailors, restore youth, and heal the maimed. Divine fathers of the Pandava twins Nakula and Sahadeva.

Goddess of wisdom and disciplined warfare, born fully armed from the head of Zeus. Patron of Athens, of heroes like Odysseus, and of weavers and craftsmen.

Son of Shiva and Vishnu-as-Mohini, raised by a Pandya king. His hilltop shrine at Sabarimala draws one of the largest pilgrimages on earth, a strictly regional tradition that entered no classical Sanskrit canon.

The creator god of the Trimurti, born from a lotus rising from Vishnu's navel. Though he shapes each cosmic cycle, he receives almost no worship, a fact the myths themselves explain through curses.

Preceptor of the gods, who guides the devas in ritual and counsel. His rivalry with Shukra, teacher of the asuras, frames the endless war between gods and demons.

The moon god, also called Soma, whose waxing and waning the myths explain as a curse for favoring one wife among the twenty-seven lunar mansions. Ancestor of the lunar dynasty of kings.

The registrar of the dead who sits beside Yama, keeping a perfect ledger of every soul's deeds, read out at judgment. Patron deity of the scribe castes.

Goddess of the harvest, whose grief-strike over her abducted daughter Persephone left the earth barren until a compromise was struck, the myth the Greeks told to explain winter, and the heart of the Eleusinian Mysteries.

Physician of the gods who rose from the churned ocean of milk carrying the pot of amrita, the nectar of immortality. Regarded as the divine source of Ayurveda.

Twice-born god of wine, snatched from his dying mother Semele and carried to term in Zeus's thigh. His ecstatic cult dissolved the boundaries of self, sex, and city, and from his festivals Greek theater itself was born.

The warrior goddess formed from the combined radiance of all the gods to slay the buffalo demon Mahishasura, whom no male god could defeat. In Shakta tradition she is not an emanation of the gods but the supreme power behind them.

Goddess of discord who, uninvited to a wedding, rolled a golden apple inscribed "to the fairest" among the goddesses, the quarrel that led to the Judgment of Paris and the Trojan War.

Desire itself. In Hesiod he is primordial, arising with Earth at the beginning and loosening the limbs of gods and men; later tradition makes him Aphrodite's arrow-shooting son, two irreconcilable pedigrees for the same force.

The elephant-headed son of Parvati and Shiva, invoked at the start of every undertaking. Beheaded by Shiva in a tragic misunderstanding and restored with an elephant's head, he became the remover of obstacles and lord of beginnings.

The river Ganges as a goddess, brought down from heaven by King Bhagiratha's penance, her fall broken by Shiva's matted hair. Mother of Bhishma, and purifier of the living and the dead.

Eldest brother of Zeus and lord of the underworld, which he received when the three brothers divided the cosmos. Feared but not evil, a stern warden of the dead rather than a devil figure.

The vanara (monkey) hero who leaps the ocean to find Sita and burns Lanka with his flaming tail. In Valmiki he is a mighty ally; in later Bhakti tradition he becomes a god in his own right, the embodiment of selfless devotion.

Goddess of witchcraft and the crossroads, honored by Zeus above all in Hesiod, torch-bearer in the search for Persephone. She walks the night with hounds and the restless dead, invoked at every threshold between worlds.

The lame smith god, cast from Olympus in infancy, who returned to build the gods' palaces, Achilles' shield, and Pandora herself. In Hesiod, Hera bears him alone in retaliation for Athena, one of the traditions' pointed disagreements.

Queen of the Olympians, sister and wife of Zeus, guardian of marriage. Proud and implacable, she relentlessly persecutes Zeus's lovers and their children, most famously Heracles.

Messenger of the gods and guide of souls to the underworld, inventor of the lyre on the day of his birth, which he spent stealing Apollo's cattle. Patron of travelers, merchants, thieves, and everyone who lives by wit.

Eldest child of Cronus and goddess of the hearth, who renounced marriage and Olympian quarrels alike. Every household and city fire was hers; she has almost no myths because she never leaves home, and that is the point.

King of the gods in the Vedic age, wielder of the thunderbolt vajra and slayer of the dragon Vritra. In later Puranic literature his stature shrinks: he remains king of heaven but is repeatedly humbled by Vishnu, Shiva, and even mortals.

The black goddess of time and dissolution, garlanded with severed heads, who springs from Durga's brow in battle. Terrifying to demons but a mother to her devotees, in Shakta and Tantric traditions, the ultimate reality itself.

God of desire whose sugarcane bow fires five flower arrows. Burned to ash by Shiva's third eye for daring to interrupt the great god's meditation, then restored, bodiless, as love that pervades everything.

The six-faced war god, son of Shiva born to destroy the demon Taraka, commander of the armies of heaven. Worshipped in Tamil tradition as Murugan, where he remains one of the most beloved of all gods.

The headless trunk of the severed asura Rahu, made an immortal shadow-planet. In astrology he signifies loss, moksha, and detachment from the material.

The eighth avatar of Vishnu: cowherd, prince, and counselor. As Arjuna's charioteer in the Mahabharata he delivers the Bhagavad Gita. In Bhakti traditions he is worshipped not as an avatar but as the supreme god himself.

Lord of wealth and king of the yakshas, guardian of the north. Original ruler of Lanka until his half-brother Ravana seized it, along with the flying chariot Pushpaka.

Goddess of fortune and abundance who emerged from the churning of the cosmic ocean and chose Vishnu as her consort. She incarnates alongside his avatars, as Sita with Rama, as Rukmini with Krishna.

Vishnu's female form, the enchantress who beguiled the asuras out of the nectar of immortality at the churning of the ocean. Her union with Shiva, in southern tradition, produces the god Ayyappa.

The goddess who restores balance, visiting ruin on excessive pride and unearned fortune. It was she who led Narcissus to the pool where he fell in love with his own reflection.

The goat-legged god of flocks and mountainsides, player of the reed pipes he made from the transformed nymph Syrinx. The sudden terror he sends on those who disturb the wild noonday still bears his name: panic.

Daughter of the mountain Himavan who won the ascetic Shiva through her own fierce austerities. Mother of Ganesha and Kartikeya, she is the gentle face of the same great Goddess whose fierce forms are Durga and Kali.

Daughter of Demeter, abducted by Hades to be queen of the dead. Having eaten pomegranate seeds below, she divides each year between the underworld and the living earth, dread queen and returning spring at once.

Brother of Zeus and lord of the sea, the earth-shaker whose trident stirs storms and splits the ground. His decade-long grudge against Odysseus for blinding his son Polyphemus drives the Odyssey.

The cowherd girl of Vrindavan whose love for Krishna became Bhakti tradition's supreme symbol of the soul's longing for God. Almost absent from the early texts, she rises in medieval devotion to be worshipped beside, even above, Krishna.

The asura who sneaked a sip of the immortality nectar; beheaded by Vishnu's discus mid-swallow, his undying head now chases and swallows the sun and moon, the mythic cause of eclipses.

Goddess of wisdom and the arts, consort of Brahma, depicted with the veena and a white swan. She begins as a sacred river in the Rig Veda and becomes the patroness of all learning.

The slow-moving god of Saturn, son of Surya, whose gaze delivers the hard consequences of one's own deeds. Feared and propitiated more than almost any other planetary deity.

The great ascetic god of dissolution and renewal, worshipped as the supreme being in Shaiva traditions. Emerges from the Vedic storm god Rudra into one of Hinduism's most complex figures, destroyer, dancer, yogi, and householder.

Teacher of the asuras who alone holds the secret of reviving the dead, making his demon pupils nearly unbeatable. Counselor to Mahabali against Vishnu's dwarf avatar.

The sun god who crosses the sky in a chariot drawn by seven horses. Father of Yama, of the river goddess Yamuna, and, secretly, of the tragic hero Karna.

The radiant Vedic goddess of dawn who throws open the doors of darkness each morning. Some of the Rig Veda's most beautiful hymns are addressed to her, though later tradition nearly forgets her.

Guardian of rita, the cosmic order, who sees every deed and binds oath-breakers in his noose. One of the mightiest Vedic gods, later reduced to lordship of the ocean.

God of the wind and of prana, the breath of life. Father of two of mythology's strongest figures: the vanara Hanuman and the Pandava Bhima.

One of the principal deities of Hinduism, the preserver who descends to earth as avatars whenever cosmic order (dharma) is threatened. A minor solar figure in the Vedas who becomes supreme in Vaishnava Puranic tradition.

The divine architect who builds the cities and weapons of the gods, golden Lanka, Indra's palace, and the discus of Vishnu forged from the shaved radiance of the sun.

The first mortal to die, who thereby became lord of the dead and judge of souls, keeping accounts of every deed. Also called Dharma, righteousness itself, and in that aspect, father of Yudhishthira.

King of the Olympian gods, wielder of the thunderbolt. Overthrew his father Cronus and the Titans to establish the Olympian order, ruling from Mount Olympus as enforcer of oaths and hospitality.