• Ganesha – most popular; elephant head, remover of obstacles (axe to remove them), rope to rescue people, one tusk to write with; omnipotent
• Hinduism is the 3^rd largest religion of the world; the Vedas; Om; centered at Varanasi; born into it
• Samsara is the problem (resurrection); moksha is the release, spiritual liberation from samsara
  • 4 different aims of life: karma – physical pleasure
    • Artha – wealth
    • Dharma – duty
    • Moksha – spiritual
      • Three different ways to achieve moksha: karma yoga – discipline of action
      • Jhana – wisdom
      • Bhakti – devotion to their god (love)
    • 1^st chronological stage of Hinduism is the Indus Valley civ.
      • Unknown how much they actually contributed to Hinduism

2^nd stage is the Vedic traditions. Veda means knowledge and its written in Sanskrit

3 classes of scripture:                                                                  The Vedas:

• Man was first

sacrificed to the gods

in order to become the world

• 3^rd stage is philosophical Hinduism; it is concerned with Karma and reincarnation
  • Samsara is the problem; avidya is our ignorance; jhana is our wisdom and gets us out of this mess of illusion (maya); moksha is our actual liberation
  • Essence of man is the same as the essence of god; human beings = atman (self or soul) while divinity = Brahman;
    • To truly know and experience these as the same is to achieve moksha
  • 4^th stage: devotional Hinduism celebrates the body as a temple of their chosen god; gods have attributes (saguna brahman) instead of being cold, distant, and stoic
  • The trinity of Vishnu, Shiva, and Mahadevi (Brahman not included b/c all he did was create the world while Mahadevi is the ‘Great Goddess’
    • Vishnu has ten avatars, most notably is Krishna (the blue guy trickster)
    • Shiva – multi arm dancer who destroys the world
    • Shakti (Mahadevi) – feminine energy which animates all divinities, also has good luck and posperity (like Ganesha )
  • Diwali – festival of lights
  • Holi – Festival of water and powder; reverent festival
  • Mahabharata – family feud epic w/ 100k verses, composed between 400bc and 400ad
    • Bhagaved Gita – wake of an epic battle between the Pandavas and the Kauravas
      • The real struggle is within and about the liberation of the soul
    • Ramayana –   ethics of marriage
      • Rama saves his wife from the monkey king to become king but doubts his wife’s fidelity
    • All religions are flawed human efforts to capture the elusive divine; (all up the same mountain)