Hinduism Quiz 2

Viveka Cudamani

"Crest-jewel of discrimination," It expounds the Advaita Vedanta philosophy in the form of a self-teaching manual, with many verses in the form of a dialogue between a student and a spiritual teacher. The text discusses key concepts and the discrimination or discernment between real (unchanging, eternal) and unreal (changing, temporal), Prakriti and Atman, the oneness of Atman and Brahman, and self-knowledge as the central task of the spiritual life and for Moksha.

Devi

"Goddess"; the Divine Feminine, also called the Great Mother

Isvara

"The Lord", Refers to notion of brahman as a theistic being. A personal, personified deity. Brahman through the lens of Maya. Object of devotion to turn towards Brahman.

Gopis

'cow-herd girl' lovers of krsna with whom he dances at the time of the autumn moon. ideal devotees of krsna.

Sikhara

(North Indian Hindu temples) a mountain-like temple tower or superstructure

Devimahatmya

(compiled between 5th and 7th c. CE) glorifies goddess as the absolute. Earliest Sakta tradition, posits Goddess as the supreme absolute. Celebrates Durga as the goddess, declaring her as the supreme being and the creator of the universe.

Vidya

Knowledge; that which turns one toward Brahman

Paramatman (Krishna)

Krishna residing in the hearts of all beings and in every atom of matter. He is the overseer and the permitter of their actions. Where you generate that devotion that's going to get you into Bhagavan. Losing oneself in devotion propels you into eternal realm of play. You don't become Krishna, you play with him. Krishna as the spark that animates every living creature

Brahman (Krishna)

Krishna's lowest expression. The effulgent rays radiating off body of Bhagavan. The Upanishadic yogic absorbed in brahman, liberated, moksa, they are like satellites floating in the effulgent rays, missing the fact that they could keep going and be carried into that realm. Bhakti will get you to that realm. Unmanifest absolute. In that radiant effulgence is the unmanifest stillness of Brahman that is spoken of in the Upanisads. It's a quality of Bhagavan, cannot stand alone.

Sri

Laksmi associated with a goddess in the Vedic tradition who went by a different name. When Brahmanical structure absorbs her, they say she was that particular goddess the whole time. Actually a title that people get. Rama often referred to as ___ Rama. Because he's a god, but also was a king. Title carries with it that that person has ____, so they are called with that title. With Laksmi, it's not that she has ____, it's that she IS _____. When attached to a goddess, she is _____, but when it's attached to a male's name or a god, then _____ is enamored with them but can leave them at any moment.

Advaita Vedanta

Literally means, "non-dualism." The belief that All is One, that individual gods & goddesses, individual souls (atmans), and all of creation are deep down part of the same unified Absolute Reality: Brahman. refers to idea that the soul (true Self, Atman) is the same as the highest metaphysical Reality (Brahman)

Santa Bhava

Mode of Peace. Model: Yogis, particularly the yama yogis. the renunciates. They are in a relationship with Krishna, but this is the lowest in the hierarchy of the relationships. Hardly in a relationship because nondual experience, not really involving Krishna, just floating in peaceful radiance of Krishna's being.

Vatsalya Bhava

Model: Yasoda → baby Krishna. Cultivate relationship of being the parent of baby Krishna.

Kali birthed from?

Most famous well-known manifestation is the one where she comes from Durga's brow. Two demons who gods can't kill. Army escalating. Durga comes, but every time she kills one of the two demons, blood that hits the ground spawns another version of the demon. This angers Durga so much, she channels Kali who explodes from her brow and takes to the battlefield in bloodthirst. Manifestation of ferocious warrioress. Adept on battlefield, before blood can drop on earth, she drinks it. As she drinks the blood, she becomes more intoxicated by the war that's ensuing. So much so that the entire universe is quaking on the verge of implosion.

Naṭarāja

Nata = Dance, Raja = King In upper right hand, holds damaru that reverberates → he's reverberating the universe into manifestation → like the Vedas! Four arms = standard representation. damaru (hand drum that made the first sounds of creation). Shiva's dance is set within a flaming halo. The circle/cycle of samsara, the cycle of birth and death. Crazed dance and bringing in universe into and out of existence, and in the middle of that, also have manifestation of the wheel → so think of this as cycle of universes but also individual life.

3 Aspects of Krishna

Brahman, Paramatman, Bhagavan

Visnu Purana

Builds off material from Harivamsa

Visnu association with Laksmi

But ultimately, she is associated with Visnu. Churning of the ocean of milk. She is one of the objects who arises from the churning. She chooses her own fate, who she's going to be a gift to. Offers herself as gift to Visnu. She never then relinquishes that connection. Sri has the power of putting Visnu into sleep and waking him up. She's the power switch. Even though he's prior to Brahma, he's governed by her.

Bhagavata Purana

Full expression of mythological narrative of Krishna's life → childhood, early youth, up to pivotal moment where he becomes Vasudeva Krishna this is very much a bhakti text. All about bhakti as THE way.

Linga/Yoni

Pedestal (called yoni) in which linga sits in is a term for vulva. Yoni makes up total construction of linga. Ritual bathing place takes place over linga and then collected in the yoni, and you drink from it.

Sankara

a renunciate, a monk, wrote philosophy and pushed for the Advaita Vedanta school, anchored his philosophy in the Upanisads = nontheistic expression of the absolute, Upanisads give him a mapping to explain all these traditions from one philosophical perspective

Murti

an image or statue of a Hindu god in which the god is thought to actually be present

Radha

consort of Krishna

Gopas

cowherd boys

Bhakti

devotional worship directed to one supreme deity, usually Vishnu (especially in his incarnations as Rama and Krishna) or Shiva, by whose grace salvation may be attained by all regardless of sex, caste, or class.

Darsan

visual contact with the divine through encounters with images or gurus. seeing and being seen. In line with the rsis experience, synesthetic experience. Not simply reduced to sense of sight. You are seeing the truth of what the being is, and that being is also perceiving you. a transactional interaction between places, and in certain people or deities. One takes ______ of holy beings. One who has become aware in Brahman

Harivamsa

4th c. CE - An appendix to the Mahabharata, earliest account of young Krishna - gopala, cowherd Krishna

Avatara

A "descent" or incarnation of a deity in earthly form

Krishna

A god associated with divine playfulness; a form of Vishnu

Water

Actual crowning of king is a process of bathing the king in the waters of Sri. Literally pouring Sri into him. Associated with fertility, in relation to the water. Coronation → water vessels used in coronation.

God of Paradox 4 Paradigms

1. Niṣkala/Sakala (Formless and with form; Model: Lingam of Light Myth) Column of light = niskala. His form stepping out of it = sakala. any lingam is a model for Niskala/Sakala 2. Male/Female (Siva/Sakti, Model: image of Siva as ½ Man / ½ woman → Ardhanarinara) Ardha = ½, nari = woman, nara = man 3. Destroyer/Creator (Model: Siva Nataraja/Lord of the Dance) 4. Ascetic/Erotic (Model: Erotic = he has a family, Ascetic = Mahayogin → the Great Yogi)

5 relationships with Krishna

1. Santa bhara, 2. dasya bhara, 3. sakhya bhara, 4. vatsalya bhara, 5. madhurya bhara

Ardhanarīnara

Ardha = half, nari = woman, nara = man

Kali's relation to Siva's corpse

As she's dancing on the battlefield and drinking the blood, she steps on Siva and then calms down. Everything returns to stability. Relates to tradition of Siva/Sakti. Male aspect = internal, unmanifest, immovable, pure potential. Actuation only takes place by means of the feminine. Feminine moves into manifestation. Provides power by which movement can take place. When they are separated, there is destruction. When they're united, when masculine and feminine aspects united, there is stability. There is manifestation, and in that manifestation, there is stability. Union of Siva and Sakti is what underpins material existence and its stability. He's a corpse without her.

Linga of Light

Becomes standard way of representing and manifesting Siva in space. Column itself understood to be manifestation of Niskala aspect of Siva. So it's (linga is) playing with Niskala/Sakala because it's both simultaneously.

Sri Vaisnava

Believes of Vishishtadvaita, qualified non-dualism, with Visnu being Brahman

Lotus

Earliest iconography that represents Sri association with piercing the disk and going into liberated state → pierced through mud and water to open. associated with fecundity, fertility, royal power, and authority. One of the earliest pictures of royalty. See images of Brahma or the Buddha sitting on the _____. It is a royal throne, seat of authority.

Super-enthronement

Rather than reject other traditions, sublimate the other traditions under your own. Look at it all from your perspective. Recognize others for their own truth value, just absorbed under one's own perspective.

Kali wears?

Severed heads around her neck, wild hair, skirt of severed arms, wearing a lot of gold, a crown with a radiance → speaks to something beyond the destruction taking place

Bhagavan

Supreme absolute cowherd boy Krishna who is eternally in self-play. All this is non-material form that exists beyond brahman. The supreme manifestation of Krishna in his non-material form beyond Brahman. The realm he plays in, which is seen as a manifestation/animation of him, that entire realm with him in it is Bhagavan.

Mahisasura

The buffalo demon

Bhagavad Gita

The most important work of Indian sacred literature, a dialogue between the great warrior Arjuna and the god Krishna on duty and the fate of the spirit. 200 BCE, features Vasudeva Krishna.

Ramanuja

The twelfth-century devotee of Vishnu, who believed that personal devotion and personal union with the deity was more important than an intellectual understanding of ultimate reality. His theories assert that there exists a plurality and distinction between Ātman (soul) and Brahman (metaphysical, ultimate reality), while he also affirmed that there is unity of all souls and that the individual soul has the potential to realize identity with the Brahman.

10 classical forms of avatara

fish, turtle, bore, man-lion, dwarf, axe-wielder, rama, krishna, buddha, kalki

Garbhagriha

from the sanskrit word meaning "womb chamber" a small room or shrine in a hindu temple containing a holy image

Siva

god of paradox and destruction

Laksmi

goddess of good fortune/ prosperity/ fertility; consort of Visnu

Avidya

ignorance; Anything that turns one away from brahman

Maya in relation to the goddess

illusion --> material reality itself In Hinduism, _____ is also an epithet for goddess, and the name of a manifestation of Lakshmi, the goddess of "wealth, prosperity and love" She is _____ → she creates the world through her power

Maya

illusion; Relative, changing reality that we live in. Illusory in that it's transient, therefore not real. Empirical reality that ties you to the material world, preventing one from realizing the true self, Atman, and the highest reality, Brahman.

Durga's mount

lion/tiger

Durga's arms

many arms each carrying a weapon of the different gods

Prakrti

matter refers to the feminine aspect of all life forms the personified will and energy of the Supreme (Brahman) "Purusha is the principle of pure consciousness, while ____ is the principle of matter", where Purusha is the masculine in every living being as consciousness, while _____ is the feminine and substrate which accepts the Purusha. She is ______ → Durga = the earth itself

Sakti

positive, the underlying power of the divine power Saktas understand this not as her being created by the gods, but the gods drawing on their _____, which is actually feminine in the first place, and when they do this, they are reconstituting the absolute from which they have initially drawn her power. Durga is not created by the gods, but a reconstitution of that supreme absolute that gave the gods their supreme power in the first place.

Madhurya Bhava

relationship of Erotic love. Model: the gopis, specifically Radha → Krishna's abode is a manifestation of himself, that includes the people in it. Self-referential play, in love with each other. Inseparable. When the gopis hear the flute, they immediately run and go to Krishna, doesn't matter what they're doing, also they are married. He manifests in front of every gopi, they all think they are special. Adulterous behavior a reflection of the priority of the relationship with God.

Dasya Bhava

relationship of Service. Model: Arjuna → after he reveals his true form to him, Arjuna has a direct experience of God. Arjuna surrenders to Krishna and says he will be his servant. (Arjuna post-11th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita)

Sakhya Bhava

relationship of a Friend. Model: the cowherd boys, the gopas, including his older brother Balarama → his friends as he's growing up

Elephants

symbolise work, activity and strength, as well as water, rain and fertility for abundant prosperity. also associated with royalty. Initially clouds, but they were cursed to roam the Earth as elephants. have a connection with water.

Kalasa

the finial. Same word for water pot that you pour for royal consecration, as we discussed with Laksmi.

Sakti in relation to Siva

the power by which he can actualize not just himself, but the universe. Male and female simultaneously. He's the union of Siva and Sakti. Sakti doesn't stand distinct from him, nor does he stand distinct from Sakti. Except in his Niskala aspect. There's no separating the two of them. Knowing Siva is knowing Sakti. We are but a manifestation of Siva, and from our perspective, approach him by means of Sakti because it's his manifesting quality.