Page:Myths of the Hindus & Buddhists.djvu/470

 Different Names A source of confusion to the student of Indian mythology at first appears in the many names by which one and the same Supreme Divinity may be known.

The most important of the name identities are, for Shiva, Mahadeva, Hara, Nataraja, and for Vishnu, Hari, Narayan. A familiarity with these names is gradually acquired, and it is realized that the different names refer to as many aspects of One Being. For the gods possess a manifold conscious ness, and by division of their attributes appear and act in many places and many forms at one and the same time. It will have been observed that every god, whether Ishvara or deva, has a feminine counterpart or aspect. These wives are the Shaktis or powers without whom there could be no creation or evolution. For example, the Shakti of Shiva is Devi, whose other names are Sati, Uma, Durga, Chandi, ParvatI, Kali, &c. ; it is she who is worshipped by many millions as the Mother, and all these worshippers speak of God as She. The great sex-distinction pervades the whole universe, and the psychology of sex is every where the same : all things that are male are from Shiva, all that are female are from Uma.

Cosmic Powers Distinct from Ishvara are the devas, Indra, Agni, Varuna, Yama, old personified cosmic powers who alone were worshipped in the old Vedic days, before the emergence of Shiva and Vishnu. These devas dwell in swarga, an Olympian paradise; they bestow on their worshippers divers boons, but they are never saviours of souls. Their moral status is like that of men, and swarga is a place where all wishes and desires are gratified, where 390