Heaven or the heavens, is a common religious cosmological or transcendent supernatural place where beings such as gods, angels, souls, saints, or venerated ancestors are said to originate, be enthroned, or reside. According to the beliefs of some religions, heavenly beings can descend to Earth or incarnate and earthly beings can ascend to Heaven in the afterlife or, in exceptional cases, enter Heaven alive.
Nirvāṇa is a concept in Indian religions that represents the ultimate state of soteriological release, the liberation from duḥkha and saṃsāra.
Indra is the king of Devas (gods) and Svarga (heaven) in the Hindu mythology. He is associated with the sky, lightning, weather, thunder, storms, rains, river flows, and war. Indra's myths and powers are similar to other Indo-European deities such as Jupiter, Perun, Perkūnas, Zalmoxis, Taranis, Zeus, and Thor, part of the greater Proto-Indo-European mythology.
Hindu deities are the gods and goddesses in Hinduism. The terms and epithets for deities within the diverse traditions of Hinduism vary, and include Deva, Devi, Ishvara, Ishvari, Bhagavān and Bhagavati.
Yama or Yamarāja (यमराज), is a deity of death, dharma, the south direction, and the underworld who predominantly features in Hindu and Buddhist mythology, belonging to an early stratum of Rigvedic Hindu deities. In Sanskrit, his name can be interpreted to mean "twin". He is also an important deity worshipped by the Kalasha and formerly by the Nuristani peoples, indicating his prominence in ancient Hinduism.
Svarga, also known as Swarga or Svarga Loka, is one of the seven higher lokas in Hindu cosmology. The seven lokas consist of Bhuloka, Bhuvar loka, Svarga loka (Indraloka), Maharloka, Janaloka, Taparloka, Satyaloka. While these seven lokas and seven patala lokas form 14 lokas of our Universe, beyond these 14 exist Goloka, Manidweepa and such higher lokas of multiple Universes.
Naraka is the realm of hell in Indian religions. According to some schools of Hinduism, Sikhism, Jainism and Buddhism, Naraka is a place of torment. The word Neraka in Indonesian and Malaysian has also been used to describe the Islamic concept of Hell.
Saṃsāra is a Sanskrit/Pali word that means "world". It is also the concept of rebirth and "cyclicality of all life, matter, existence", a fundamental belief of most Indian religions. Popularly, it is the cycle of death and rebirth. Saṃsāra is sometimes referred to with terms or phrases such as transmigration, karmic cycle, reincarnation or Punarjanman, and "cycle of aimless drifting, wandering or mundane existence".
Moksha, also called vimoksha, vimukti and mukti, is a term in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism for various forms of emancipation, enlightenment, liberation, and release. In its soteriological and eschatological senses, it refers to freedom from saṃsāra, the cycle of death and rebirth. In its epistemological and psychological senses, moksha is freedom from ignorance: self-realization, self-actualization and self-knowledge.
Buddhism includes a wide array of divine beings that are venerated in various ritual and popular contexts. Initially they included mainly Indian figures such as devas, asuras and yakshas, but later came to include other Asian spirits and local gods. They range from enlightened Buddhas to regional spirits adopted by Buddhists or practiced on the margins of the religion. Notably, Buddhism lacks a supreme creator deity.
Religious cosmology is an explanation of the origin, evolution, and eventual fate of the universe from a religious perspective. This may include beliefs on origin in the form of a creation myth, subsequent evolution, current organizational form and nature, and eventual fate or destiny. There are various traditions in religion or religious mythology asserting how and why everything is the way it is and the significance of it all. Religious cosmologies describe the spatial lay-out of the universe in terms of the world in which people typically dwell as well as other dimensions, such as the seven dimensions of religion; these are ritual, experiential and emotional, narrative and mythical, doctrinal, ethical, social, and material.
Deva means "shiny", "exalted", "heavenly being", "divine being", "anything of excellence", and is also one of the Sanskrit terms used to indicate a deity in Hinduism. Deva is a masculine term; the feminine equivalent is Devi.
Hindu cosmology is the description of the universe and its states of matter, cycles within time, physical structure, and effects on living entities according to Hindu texts. Hindu cosmology is also intwined with the idea of a creator who allows the world to exist and take shape.
Loka is a concept in Indian religions, that means plane or realm of existence. In some philosophies it can also be interpreted as a mental state that one can experience. A primary concept in several Indian religions is the idea that different loka's are home to various divine beings, and one takes birth in such realms based on their good and bad merits.
The following list consists of notable concepts that are derived from Hindu culture and associated cultures traditions, which are expressed as words in Sanskrit or other Indic languages and Dravidian languages. The main purpose of this list is to disambiguate multiple spellings, to make note of spellings no longer in use for these concepts, to define the concept in one or two lines, to make it easy for one to find and pin down specific concepts, and to provide a guide to unique concepts of Hinduism all in one place.
Buddhist cosmology describes the planes and realms in which beings can be reborn. The spatial cosmology consists of a vertical cosmology, the various planes of beings, into which beings are reborn due to their merits and development; and a horizontal cosmology, the distribution of these world-systems into an "apparently" infinite sheet of "worlds." The temporal cosmology describes the timespan of the creation and dissolvement of universes in aeons. Buddhist cosmology is also intwined with the belief of karma, and explains that the world around us is the product of past actions. As a result, some ages are filled with prosperity and peace due to common goodness, whereas other eras are filled with suffering, dishonesty and short lifespans.
Brahmā is a leading god (deva) and heavenly king in Buddhism. He is considered as a protector of teachings (dharmapala), and he is never depicted in early Buddhist texts as a creator god. In Buddhist tradition, it was the deity Brahma Sahampati who appeared before the Buddha and invited him to teach, once the Buddha attained enlightenment.
Conceptions of God in monotheist, pantheist, and panentheist religions – or of the supreme deity in henotheistic religions – can extend to various levels of abstraction:
Buddhism and Hinduism have common origins in the culture of Ancient India. Buddhism arose in the eastern Ganges culture of northern India during the "second urbanisation" around 500 BCE. Hinduism developed out of the ancient Vedic religion, adopting numerous practices and ideas from other Indian traditions over time. Both religions have many shared beliefs and practices, but also pronounced differences that have led to much debate.
Nontheistic religions are traditions of thought within a religious context—some otherwise aligned with theism, others not—in which nontheism informs religious beliefs or practices. Nontheism has been applied and plays significant roles in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. While many approaches to religion exclude nontheism by definition, some inclusive definitions of religion show how religious practice and belief do not depend on the presence of a god or gods. For example, Paul James and Peter Mandaville distinguish between religion and spirituality, but provide a definition of the term that avoids the usual reduction to "religions of the book":
Religion can be defined as a relatively-bounded system of beliefs, symbols and practices that addresses the nature of existence, and in which communion with others and Otherness is lived as if it both takes in and spiritually transcends socially-grounded ontologies of time, space, embodiment and knowing.
