Krishna is a major deity in Hinduism. He is worshipped as the eighth avatar of Vishnu and also as the Supreme God in his own right. He is the god of protection, compassion, tenderness, and love; and is widely revered among Hindu divinities. Krishna's birthday is celebrated every year by Hindus on Krishna Janmashtami according to the lunisolar Hindu calendar, which falls in late August or early September of the Gregorian calendar.
Hindu mythology is the body of myths attributed to, and espoused by, the adherents of the Hindu religion, found in Hindu texts such as the Vedas, the itihasa the Puranas, and mythological stories specific to a particular ethnolinguistic group like the Tamil Periya Puranam and Divya Prabandham, and the Mangal Kavya of Bengal. Hindu myths are also found in widely translated popular texts such as the fables of the Panchatantra and the Hitopadesha, as well as in Southeast Asian texts.
Balarama is a Hindu god, and the elder brother of Vāsudeva-Krishna He is particularly significant in the Jagannath tradition, as one of the triad deities. He is also known as Haladhara, Halayudha, Baladeva, Balabhadra, and Sankarshana.
Kalki, also called Kalkin, is the prophesied tenth and final incarnation of the god Vishnu. He is described to appear in order to end the Kali Yuga, one of the four periods in the endless cycle of existence (Krita) in Vaishnava cosmology. The end of the Kali Yuga states this will usher in the new epoch of Satya Yuga in the cycle of existence, until the Mahapralaya.
Avatar is a concept within Hinduism that in Sanskrit literally means 'descent'. It signifies the material appearance or incarnation of a powerful deity, or spirit on Earth. The relative verb to "alight, to make one's appearance" is sometimes used to refer to any guru or revered human being.
Manu is a term found with various meanings in Hinduism. In early texts, it refers to the archetypal man, or to the first man. The Sanskrit term for 'human', मनुष्य or मानव means 'of Manu' or 'children of Manu'. In later texts, Manu is the title or name of fourteen rulers of earth, or alternatively as the head of dynasties that begin with each cyclic kalpa (aeon) when the universe is born anew. The title of the text Manusmriti uses this term as a prefix, but refers to the first Manu – Svayambhuva, the spiritual son of Brahma. In the Hindu cosmology, each kalpa consists of fourteen Manvantaras, and each Manvantara is headed by a different Manu. The current universe, is asserted to be ruled by the 7th Manu named Vaivasvata. Vaivasvata was the king of Dravida before the great flood. He was warned of the flood by the Matsya (fish) avatar of Vishnu, and built a boat that carried the Vedas, Manu's family and the seven sages to safety, helped by Matsya. The tale is repeated with variations in other texts, including the Mahabharata and a few other Puranas. It is similar to other floods such as those associated with Gilgamesh and Noah.
Historical Vishnuism as early worship of the deity Vishnu is one of the historical components, branches or origins of the contemporary and early Vaishnavism, which was subject of considerable study, and often showing that Vishnuism is a distinctive worship — a sect. The tradition was forming in the context of Puranic Vaisnavism evolving in the process of revitalizing religion of Brahmanism, of which Vishnuism is believed to be a part, through assimilating a number of orthodox, non-conformist and tribal elements; the absorption of mother goddess worship, into what now known a Vaishnava sampradayas. It is a tradition of the historical Vedic religion and is distinguished from other historic schools later forming the Vaishnavism by its primary worship of Vishnu, later identified as the source of all Avatars. A number of separate sects or traditions merged with each representing the names of god of Vaishnavism. In contemporary Vaishnavism God is also known as Narayana, Vasudeva and Krishna and behind each of those names is a divine figure with attributed supremacy in Vaishnavism, that relates to historic traditions that some scholars theorize to be separate and distinct historically. It is distinct from Krishnaism, as in the revival of Bhakti, found in the Bhagavata it is referred as Vishnuism.
The Harivamsa is an important work of Sanskrit literature, containing 16,374 shlokas, mostly in the anustubh metre. The text is also known as the Harivamsa Purana. This text is believed to be a khila to the Mahabharata and is traditionally ascribed to Vyasa. The most celebrated commentary of the Mahabharata by Neelakantha Chaturdhara, the Bharata Bhava Deepa also covers the Harivamsa. According to a traditional version of the Mahabharata, the Harivamsa is divided into two parvas (books) and 12,000 verses. These are included with the eighteen parvas of the Mahabharata. The Critical Edition has three parvas and 5,965 verses.
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.
The Vishnu Purana is one of the eighteen Mahapuranas, a genre of ancient and medieval texts of Hinduism. It is an important Pancharatra text in the Vaishnavism literature corpus.
The Buddha is considered the ninth avatar among the ten major avatars of the god Vishnu, according to the Vaishnava tradition of Hinduism.
Vaishnavism is one of the major Hindu denominations along with Shaivism, Shaktism, and Smartism. It is also called Vishnuism since it considers Vishnu as the sole supreme being leading all other Hindu deities, that is, Mahavishnu. Its followers are called Vaishnavites or Vaishnavas, and it includes sub-sects like Krishnaism and Ramaism, which consider Krishna and Rama as the supreme beings respectively. According to a 2010 estimate by Johnson and Grim, Vaishnavism is the largest Hindu sect, constituting about 641 million or 67.6% of Hindus.
Vaivasvata Manu, also referred to as Shraddhadeva and Satyavrata, is the current Manu—the progenitor of the human race. He is the seventh of the 14 Manus of the current kalpa (aeon) of Hindu cosmology.
Krishnaism is a term used in scholarly circles to describe large group of independent Hindu traditions—sampradayas related to Vaishnavism—that center on the devotion to Krishna as Svayam Bhagavan, Ishvara, Para Brahman, who is the source of all reality, not an avatar of Vishnu. This is its difference from such Vaishnavite groupings as Sri Vaishnavism, Sadh Vaishnavism, Ramaism, Radhaism, Sitaism etc. There is also a personal Krishnaism, that is devotion to Krishna outside of any tradition and community, as in the case of the saint-poet Meera Bai. Leading scholars do not define Krishnaism as a suborder or offshoot of Vaishnavism, considering it at least a parallel and no less ancient current of Hinduism.
The Dashavatara are the ten primary avatars of Vishnu, a principal Hindu god. Vishnu is said to descend in the form of an avatar to restore cosmic order. The word Dashavatara derives from daśa, meaning "ten", and avatāra, roughly equivalent to "incarnation".
Vishnu, also known as Narayana and Hari, is one of the principal deities of Hinduism. He is the supreme being within Vaishnavism, one of the major traditions within contemporary Hinduism.
Sharanga also spelt as Saranga, is the celestial bow of the Hindu god Vishnu, primarily associated with his avatar of Rama. In South India, the Sharanga is also simply known as the Kodanda, literally meaning bow. Rama is often praised as Kodandapani, the holder of the Kodanda. The attribute of the bow is also mentioned in the Vishnu Sahasranama.
The Epic-Puranic chronology is a timeline of Hindu mythology based on the Itihasa and the Puranas. These texts have an authoritaive status in Indian tradition, and narrate cosmogeny, royal chronologies, myths and legendary events. The central dates here are the Kurukshetra War and the start of the Kali Yuga. The Epic-Puranic chronology is referred to by proponents of Indigenous Aryans to propose an earlier dating of the Vedic period, and the spread of Indo-European languages out of India, arguing that "the Indian civilization must be viewed as an unbroken tradition that goes back to the earliest period of the Sindhu-Sarasvati Valley traditions ."
The Itihasa-Purana, the Epic-Puranic narratives of the Sanskrit Epics and the Puranas, contain royal genealogies of the lunar dynasty and solar dynasty which are regarded by Indian traditions as historic events, and used in the Epic-Puranic chronology to establish a traditional timeline of Indian history.
