Parinamavada

 

Symbolism in Hinduism And Symbolic Significance Of Hindu Gods And Goddesses

One of the least known facts about Hinduism is that for many centuries its core beliefs and practices were kept hidden from the general public. People were not allowed to know truths about the divinities or secrets about the spiritual practices or the methods of performing various rituals and rites. This happened in two significant ways. Firstly the priestly families decided not to teach the Vedas and other sacred literature to those who they thought were unqualified to know them because of their birth and profession. Therefore, they did not allow the other castes to know about the ritual aspects of the religion. In fact, in this regard, we cannot just isolate and blame the priestly caste. What they did was part of a social practice that characterized Hindu society. Every caste, more or less, kept the secrets of their respective professions strictly within their families or castes.

Secondly those who transcended the caste distinctions and joined the ascetic traditions were bound to the master and disciple tradition, which dictated that only those who were able to earn the confidence of their masters by virtue of their sincerity and personal effort were allowed to learn the secrets of their respective paths and when they taught to others they were bound by the same tradition. Because of these two developments the only way the rest of the population could get some knowledge of their religion was through fringe methods such as listening to the stories from the Puranas and the Epics or the discourses of the wandering ascetics or watching some dance dramas.

Hindu scriptures are replete with metaphors, containing deeper philosophical truths, couched in symbolism, not obvious immediately to ordinary individuals. Some of them, especially the Vedas, the Upanishads, are written in a coded or symbolic language. Like all manifest creation, they also have some manifest content which is visible to all and some hidden content that would not be so obvious to us unless we have some intuitive ability. The hidden part unravels itself to the extent we have withdrawn into ourselves. They come to you as flashes from the depths of consciousness in moments of heightened awareness.

The following articles are an attempt in this direction. Readers are requested to note that in presenting these articles we do not claim any exclusive authority on the subject of symbolism in Hinduism. We have made interpretations based upon our understanding of the subject matter. We have also created another resource on symbolism titled, Symbols of Hinduism, the link to which is available below.