Wicca Wiccans Pagans and Free Souls.. live different.. be Neopagan!

My current textbook

I am once again reading "The Myths and Gods of India" by Alain Danielou, who is an initiate in Saivism (the worship and study of Shiva and Shakti). This book is a gold mine of information taken from all four Vedas, the Upanishads, the Brahmanas, the Puranas, and Tantric texts. Here is just a short sample:
Laxmi is the goddess of beauty, wealth (abundance), love, nobility (not the aristocrats, but the character of nobility), and Fortune. She is the mother of lust, the God Kama, and she is the power of lust as Rati, whose name means fornicaition. The conch is Laxmi, signifying Fortune.

0 members like this

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Rebecca (Community Moderator) on March 29, 2009 at 3:43pm

Sounds very cool.... I am drawn to Laxmi after reading this about the conch .... sounds like a good book.

I have a book on Indian Gods that I picked up in this funky shop in San Rafael (northern California). It was printed in India and is more of a booklet than book, or a small paperback. I don't have it with me so I'm going from memory, but it listed all of the Indian Gods with a photo or drawing of the God's image and next to it a definition of the God or maybe better to say description of it, starting with the name (or varieties of names), it's role, particular capabilities or focus for worship. I would say I was incredibly impressed and slightly overwhelmed with the quantity of Gods.... I focused on the ones I was interested in, and used the book's information as a jumping off point. The one I'm most affected by / touched by is Ganesh. My boyfriend - new to me at the time - had a wall hanging of Ganesh and my father gave me a wood carving of Ganesh many years ago as a souvenier of his trip to India... gotta take those omens for what they are!

Thanks for this information....