Origin and Historical Development
Around 1500 BC several waves of Aryan immigration took place in north west India. Many of the names of the Indo-Aryan deities (e.g. Agni, Indra, Varuna) are almost synonymous with deities in Persian, Greek and Roman mythology (see Proto-Indo-European religion). Through a slow process of hybridisation the Indo-Aryan deities were merged into the many local cults, a process that spread from the north west to the east and south of the subcontinent through the movement of "fortune-seekers, traders or teachers", and still continues today in some parts of India.
Read more about this topic: Hindu Deities
Famous quotes containing the words origin, historical and/or development:
“Art is good when it springs from necessity. This kind of origin is the guarantee of its value; there is no other.”
—Neal Cassady (1926–1968)
“Some of us still get all weepy when we think about the Gaia Hypothesis, the idea that earth is a big furry goddess-creature who resembles everybody’s mom in that she knows what’s best for us. But if you look at the historical record—Krakatoa, Mt. Vesuvius, Hurricane Charley, poison ivy, and so forth down the ages—you have to ask yourself: Whose side is she on, anyway?”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)
“Dissonance between family and school, therefore, is not only inevitable in a changing society; it also helps to make children more malleable and responsive to a changing world. By the same token, one could say that absolute homogeneity between family and school would reflect a static, authoritarian society and discourage creative, adaptive development in children.”
—Sara Lawrence Lightfoot (20th century)