(2a,b,bb) The gods’ palaces or temples were represented on a vimana’s superstructure by miniature shrines or aedicules of itself, so it might be said, a Hindu temple is built of its own replicas, embodying the continual interplay between emanation and origin characteristic of Hindu thought.

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The Upanishads gradually replaced the polytheistic Vedic gods with a monistic (though not monotheistic) absolute, brahman, and Mt. Meru became a metaphor for ascending from maya, the sorcery of illusions, and attaining moksha, release from samsara, the suffering of reincarnation, through reunification with the undivided cosmic essence, brahman. Mahayana Buddhism systematized this into what could be thought of as a “psychological ontology” consisting of thirty-one (or more) “planes of existence,” discrete levels of consciousness of which the human is, alas, five from the bottom. 4 Fig 3

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Cyclical Emanation

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The oscillation between manifest and non-manifest or from emanation back to the dimensionless results in Hinduism’s cyclical view of time, comprised of three principal moments: 1) creation, 2) existence, with its ineluctable change and decay, and 3) destruction. These are played out over the vast timespan of a mahakalpa or “lifetime of Brahma,” roughly 311.04 trillion solar years, followed by a Great Pralaya or fallow period of equal duration, (compared with contemporary astrophysic’s mere blip of 14 billion years since the Big Bang.) This cycle was eventually assigned to the Trimurti - creation to Brahma, preservation to Vishnu and destruction to Shiva, a trinitarian arrangement giving rise to nearly as great theological contortions as in Christianity.  With the rise of bakhti or devotional Hinduism during the period covered by these two websites, Shiva and Vishnu became personalized absolutes, responsible in the minds of their adherents for all three functions, with the other gods of this famously populous faith relegated to mere aspects of Adi-Shiva or Adi-Vishnu. (Shakti, the “female principle,” provided an unorthodox but not heretical, populist countercurrent throughout this period, often entwined with Vajrayana or Tantric Buddhism.) 

           

Adi-Shiva or Mahadeva performed his “five sacred acts” or Pancakrityas – creation, preservation, destruction/dissolution, obscuration/occultation and redemption/grace – through the Pancabrahmas, the five Wisdom Kings, while his five-faced pancamukhalinga represented the five elements or pancamahabhutas. 5 Adi-Vishnu, Paratma or Narayana, manifested himself through the “primal quadruple expansion” of his chaturvyuhas, the four deified Vrishni heroes, as well as through his vibhavas or incarnations, such as the Dashavatara and Mohini, his arcavataras, his icons and cult statues, and his antaryam, soul or in-dwelling, redemptive grace. As the following chart illustrates, the “aspects” or emanations of Shiva and Vishnu map, perhaps too neatly, onto each other. 

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