118 Fun Facts About Hinduism

Roughly how many people worldwide followed Hinduism, the third-largest religion, as of 2020?

1.2 billion Hindus were counted by Pew for 2020; their numbers rose by 126 million in a decade, the same pace as the world's, so their share held steady at about 15 percent.

What term, meaning 'eternal law', have Hindus used since the 19th century to describe their religion?

Sanatana Dharma, 'the eternal dharma', was taken up by 19th-century Hindus as a self-description; the word 'Hindu' itself began as an exonym, a name given by outsiders.

What do Shruti and Smriti, the two classes of Hindu scripture, literally mean?

'Heard' and 'remembered': Shruti is held to be revelation that ancient sages heard rather than composed, so it outranks Smriti, the remembered tradition of epics and law books credited to human authors.

Veda is the Sanskrit word for what?

Knowledge is what veda means; for centuries it was kept only in memory, as teachers drilled pupils to recite each hymn forwards and backwards with exact pronunciation before any of it was written down.

Which is the oldest known Vedic Sanskrit text, composed mostly between about 1500 and 1000 BCE?

Rigveda hymns, 1,028 of them in ten books, were handed down by word of mouth: reciters still chant them with subtleties of intonation and rhythm passed from teacher to pupil since Vedic times.

The Bhagavad Gita forms part of which longer Hindu text?

Mahabharata tradition frames the Gita as a report: the blind king Dhritarashtra, far from the battlefield, hears the whole dialogue from his aide Sanjaya, who has been granted the power to see it.

Which Pandava prince hesitates to fight and receives Krishna's teaching in the Bhagavad Gita?

Arjuna, seeing friends and kinsmen in the opposing army at Kurukshetra, loses heart and refuses to fight rather than cause their deaths; Krishna urges him to do his duty as a warrior.

In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna teaches on the battlefield while serving as what?

A charioteer: Krishna had refused to bear arms in the war and offered one side his army and the other himself, so he drove a Pandava prince's chariot and counselled him instead.

The Ramayana is traditionally attributed to which sage?

Valmiki is honoured as the Adi Kavi, 'first poet': the story goes that his grief at seeing a hunter kill one of a pair of birds burst out as the first shloka, the verse form of his 24,000-couplet epic.

Rama, hero of the Ramayana, is which numbered avatar of Vishnu?

Rama is the Seventh of Vishnu's ten principal avatars, coming after Parashurama; he was prince of Ayodhya and spent fourteen years in forest exile with Sita and Lakshmana.

Who kidnaps Sita in the Ramayana?

Ravana, king of Lanka, sent a golden deer to draw Rama and his brother away, then carried Sita off to his island capital, where Hanuman later found her held in a grove.

What are the four purusharthas, the proper aims of human life?

Dharma, artha, kama and moksha are duty, worldly success, pleasure and liberation; early texts name only the first three as life's goals, and liberation was added later as a fourth.

What does the word karma literally mean?

Action or deed is all the Sanskrit word says: karma names the act itself, not the fate English speakers use it for; the doctrine holds that what a person does shapes the lives still to come.

What is the Hindu term for the cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth?

Samsara is the round of birth, death and rebirth: the soul is held to be bound to it by its own past deeds, each life shaping the next, until it finds release from the cycle.

In Advaita Vedanta, the individual Self (atman) is held to be identical with what?

Brahman, the ultimate reality, is all there is in Advaita ('non-dual') thought: the sense of being a separate self is put down to ignorance, an illusion that hides the single truth.

What term for devotion to one god while accepting others is sometimes applied to Hinduism?

Henotheistic means holding one god supreme without denying the others; Max Müller spread the word after studying Vedic hymns that praise each god in turn as though it were the highest.

What is the innermost sanctum of a Hindu temple, housing the main image, called?

Garbhagriha means 'womb chamber': it is a small windowless cell at the temple's heart, and larger temples wrap a passage around it so that worshippers can walk a clockwise circuit of the deity inside.

Durga Puja, added to UNESCO's heritage list in 2021, is the great annual festival of which Indian city?

Kolkata's workshops sculpt the goddess from unfired river clay and paint her eyes last to bring her to life; on the tenth day the images are carried out and immersed in the river the clay came from.

Which 8th-century philosopher, the great exponent of Advaita Vedanta, is often named as founder of the Smarta tradition?

Adi Shankara, born in Kerala, is said to have travelled the length of India debating rival philosophers and to have founded four monasteries, whose heads still carry his name in the title Shankaracharya.

In the Trimurti, which Hindu god creates the universe, which preserves it and which destroys it?

Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva are respectively creator, preserver and destroyer; in practice Brahma has very few temples, the Pushkar shrine in Rajasthan being the best known.

Vishnu is depicted sleeping on the coils of which serpent in the ocean of milk?

Shesha is the serpent whose coils make Vishnu's couch on the cosmic ocean; he is said to follow his lord to earth as well, for some traditions count Krishna's brother Balarama as the serpent's own incarnation.

What is the collective name for the ten principal incarnations of Vishnu?

Dashavatara lists run from the fish Matsya to Kalki, who is still to come, but they are not fixed: some traditions count the Buddha among the ten, while others give a place to Krishna's brother Balarama.

The child Krishna is famous for stealing which food?

Butter was the prize of the child Krishna's pranks, earning him the name 'butter thief'; he grew up among cowherds because he was smuggled away at birth from his uncle King Kamsa, who had been told the boy would destroy him.

Which of these iconographic attributes belongs to Shiva?

A third eye on his forehead marks Shiva: when the god of desire disturbed his meditation, fire from the eye is said to have burned him to ash; Shiva also wears a crescent moon and a serpent.

In which abstract form is Shiva most often worshipped in temples?

The lingam is a short pillar-like form, usually of stone, set in the sanctum of Shiva temples and explained in some myths as a pillar of fire and light; at the god's chief festival worshippers bathe it in water, milk and honey.

Brahma's several heads represent what?

Brahma's heads are said to represent The Vedas, one reciting each; he rides a hamsa, a swan or goose, and sits on a lotus.

Which animal serves as the mount of the elephant-headed god Ganesha?

A rat, sometimes called a mouse, carries Ganesha in his images; in one reading it shows that he can get past anything in his way, which suits the god Hindus invoke as the remover of obstacles.

Lakshmi is revered chiefly as the goddess of what?

Fortune and wealth are Lakshmi's to give, so on Diwali night families clean their homes and set rows of oil lamps in windows and doorways to help the goddess find her way in.

Saraswati, goddess of knowledge and music, is typically portrayed in what colour?

White is Saraswati's colour, a sign of purity: she wears a white sari and rides a white swan or goose; yet at Vasant Panchami, the spring festival held in her honour, worshippers dress in yellow.

Durga is best known for slaying which buffalo demon?

Mahishasura, in the best-known telling, had won a boon that no man could kill him, so the gods' combined powers took form as a goddess, Durga, who slew him; her victory is marked each year at Vijayadashami.

Kali is the goddess of what?

Time or death is what Kali embodies: in the Devi Mahatmya she springs from Durga's anger to fight a demon whose every spilt drop of blood breeds another, and laps it up before it can touch the ground.

Hanuman is traditionally believed to be the spiritual offspring of which god?

Vayu, god of the wind, fathered a child who could fly: the infant Hanuman is said to have leapt at the sun, mistaking it for a ripe fruit, until Indra struck him on the jaw with a thunderbolt.

Which spring festival, held at the full moon of Phalguna around March, celebrates the love of Radha and Krishna?

Holi recalls Krishna's playful games with Radha, in one legend the pair colouring each other's faces, which is why powder is thrown; the bonfire lit the night before stands for the burning of the demoness Holika.

Makar Sankranti, held each year in mid-January, marks the sun's entry into which zodiac sign?

Capricorn is makara in Sanskrit; because this festival follows the sun rather than the moon, it falls on 14 January almost every year, and in Gujarat people take to the rooftops to fly kites.

Which festival of nine nights honours the goddess Durga and ends with Vijayadashami?

Navaratri means 'nine nights', each given to the goddess; in Gujarat people spend them dancing the garba in a ring around a clay pot with a flame inside or an image of the mother goddess.

Which freedom fighter turned Ganesh Chaturthi into a large public celebration in Maharashtra in 1893?

Bal Gangadhar Tilak revived the festival as a street celebration after the British banned political assemblies, since a religious gathering gave nationalists a lawful way to draw a crowd.

Raksha Bandhan celebrates which relationship?

Sister and brother are bound by a thread: on the full moon of Shravana she ties a rakhi bracelet on his wrist and receives a gift in return; the festival's name means 'the bond of protection'.

The Kumbh Mela rotates among Prayagraj, Haridwar, Ujjain and which city on the Godavari river?

Nashik is one of four places where, the story goes, drops of the nectar of immortality fell as gods and demons fought over the pot, or kumbha, that gives the fair its name.

At the Kumbh Mela, what is the central act of pilgrims?

Bathing in a sacred river is the point of the fair: pilgrims take a ritual dip believed to cleanse them of their sins, on dates fixed by the positions of the sun, the moon and Jupiter.

Varanasi, one of the world's oldest continually inhabited cities, sits on which river?

The Ganges makes Varanasi, also called Kashi or Benares, a place to end one's days: many Hindus believe that to die in the city on its banks frees the soul from the round of rebirth.

What does a boy receive at the Upanayana, his initiation into Vedic study?

A sacred thread of three twisted cotton strands is looped over the boy's left shoulder by his teacher; the rite counts as a second birth, which is why those who wear it are called 'twice-born'.

The sacred syllable Om is traditionally broken down into which three sounds?

A, U and M: in Sanskrit the vowels a and u merge into o, which is why the syllable is also written Aum; it is uttered at the start and end of prayers, and Buddhists and Jains chant it as well.

Where on the body is the tilaka mark most commonly worn?

The forehead carries the tilaka, and its shape tells the wearer's sect at a glance: three horizontal lines for a follower of Shiva, upright lines in a U, said to be Vishnu's footprint, for a Vaishnava.

In the aarti ritual of Hindu worship, what is circled before the image of a deity?

A lit lamp, burning ghee or camphor, is waved clockwise before the image as an act of honour while worshippers sing a hymn of praise, and the hymn itself is also called an aarti.

Which four are traditionally called the major paths of yoga?

Bhakti, Karma, Raja and Jnana are offered as different roads to the same release: Krishna sets out three of them to a doubting warrior in the Bhagavad Gita, and Raja yoga, the path of meditation, makes the fourth.

Who wrote the Yoga Sutras, the classical text of Hindu yoga?

Patanjali's Yoga Sutras are the earliest surviving textbook of yoga; tradition makes him the same Patanjali who wrote a great commentary on Sanskrit grammar, but most scholars now think they were different men.

What does the greeting 'Namaste' literally mean?

I bow to you is the plain sense of the Sanskrit namas te, 'obeisance to you'; in India it is an everyday greeting made with the palms pressed together, while the West knows it mostly from yoga classes.

Which cattle species does Hinduism specifically consider sacred?

Bos indicus, the zebu, is the humped cattle of South Asia that Hindus venerate; the reverence deepened over time, for cattle were sacrificed and eaten in ancient India before killing a milk cow was forbidden.

What are the four varnas of traditional Hindu society?

Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras — priests, warriors and rulers, farmers and merchants, and labourers — are the varnas, which the Purusha Sukta describes as born from the cosmic being's mouth, arms, thighs and feet.

What are the four ashramas, the traditional stages of a Hindu's life?

Student, householder, hermit, renouncer: Brahmacharya, Grihastha, Vanaprastha and Sannyasa. A householder was to withdraw to the forest only once his grandchildren were born, and to give up all he owned only at the last stage.

The highest spire of a Hindu temple represents which mountain?

Mount Meru, the cosmic mountain where the gods dwell, is the model for the temple tower; at Angkor Wat in Cambodia, built as a Vishnu temple, the five central towers stand for it.

The Dravida and Nagara temple styles belong respectively to which parts of India?

South and north: in the Dravida south the gateway towers, or gopurams, grew until they dwarfed the shrine they led to, while a northern Nagara temple keeps its tallest, curving spire directly over the sanctum.

How does the Hindu lunar calendar keep its months in step with the seasons?

By adding an extra month, the adhika masa, about every three years: twelve lunar months fall some eleven days short of the solar year, and the added month keeps the calendar in line with the seasons.

What does antyeshti, the last Hindu rite of passage, normally involve for an adult?

Cremation is the norm: the body is carried quickly to burning grounds beside a river, the eldest son leads the final rites, and the ashes are afterwards given to a sacred river.

Which Hindu monk opened his 1893 Chicago speech with 'Sisters and brothers of America'?

Swami Vivekananda turned his Chicago fame into years of lecturing in the West, then founded the Ramakrishna Mission, named for his teacher, which grew to include centres in New York and San Francisco.

What Sanskrit term, literally 'viewing', names the six classical schools of Hindu philosophy such as Nyaya and Samkhya?

Darshanas are six ways of looking at reality: Samkhya, Yoga, Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Mimamsa and Vedanta, counted as orthodox because each accepts the authority of the Vedas, unlike Buddhist and Jain thought.

Ayurveda describes health as a balance of which three doshas?

Vata, pitta and kapha, loosely wind, bile and phlegm, are the three bodily humours of Ayurveda; tradition traces the system to Dhanvantari, physician of the gods, who is said to have received it from Brahma.

Which is the only African country where Hindus are the largest religious group?

Mauritius was just under half Hindu at its 2022 census: after slavery ended there in 1835 the British brought indentured labourers from India to work the sugar plantations, and their descendants stayed.

Which ancient grammarian set out the rules of Sanskrit in the Ashtadhyayi?

Panini's Ashtadhyayi, 'Eight Chapters', described Sanskrit so exactly that it has remained the standard of correct usage ever since, and it is counted among the first works of descriptive linguistics.

Which mantra, addressed to the solar deity Savitr, is recited by many Hindus at dawn?

Gayatri mantra is the verse a teacher imparts to a boy at his initiation into Vedic study, and receiving it is counted as his second birth; tradition credits the verse to the sage Vishvamitra.

Which 15th-century poet-saint of the Bhakti movement blended Hindu devotion with ideas from Islam?

Kabir drew on the Sufi mysticism of Islam as well as Hindu devotion; his verses were later taken into the Sikh scripture, and he is often counted a forerunner of Sikhism.

The word 'Hindu' derives from Sindhu, the Sanskrit name of which river?

Sindhu is the Sanskrit name of The Indus; Persians turned it into 'Hindu' for the land and people beyond the river, and the word gave the province of Sindh its name as well.

Which Bengali reformer founded the Brahmo Samaj in 1828 and campaigned against sati, the burning of widows?

Raja Ram Mohan Roy's writings against sati helped move the British to outlaw it in 1829; he also started some of India's earliest newspapers and protested when the Calcutta press was censored.

Outside India, which country has the largest Hindu population, at more than 20 million?

Nepal counted more than 23 million Hindus at its 2021 census, about four in five of its people; it and India are the world's only two Hindu-majority countries, and Nepal's share is the higher of the two.

Which Vietnamese ethnic group includes the Balamon, a Hindu minority centred on Ninh Thuan Province?

The Cham once ruled the Hindu-Buddhist kingdom of Champa, yet most Cham are Muslim; the Balamon of Ninh Thuan and neighbouring Binh Thuan are the minority who kept a form of Hinduism.

Which people of Pakistan practise an indigenous religion resembling the ancient Vedic religion?

The Kalash, a few thousand people in three valleys of Chitral, are the last to keep this mountain religion: their kin across the Afghan border, in what was then called Kafiristan, were forcibly converted to Islam in the 1890s.

Which African country is home to the Hindu Monastery of Africa, founded by a native-born swami?

Ghana's Hindu Monastery of Africa was founded in Accra by Swami Ghanananda Saraswati, a Ghanaian convert initiated in India, and serves a community of several thousand indigenous Hindus.

In which Portuguese colony did a 1560 inquisition persecute Hindus?

Goa's Inquisition arrived from Europe in 1560: Hindu temples were destroyed and Hindu ceremonies, even weddings, were banned in an effort to force Catholicism on the colony.

Which English word for an unstoppable force comes from a Hindu deity whose giant chariots are pulled through Puri?

Juggernaut is an early English rendering of Jagannath, whose festival cars at Puri are so heavy that, once rolling, they are hard to stop or steer. Europeans were long fascinated by tales of pilgrims crushed beneath them.

Which monument, the largest religious complex in the world, was built in the 12th century as a temple to Vishnu?

Angkor Wat was raised by the Khmer king Suryavarman II, and after later rulers turned to Buddhism it was gradually converted into the Buddhist temple it is today. Its first name may have honoured Vishnu's sacred dwelling.

Which physicist learned Sanskrit to read the Bhagavad Gita and recalled a verse of it at the first atomic bomb test?

Robert Oppenheimer named the Gita among the books that most shaped his philosophy of life. He kept returning to it while running Los Alamos and read from it at a memorial service for President Roosevelt.

Which figure revered by another world religion appears in many Hindu lists of the ten avatars of Vishnu?

The Buddha is often counted ninth of the ten, though some traditions reject that and give the place to Balarama, the brother of Krishna.

Which Indonesian island is the only province of its Muslim-majority country where most people are Hindu?

Bali is about 86 percent Hindu, and it marks its new year, Nyepi, with a day of silence so complete that the island's only airport stays closed.

The swastika, a good-luck sign in Hinduism long before the Nazis took it, is named from Sanskrit for what?

Well-being is the root sense: the Sanskrit svastika means 'conducive to well-being'. Hindus draw the sign on doorways and on the opening page of account books.

In the Ramayana, what does Hanuman carry back from the Himalayas when he cannot pick out the right healing herb?

A whole mountain is his answer: Hanuman grows to giant size, rips the peak from the earth and flies it to the battlefield to save the wounded brother of Rama.

In which American city was the Hare Krishna movement, formally called ISKCON, founded by an Indian monk in 1966?

New York is where the monk, Prabhupada, arrived in 1965, aged 69, after crossing from Kolkata on a cargo ship with little more than a few trunks of books.

Which small animal serves as the mount of Ganesha, the Hindu god worshipped as the remover of obstacles?

A mouse, called Mushaka, carries him, and Ganesha is often shown riding on or attended by one. Some writers read the little animal as desire brought under control.

Which politician, sworn in as an MP on the Bhagavad Gita, became the first Hindu prime minister of the United Kingdom?

Rishi Sunak, born in Southampton to Indian parents who had moved to Britain from East Africa, took office in October 2022 and was also the first British Asian to hold the post.

Which five-day Hindu festival of lights sees homes and temples lit with rows of small oil lamps called diyas?

Diwali falls around a new-moon night in October or November, and its main day is an official holiday as far from India as Fiji, Guyana, and Trinidad and Tobago.

Which instrument is Krishna usually shown playing, said to have enchanted the gopis, the cowherd girls of his youth?

A flute, the bamboo bansuri, is his emblem, and he is usually pictured holding it to his lips beneath a crown of peacock feathers.

Which flower, shown as the seat of deities such as Lakshmi and Brahma, is also the national flower of India?

The lotus opens clean above the mud it grows from, which made it an emblem of purity. One image shows Brahma seated on a lotus that rises from the navel of Vishnu.

Which Sanskrit term for non-violence toward all living beings did Mahatma Gandhi carry into Indian politics?

Ahimsa comes from a root meaning to strike, turned into its opposite by a prefix. Jain monks and nuns take it furthest, going out of their way not to hurt even small insects.

Which Sanskrit word for a revered spiritual teacher is now used in English for an expert in any field?

Guru means more than teacher in Indian traditions: a counsellor who shapes a disciple's values and way of life. Hindus honour their teachers each year at the festival of Guru Purnima.

Which colour, worn by Hindu ascetics as a sign of renunciation, forms the top band of the flag of India?

Saffron is held to be the colour of sunset and of fire, standing for sacrifice, light and the quest for salvation, which is why holy men wear it.

Unlike Christianity and Islam, Hinduism grew from many roots and so lacks which feature of those two faiths?

A single founder is absent because Hinduism is a fusion of many Indian traditions with diverse roots, which is also why scholars struggle to give the religion one definition.

Which Sanskrit word meaning 'wheel' names the energy centres that yoga traditions picture along the spine?

Chakra systems differ in their counts, and the best-known set of seven, rising from the base of the spine to the top of the head, is the one described in a 1919 book, The Serpent Power.

Which country, whose kings take the regnal name Rama, has a national epic, the Ramakien, based on the Ramayana?

Thailand's best-known version was compiled under King Rama I, who wrote part of it himself, and his son Rama II reworked sections of it for the khon dance-drama.

Which common name for a Hindu temple appears in the official name of the Neasden temple in London, opened in 1995?

Mandir is the everyday word, and the Neasden mandir, built entirely by traditional methods and materials, has been described as Britain's first authentic Hindu temple.

What kind of animal is Nandi, the mount of Shiva whose seated stone figure faces the shrine in his temples?

A bull is his form, and Nandi is said to have earned his place as both mount and gatekeeper of Shiva through severe penance. That is why his statue sits watching the shrine.

Which eagle-like king of the birds carries Vishnu and lends his name to the national airline of Indonesia?

Garuda is cast as the enemy of every serpent, and it was President Sukarno who suggested naming the airline after him.

Which goddess, the consort of Shiva, is the mother of both Ganesha and the war god Kartikeya?

Parvati is the daughter of Himavan, the Himalayas in person, and her birth is told as a cosmic plan to draw the ascetic Shiva into marriage and household life.

Which Vedic king of the gods, a deity of rain and thunder, wields the vajra and rides the mighty Airavata?

Indra is the most mentioned deity in the earliest hymns, the subject of about a quarter of them, and scholars set him beside thunder gods such as Thor and Zeus.

Which Vedic fire god is called the mouth of the gods because he carries burnt offerings up to them?

Agni is the witness at Hindu weddings, where the couple seal their vows by circling a fire, and he is present in every lamp lit for worship.

Which Hindu god, said to be the first mortal to die, judges the souls of the departed and rides a buffalo?

Yama won his throne by finding the way to the next world before anyone else, and he is pictured as a dark figure with a noose or mace for catching souls.

Which avatar of Vishnu, neither man nor beast, killed a demon king at twilight on a palace threshold?

Narasimha, the man-lion, was shaped to slip past a boon that made the demon Hiranyakashipu nearly invulnerable, and he tore the tyrant apart to save the young devotee Prahlada.

What animal form does Vishnu take as Matsya, the first of his ten avatars, to save Manu from a great flood?

A fish is the form: Matsya starts as a tiny creature that Manu protects and grows huge enough to rescue him, a tale often set beside the flood myths of other cultures.

Which avatar of Vishnu is still to come, foretold to arrive on horseback with a fiery sword and end the present age?

Kalki is the tenth and final avatar, and his arrival is meant to close the Kali Yuga, the last and darkest age of the cycle, and open the most virtuous one.

In Hindu myth, the gods and demons churn the ocean of milk together in order to win which nectar of immortality?

Amrita surfaced only after a poison strong enough to destroy creation, which Shiva swallowed to protect the worlds, leaving his throat blue.

On which battlefield, today a pilgrimage city in Haryana, does Krishna deliver the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita?

Kurukshetra means the field of the Kurus, and the Gita opens there with two armies of cousins, the Pandavas and the Kauravas, drawn up and waiting for war.

Which sage, whose name means 'compiler', is said to have dictated a vast Hindu epic to Ganesha as his scribe?

Vyasa had to narrate without a single pause, the condition his scribe set, while Ganesha in turn had to understand every verse before writing it down.

Which princess of Panchala, said to be born fully grown from a sacrificial fire, marries all five Pandava brothers?

Draupadi is later hauled before the rival court, where a prince tries to strip her, but her honour is saved when the cloth of her garment keeps unwinding without end.

The Pandava king Yudhishthira stakes and loses his kingdom, his brothers and himself in a rigged contest of what?

Dice were thrown against him by Shakuni, a master of the game playing on behalf of a jealous cousin, and the loss drives the Pandavas into exile.

Which city on the Sarayu river in Uttar Pradesh is revered as the birthplace of Rama and capital of Kosala?

Ayodhya is counted first among the seven most important pilgrimage cities of Hinduism, and Jain texts name it as the birthplace of five of their own great teachers.

Which younger half-brother of Rama gives up palace life to follow him and Sita into forest exile in the Ramayana?

Lakshmana is said in one tradition to have asked the goddess of sleep to keep him awake through the whole exile, so his wife Urmila slept in his place for all those years.

Which autumn festival sees clay images of Durga carried in procession and immersed in rivers or the sea?

Dussehra, also called Vijayadashami, celebrates the victory of good over evil, and across northern India towering effigies packed with fireworks are burnt that evening.

Which festival marks the birth of Krishna with midnight vigils and human pyramids reaching for a hanging pot of curd?

Janmashtami crowds watch teams climb into human towers to smash the hanging pot, recalling the child Krishna, who raided his neighbours' butter and curd.

Which Tamil harvest festival, held in mid-January, is named after a dish of rice boiled with milk and jaggery?

Pongal means boiling over, and families cheer as the pot of rice and milk spills over its rim. A later day of the festival is given to bathing and garlanding the cattle.

Which harvest festival of Kerala welcomes the yearly return of the banished demon king Mahabali to his people?

Onam recalls how Vishnu, as the dwarf Vamana, asked the generous king for three paces of land, covered his whole realm in two and took the third on the king's own head.

Which country's Batu Caves, guarded by a 43-metre statue of Murugan, are the focus of the Tamil festival of Thaipusam?

Malaysia's cave shrine lies a short way north of Kuala Lumpur, and the festival has been celebrated there since 1892, the year after the temple was completed.

Which unclimbed Tibetan peak beside Lake Manasarovar do Hindus revere as the home of Shiva?

Kailash is sacred in several faiths at once, so pilgrims walk a circuit around its base instead of going up, and China prohibits climbing it.

Which temple group in Madhya Pradesh, built by the Chandela dynasty, is famed for its erotic carvings?

Khajuraho owes its fame to those scenes, yet sexual themes cover less than a tenth of the sculpture, and the site mixes Hindu shrines with Jain ones.

Which 13th-century temple on the Odisha coast was built in the shape of a giant stone chariot for the sun god?

Konark was the Black Pagoda to European sailors, because its great tiered tower looked dark from the sea, and its chariot has immense carved wheels and a team of stone horses.

What name is given to the image of Shiva as cosmic dancer, best known from the Chola bronzes of Tamil Nadu?

Nataraja dances inside a ring of fire, crushing underfoot a dwarf demon who stands for ignorance while one raised hand holds a small hourglass-shaped drum.

Which Sanskrit word names the act of Hindu worship in which light, flowers and food are offered to a deity?

Puja can honour more than gods: the same word covers rites that welcome a special guest or mark an event, and it roughly translates as reverence or homage.

What name is given to food first offered to a deity in a Hindu temple and then shared out among the worshippers?

Prasada is treated as a blessing handed back by the deity, which is why it is given out to every devotee alike, whoever they are.

Which herb, a kind of basil planted in the central courtyard of many Hindu homes, is revered as a form of Lakshmi?

Tulsi, or holy basil, is honoured as an earthly form of the goddess, and its leaves are a recommended offering in the worship of Vishnu and of Krishna.

Which official name for India, set beside 'India' in its constitution, is traced by tradition to a legendary emperor?

Bharat is a coequal name of the country under Article 1 of its constitution. Hindu texts link it to Bharata, son of King Dushyanta, while Jain tradition names another Bharata.

What name is given to the towering, ornate gateway of temples such as the Meenakshi Temple in Madurai?

Gopuram towers are essentially hollow gateways, yet they often rise higher than the shrine itself. The designer of Tamil Nadu's state emblem said its tower is the Meenakshi Temple's west gopuram.