Hinduism Trivia
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118 free Hinduism trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Hinduism trivia quiz covers the world's third-largest religion from its Vedic roots to its 1.2 billion followers today. It begins with the scriptures (the four Vedas, the Upanishads, the Mahabharata and Ramayana, the 700-verse Bhagavad Gita, the Puranas), the core ideas (dharma, karma, samsara, moksha, atman and Brahman, the four purusharthas and the four ashramas) and the four major denominations of Vaishnavism, Shaivism, Shaktism and Smartism. Then it turns to the gods and their stories: the Trimurti of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, Vishnu's ten avatars including Rama and Krishna, elephant-headed Ganesha, Lakshmi, Saraswati, Durga, Kali and Hanuman. There are also questions on practice and culture: puja and aarti, temple styles, the sacred syllable Om, the tilaka, the four paths of yoga, the festivals of Diwali, Holi, Navaratri and Ganesh Chaturthi, pilgrimage to Varanasi and the Kumbh Mela, the sacred cow, vegetarianism, the Hindu calendar, and modern figures like Vivekananda. Some questions suit anyone who has celebrated Diwali with friends; others will test lifelong students of the tradition. Every answer has been checked against primary sources, chiefly the Wikipedia articles on Hinduism and its deities, texts and festivals, and each explanation adds one further detail. If you enjoy this, try our Buddhism quiz too.
30 of 118 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Roughly how many people worldwide followed Hinduism, the third-largest religion, as of 2020?
1.2 billion
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.
Q 02What term, meaning 'eternal law', have Hindus used since the 19th century to describe their religion?
Sanatana Dharma
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.
Q 03What do Shruti and Smriti, the two classes of Hindu scripture, literally mean?
'Heard' and 'remembered'
'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.
Q 04Veda is the Sanskrit word for what?
Knowledge
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.
Q 05Which is the oldest known Vedic Sanskrit text, composed mostly between about 1500 and 1000 BCE?
Rigveda
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.
Q 06The Bhagavad Gita forms part of which longer Hindu text?
Mahabharata
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.
Q 07Which Pandava prince hesitates to fight and receives Krishna's teaching in the Bhagavad Gita?
Arjuna
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.
Q 08In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna teaches on the battlefield while serving as what?
Charioteer
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.
Q 09The Ramayana is traditionally attributed to which sage?
Valmiki
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.
Q 10Rama, hero of the Ramayana, is which numbered avatar of Vishnu?
Seventh
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.
Q 11Who kidnaps Sita in the Ramayana?
Ravana, king of Lanka
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.
Q 12What are the four purusharthas, the proper aims of human life?
Dharma, artha, kama and moksha
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.
Q 13What does the word karma literally mean?
Action or deed
Q 21Vishnu is depicted sleeping on the coils of which serpent in the ocean of milk?
Shesha
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.
Q 22What is the collective name for the ten principal incarnations of Vishnu?
Dashavatara
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.
Q 23The child Krishna is famous for stealing which food?
Butter
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.
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.
Q 14What is the Hindu term for the cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth?
Samsara
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.
Q 15In Advaita Vedanta, the individual Self (atman) is held to be identical with what?
Brahman, the ultimate reality
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.
Q 16What term for devotion to one god while accepting others is sometimes applied to Hinduism?
Henotheistic
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.
Q 17What is the innermost sanctum of a Hindu temple, housing the main image, called?
Garbhagriha
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.
Q 18Durga Puja, added to UNESCO's heritage list in 2021, is the great annual festival of which Indian city?
Kolkata
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.
Q 19Which 8th-century philosopher, the great exponent of Advaita Vedanta, is often named as founder of the Smarta tradition?
Adi Shankara
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.
Q 20In the Trimurti, which Hindu god creates the universe, which preserves it and which destroys it?
Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva
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.
Q 24Which of these iconographic attributes belongs to Shiva?
A third eye on his forehead
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.
Q 25In which abstract form is Shiva most often worshipped in temples?
The lingam
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.
Q 26Brahma's several heads represent what?
The Vedas
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.
Q 27Which animal serves as the mount of the elephant-headed god Ganesha?
A rat
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.
Q 28Lakshmi is revered chiefly as the goddess of what?
Fortune and wealth
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.
Q 29Saraswati, goddess of knowledge and music, is typically portrayed in what colour?
White
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.
Q 30Durga is best known for slaying which buffalo demon?
Mahishasura
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.