Deities

The third of the Hindu trinity is the most misunderstood. Shiva destroys, but what he destroys is whatever has stopped being alive.

The second of the Hindu trinity maintains the cosmos, and descends into it whenever the balance tips. His story is the story of help that arrives.

He made the universe, and yet only a handful of temples in the world are his. The strange story of the creator god is one of mythology's best riddles.

The elephant-headed god is the most beloved doorkeeper in world religion. His story explains why every Hindu venture begins with his name.

The monkey god who leapt an ocean is the tradition's portrait of devotion, humility, and power unlocked by love. His story is impossible not to love.

When no god could defeat the buffalo demon, they pooled their fire and a warrior goddess walked out of it. Durga is power with a calm face.

Black-skinned, wild-haired, garlanded with skulls, and adored by millions as the most tender of mothers. Kali is the great test of reading past appearances.

Fortune, beauty, and abundance personified, and famously restless. Lakshmi's mythology is a complete ethics of wealth in the form of a goddess.

Dressed in white, holding a veena, attended by a swan: Saraswati is learning, music, and speech made divine, and her rivalry with fortune is the best joke in the pantheon.

Butter thief, flute player, charioteer, philosopher: Krishna is the divine at its most intimate, and the tradition's boldest answer to what God is like.

Thunder, kingship, and a famously complicated personal life: Zeus is what happens when a storm becomes a government.

Born armored from her father's head, patron of the city that chose her olive tree: Athena is strategy, craft, and the thinking side of courage.

Music, prophecy, medicine, and the sun's clarity: Apollo is the Greek ideal of order and light, with shadows the myths refuse to hide.

Born of sea-foam, armed with a girdle stronger than thunderbolts: Aphrodite is desire as a cosmic force, and the Greeks took her very seriously.

Not the devil, never the villain: Hades is the unglamorous god of inevitability, the wealthiest and most slandered of the brothers.

Earth-shaker, horse-father, grudge-keeper: Poseidon is nature's moods given a trident, and the Greeks sailed accordingly.

One-eyed, raven-shadowed, hanged on the world tree by his own hand: Odin is wisdom pursued at any price, and the price is the whole story.

Red-bearded, hammer-handed, mortal-friendly: Thor is the protector god, and his myths are mostly about showing up when the wall is breached.

Shape-shifter, problem-maker, problem-solver: Loki is mythology's most honest portrait of the cleverness no order can live with or without.

Love and war in one chariot drawn by cats: Freyja is the north's great goddess, and her portfolio refuses every tidy box.

Falcon-headed, barge-borne, reborn at every dawn: Ra is Egypt's solar engine, and his nightly voyage is the oldest theology of renewal on record.

Wife, widow, healer, throne: Isis gathered her murdered husband piece by piece, and her devotion conquered an empire that had conquered Egypt.

Murdered, scattered, reassembled, enthroned below: Osiris is Egypt's green-faced lord of the dead, and the ancient world's great myth of what survives.

Jackal-headed, black as fertile earth, incorruptibly precise: Anubis is the ancient world's most reassuring escort through its most feared door.

Not a god, and he said so: the historical Siddhartha Gautama, the night under the tree, and the teaching that crossed every border on foot.

The bodhisattva of compassion who refused the exit: Guanyin is East Asia's most beloved sacred figure, and her job description is listening.

The Japanese sun goddess withdrew into a cave and the world went dark: her myth is the gentlest, wisest story about light ever told.

The feathered serpent of Mesoamerica brought maize, calendars, and learning, and refused human sacrifice: a god of civilisation in a jade-green cloak.

The commander of heaven's hosts, invoked by three faiths for courage at the worst thresholds: who Michael is, and where his sword actually comes from.

The messenger of the annunciations, the voice of revelation to three faiths: who Gabriel is, and why the announcing angel matters more than the armies.