Hindu devotional movements

History

The history of devotional movements is as ancient as that of the worship of the significant deities. While Hinduism is often described as having 30,000 gods in its pantheon, from an anthropological and historical perspective the most significant devotional movements of the past two thousand years have centered on only a few. But together with these significant gods are thousands of gods arising from ancient customs and beliefs. There are household gods, village gods, gods of the forests and mountains, agricultural gods, and regional deities. The movements of some of these deities are as ancient as those of the primary gods, and the devotees of these deities often have intertwined histories and practices.

In trying to account for the large number of Pandyan rock-cut temples built between 650 and 835 A.D. art historian K.V.Soundara Rajan attributes this proliferation to the "insistent demand of cult groups".

However, the history of Hinduism is most closely tied to the parallel creation of two major groups, that of Shiva and Vishnu, each made up of an amalgamation of many minor deities. The Divine Mother or the Goddess, Shakti often shown in the aspect of Durga, is a third major group. Most Hindus allied themselves with one of the three major groups while not denying the existence of the others. The simultaneous development of these Hindu groups seemed primarily peaceful with little documentation of friction or persecution, as the general belief was that the group deities were different aspects of the divine and all led to the same goal whatever the specific practices (Moksha).