Hindu mythology

[3] They also appear in regional and ethnolinguistic texts, including the Bengali Mangal Kavya and the Tamil Periya Puranam and Divya Prabandham.

These narratives play a crucial role in the Hindu tradition and are considered real and significant within their cultural and spiritual context, offering profound insights into the beliefs and values of Hinduism.

[11] According to Williams, from 900 to 600 BCE, the protests of the populace against sacrifices made towards the Vedic gods and rebellions against the Brahmin class led to the embrace of reform by the latter and the composition of the fourth Veda and the Vedanta texts.

[12] Elements such as those emerging from Buddhism and Jainism made their "heteroprax" contributions to later Hindu mythology, such as temples, indoor shrines, and rituals modeled after service to a divine king.

Renunciate traditions contributed elements that questioned sacrifices and the killing of animals, and promoted asceticism and vegetarianism.

All of these themes would be incorporated by the Brahmin classes into the later Hindu synthesis, which developed in response to the sramanic movements between ca.

This age saw the composition of the major Puranic texts of the faith, along with the rise of sectarianism, with followers amassing around the cults of Vishnu, Shiva, or Devi.

The three denominations within this period help locate in time historical developments within the sectarian communities, the rise and decline of Tantrism and its influence on mainstream mythology, the tendencies in Puranic mythologising of subordinating Vedic gods and past heroes to ever-increasing moral weaknesses, going on to be identified as a period of exuberant polytheism.

[12] According to Williams, during the Tantric period from 900 to 1600 CE, the mythology of Tantra and Shaktism revived and enriched blood sacrifice and the pursuit of pleasure as central themes.

[13] Several myths were found or invented to make tribals or former "outcastes" Hindus and bring them within the cultural whole of a reconstructed Hindu mythological community.