Hindu Mythology Quiz — 7 Free Questions

Question 1

Which white bull serves as the mount, companion and chief devotee of the god Shiva, and is shown as a large seated statue facing the sanctuary in every temple of that god, so that worshippers look at the deity between his horns?

Question 2

Which descent of Vishnu was half man and half lion, created to kill a demon who had been granted that he could not be slain by man or beast, indoors or out, by day or night, on the ground or in the air, or by any weapon?

Question 3

Which Sanskrit term, hard to translate in a single word, covers cosmic order, moral law, religious duty and the right way of living appropriate to one's role, age and situation, and is the thing a righteous king or a hero is bound to uphold?

Question 4

Which eldest of the Pandava brothers, a son of the god of righteousness, was famed for never telling a lie and for an unbending sense of duty, yet gambled away his kingdom, his brothers, himself and their shared wife in a rigged game of dice?

Question 5

Which warrior of the Mahabharata was the secret first son of Kunti by the sun god, born with natural golden armour and earrings, set adrift on a river as an infant and raised by a charioteer, and so scorned all his life as low-born despite his skill and generosity?

Question 6

What is the name for the beautiful female spirits of the clouds and waters who dance in the court of Indra, king of the gods, and are frequently sent down to earth to break the concentration of sages whose austerities have grown powerful enough to alarm the gods?

Question 7

Which pot-bellied god is the keeper of the treasures of the earth and the wealth of the gods, the lord of the northern direction, and the half-brother and original victim of the demon king Ravana, who stole his flying palace and his city of Lanka from him?

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About Hindu Mythology

Hindu mythology is not one book but a library built up over three thousand years, from the hymns of the Vedas through the two great epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, to the eighteen Puranas and beyond. This quiz covers it in eighty questions. Each describes a deity, an avatar, a hero, a demon, a sage, a text, a place or a concept, and asks you to name it from four choices, then explains the story, the family links, and how the figure is understood and worshipped. The traditions differ among themselves, and where they do the most widely told version is given and the main variants noted; the tone is that of retelling the stories, not of ruling on belief, and the Vaishnava, Shaiva and Shakta streams are treated evenhandedly.

The first pack is the principal gods and the framework: the creator, preserver and destroyer, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, grouped as the Trimurti; the goddesses Lakshmi, Saraswati, Parvati, Durga and Kali; Ganesha and Hanuman; the two most beloved avatars, Rama and Krishna; the older gods of the elements, Indra, Agni, Vayu, Varuna, Yama and Surya; and the river goddess Ganga and the bull Nandi.

The second pack works through the rest of the cast. The ten principal descents of Vishnu, from the fish and the tortoise to the future horseman Kalki. The Mahabharata: the five Pandavas and the hundred Kauravas, Draupadi, Karna, Bhishma, Drona, the dice game and the Bhagavad Gita. The Ramayana: Sita, Ravana, Lakshmana, Jatayu, Vibhishana. The great sages Valmiki, Vyasa, Narada, Vishwamitra and Agastya. And more deities and beings: the war god Kartikeya, the eagle Garuda, the elephant Airavata, the love god Kama, the moon Chandra, the wealth god Kubera, the earth goddess, the stern planet-deity Shani and the cursed immortal Ashwatthama.

The third pack steps back to the big picture. The churning of the ocean of milk and the nectar it produced; the layers of scripture, the Vedas, the Upanishads and the Puranas; the four declining world-ages; the key ideas of dharma, karma, samsara and moksha, and the pair Brahman and Atman; the sacred syllable Om; the cosmic mountain Meru and the real mountain Kailash; the heavens Vaikuntha and Svarga and the hells of Naraka; the celestial apsaras and the serpent nagas; and the cosmic form Krishna reveals in the Gita. Because a captioned painting almost always gives the answer away, images are used only where a site photo or an ambiguous carving does not, and everything has been checked against standard reference works.