Hindu Mythology Quiz — 10 Free Questions

Question 1

Which of the five Pandava brothers was the peerless archer, a son of the god Indra, the wielder of the bow Gandiva, and the warrior to whom Krishna, acting as his charioteer, spoke the Bhagavad Gita on the eve of battle?

Question 2

What is the name of the oldest and most authoritative body of Hindu scripture, four collections of hymns, chants, ritual formulas and spells, composed in an archaic form of Sanskrit and preserved for many centuries by exact oral memorisation before being written down?

Question 3

Which goddess is the earth itself, addressed in an ancient Vedic hymn as a patient mother who bears the weight of mountains, forests and all creatures without complaint?

Question 4

Which Sanskrit term names liberation, the final release of the self from the cycle of rebirth and from all suffering, held out as the highest and last of the four aims of human life?

Question 5

Which descent of Vishnu took the form of an enormous boar that dived into the cosmic ocean to rescue the earth goddess, whom a demon had seized and dragged down to the depths, and lifted her back to the surface balanced on its tusks?

Question 6

What is the name of the vast golden mountain that Hindu cosmology places at the exact centre of the universe, with the continents arranged around it, the sun, moon and stars circling it, and the cities of the great gods on and above its summit?

Question 7

Which god is described as the creator who brings the universe into being at the start of each cosmic cycle, and is usually shown with four faces looking to the four directions, four arms holding a water pot, a rosary, a ladle and the Vedas, and seated on a lotus or riding a swan?

Question 8

Which prince of Ayodhya, honoured as an earthly form of Vishnu and as the model of the ideal king and dutiful son, was exiled to the forest for fourteen years on the eve of his coronation to satisfy a promise his father had made to a scheming queen?

Question 9

Which god is the moon, riding a chariot drawn by antelopes or white horses across the night sky, and is said to wax and wane because a curse from his father-in-law, softened by Shiva, allows him to shine fully only part of each month?

Question 10

Which demon king won from Brahma a boon that he could not be killed by man or beast, by day or night, indoors or outdoors, on the ground or in the sky, or by any weapon, and then declared himself god and forbade the worship of Vishnu on pain of death?

📚 All Quizzes

Browse every category and see the full list of quizzes on BriskQuiz

→

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.