Tradition

This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.

Hinduism Hymns gathers thirteen of the atlas's Hindu hymns, running from the opening hymn of the Rig Veda to a nineteenth century composition that became universal ritual.

Agni Sukta opens the Rig Veda, addressed to fire as the priest carrying offerings between humans and gods, its accent preserved orally for some three thousand years. The Nasadiya Sukta, the hymn of creation addressed to no named deity, ends by saying the one who oversees creation knows, or perhaps does not know. The Purusha Sukta describes the cosmic man dismembered to produce the four social classes, the only place in the Rig Veda naming all four varnas together. The Gayatri Hymn and Shri Rudram both carry material the atlas also treats among its mantras, the Gayatri addressed to Savitr and Shri Rudram containing the five syllables namah shivaya.

Devotional literature includes Bhaja Govindam, attributed to Shankara attacking grammar learning in favor of devotion; the Hanuman Chalisa, attributed to Tulsidas; Vaishnava Jana To, Narsinh Mehta's fifteenth century definition of the true devotee that Mahatma Gandhi placed at the heart of his ashram prayers; and Raghupati Raghava, a Ram dhun popularized through Gandhi's prayer meetings and the Salt March. The sahasranama genre of thousand name litanies appears three times, the Lalita Sahasranama, Shiva Sahasranama and Vishnu Sahasranama, each reciting a deity's names as compressed theology rather than as synonyms. Om Jai Jagdish Hare, the best known aarti sung while the lamp is circled before the deity, has a documented nineteenth century author, Shardha Ram Phillauri, whose text became common Hindu worship.