brahmins. These priesthoods are inter-
mediaries between the deity and the vil-
lagers, usually communicating with the
deities through dreamsor possession. In
this way the deities’ wishes become
known, and problems or concerns can
find their solution.
In some cases, local deities have gained
greater stature and have been assimilated
into the pantheon. For female deities, this
process is fairly simple, since they can be
brought into the pantheon by claiming
that their temples are one of the Shakti
Pithas, a network of sites sacred to the
Goddessthat spreads throughout the sub-
continent. Each Shakti Pitha marks the site
where a body part of the dismembered
goddess Satifell to earth, taking form there
as a different goddess; all these individual
goddesses are thus seen as manifestations
of a single great Goddess. Male deities are
more commonly assimilated into the pan-
theon as manifestations of the god Vishnu,
and three prominent examples of the for-
mer are Jagannath, Vithoba, and
Venkateshvara. Village deities are less
commonly said to be forms of the god
Shiva, but this has happened with
Khandoba, an important regional deity in
the state of Maharashtra. See also pitha.
Vimana
(“vehicle”) A word with different specific
meanings in different contexts, a com-
mon feature in the Sanskritlanguage. It
can refer to the vehicles used by a
deity—either in a mythic sense, because
each of the deitieshas an animalcon-
sidered to be his or her vehicle, or in a lit-
eral sense as the cart used to carry them
in procession, or to the human being
who “carries” them through becoming
possessed. In the context of architec-
ture, the word vimanais used to refer to
that part of the temple that “carries” the
deity, that is, the sanctuary as a whole.
Vimarsha
(“reflection”) In Hindu tantra, a secret,
ritually based religious practice, vimar-
shais one of the bipolar opposites that
are used to characterize the nature of all
reality, with its counterpart being illumi-
nation (prakasha). These two terms are
particularly important for the creation
of the world, which is said to happen
when the pure and radiant conscious-
ness (prakasha) of the ultimate
Brahman becomes self-conscious
through the reflection (vimarsha) of this
original consciousness. From one single
consciousness, the absolute then
evolves into a binary divinity—the god
Shiva and his consort Shakti—whose
continued interaction combines to
create the world. This dyad of prakasha-
vimarsha is particularly important in the
Trikaschool of Kashmiri Shaivism. For
further information see Jaideva Singh,
Pratyabhijnanahrdayam, 1982.Vina
Multistringed musical instrument
with a long hollow body and a sound-
ing box at the bottom; the top has aVinaThe vina is a classical Indian musical instrument.