Since I have some time off, it's overdue that I post a summarised version of my talk from last year's Witchfest and Artemis Gathering.
For the first decade or so of my life, I was Hindu, raised in the Brahman tradition. My family aren't the most observant, but I grew up celebrating the holidays and learning the mythology. One of my treasured books as a child was a storybook about Krishna. When I reached my teens, I realised that Hinduism didn't speak to me as much as Paganism, although as I've grown older I have found the Gods and Goddesses that I knew as a child calling back to me. The faiths of my childhood and my adult life are merging into something new. In celebration of this, I brought together research and family stories into a talk about the Goddesses of Hinduism.
This list is by no means exhaustive, or we'll be here for years! The Goddesses I've highlighted are mainly from the Brahman tradition. Despite it being a smaller list, this will still be very "mind-bendy"- within Hinduism, every God and Goddess is one in their own right, but they're also aspects of each other and also relatives of each other. The can also "evolve" into each other, but there's no true hierarchy as they are also known to pray to each other. On top of that, each region of India has different names and different legends for each of the Gods, and this can even vary between families. The names I use are Gujarati, as is my heritage, but I will try to include Hindi translations where I can, as these are often the more commonly known names.