The mystery behind Hindu gods having so many arms!

The mystery behind Hindu gods having so many arms!

Many Hindu deities/gods are shown with multiple arms and sometimes even heads. Why isthis?Image worship over time became a significant contributor to Indian religion. Rituals for the individual deity were written in greater detail withsome gods known for having several qualities. This resulted in a problem for artists attempting to create visually correct images.The result? Show them with several arms.

Each hand of an individual deity would hold the object or symbol that represented their various qualities.While some of the hands would be empty, the position of the fingers and palms would signify the character of that god. These signals, or mudras, symbolized an individual god’s powers offering easy distinction from other deities.

Deities are often portrayed with multiple arms, especially when they are battling cosmic forces. The multiplicity of arms emphasizes the deity's immense power and ability to perform several acts at the same time. The portrayal of a deity in human form but with multiple arms is the artist's attempt to express the deity's superhuman power.Demons are frequently depicted with multiple heads to convey their superhuman power as well.Occasionally a deity is shown with more than onehead in an attempt to describe various aspects of the character of that deity. For example, when the god Shiva is portrayed with a triple head, the central face indicates his essential character and the flanking faces depict his fierce and blissful natures.Hands denote ability. Even in English language, the use of the word "ambidextrous" is used to denote skill of the person and not just "someone who can use both hands with equal skill". To show that a person is skillful at sword fight, a sword is painted in his hand. Thus, to denote many abilities, the artist drew many hands, each depicting a particular skill.Fingers pointing downwards= god of charitable dispositionFingers pointing upwards= blessing, protector godIn a picture, personality traits / characters are depicted via a face. So a gentle character has a gentle face, an angry character has a red face, a frightening character is depicted as someone who has gorging eyes and probably a tongue coming out of mouth. When an artist wants to show the various traits/characters of a Hindu god/goddess, there is a dilemma.

A single face won't be able to cover all the traits. Hence, the artists chose to give the god/goddess the many heads - in fact many faces. Thus a Hindu deity is shown having many heads.