ABSTRACT
Being a Hindu can be removing one’s shoes before entering a temple; or offering worship to Gaea at the start of a wedding ritual so that it all goes well; or in the diaspora such as Trinidad and South Africa Hindus might mark their homes with agposts (jhandis); or in other diaspora locations the Hindu priests might creolize the worship by accommodating even Orisha spirits; or Hindus might parade their deities in the streets as part of an annual festival; or, as in Nepal, Hindus can combine in one festival the celebration of a Vedic god Indra with a local goddess Kumr and Bhairav; or elsewhere female sdhus might engage in devotional worship with householders; or devotees may simply read the collection of discourses (Vachanamrut) prepared by their gurus as it happens in the case of the Swaminarayan devotees; or some may offer sel ess service to Ka, which is how Pushtimargis express their Hindu devotion; or some might tattoo the name of Rm on their forehead to express their devotion to their deity, Rm; or other Hindus nd the dalliances of Ka with his female devotees sacred and sweet; or highly educated women will engage in the worship of snake goddess; or in places like Kerala the orthopractic Nambtiris and Ayyappan devotees practice their respective traditions side by side and neither feels less Hindu; or seeing the deities in images of stone and metal and offering service to them can be a profound Hindu experience; or, for some Hindus, accessing their personal deity in the temple on a hill top can be as ful lling as receiving deep intellectual knowledge of God; or in some cases Hindu ascetics can be militant political activists.
