Originally Posted by
Viraja
I did not realize you didn't know who Narayana is.
Basically, Hindu deities are classified into 6 sects, but out of these 6 sects, only 2 are practiced by majority of Hindus today - Shaivism and Vaishnavism.
Shaivism and Vaishnavism both stress on bhakti marga (realizing god through devotion) although other paths of realizing god such as 'karma yoga', 'jnana yoga' are equally potent.
If not going into the philosophy, foundationally, both Shaivism and Vaishnavism are similar in the sense they both have their set of deities who are prayed to.
According to Vaishnavism, Lord Narayana is the Brahman (another term to denote the 'souls' of all living beings). According to Shaivism, Lord Shiva is the 'Brahman'.
According to Vaishnava school of thoughts, Narayana took 9 incarnations (10th one to come at the time of dissolution of earth) for the upliftment of mankind. This is the list given within paragraphs in my response 1. Related to Narayana, there are many other deities in Vaishnavism, and also saints are worshipped. These deities include Lakshmi, Hanuman, Garuda, Sudharshana, and acharyas include the 12 Alwars, and many other devotees of the lord of modern times such as Tukaram, Jayadeva, Namadeva and so forth. Also, there are sub-sects within Vaishnavism such as Gaudiya Vaishnavism, the Madhwa sect and the ISKCON movement. According to Gaudiya Vaishnavism and ISKCON, Krishna is the Brahman and Narayana is one of his expansions/manifestations. The most prominent Gaudiya Vaishnava saint, considered to be an incarnation of Krishna is Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Some Madhwa saints include Madhwacharya, Akshobya theertha, Jaya theertha, and Sri Raghavendra.
According to Shaivism, Lord Shiva did not take/does not take incarnations. Other deities of Shaivism include Parvathy/Sakthi/Durga, Skanda (also known as Murugan), Ganesha, Dakshinamoorthy (the lord of planet Jupiter), Kalabhairava and so forth. Like 108 divya desams for Vishnus, there are also numerous temples dedicated to Shiva such as the 12 Jyotirlingas. Some Saivite saints include the 63 Nayanmars, Thirumoolar, Agastiyar and so forth. You can visit Shaivam.org to learn in detail about Shaivism and its saints.
Pranam.
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