Brahmanism is the religious system organized by Aryans who invaded India about 1500 B. C. The Aryan tradition was a worship of the power of nature by hymns and sacrifices without idols or temples. Aryans praised many kinds of gods in the hymns of Veda, among them the most prominent one was Indra, god of the atmosphere and thunder, then the sun-god Surya. On the other hand, Indus civilization flourished about 2500 B. C., and inhabitants of the Indus Valley worshipped folk deities, for example, Mother-Goddesses, Negas etc. Brahmanism included such non-Aryan deities in its system. About 5th century B.C. Buddhism arose in India. The religious character of Buddhism was quite different to that of Brahmanism, but Buddhism absorbed Brahmanical deities above mentioned into its own pantheon, and expressed as images, at the first stage, in the period between the end of 3 rd century B.C. and the fall of the Gupta dynasty. In this article, I demonstrated concretely the meanings of such deities, the process of the changes of their forms and the characteristics of Indian Buddhist Art observed from such point of view.
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