Vishnu for Kids - a Hindu god

Vishnu

Vishnu

Vishnu was one of the Hindu gods. He was mentioned in the Rig Veda as a god of light and the sun, but people first began to worship Vishnu as a really important god around 300 BC. About this time, people began to think about Vishnu as being like the sun's energy, everywhere, invisible, all-powerful, part of everything. So in this way Vishnu was a much more powerful god than before. Mostly people worshipped Vishnu by offering him flowers, or incense, or food, or by praying to him or playing music for him. People did not usually sacrifice animals to Vishnu.


Here's a short video of people worshipping Vishnu in a temple in India

Because Vishnu was a sky god, paintings of Vishnu often showed him with dark blue skin, like water-filled clouds (Compare this to the Egyptian god Amon, who is also sometimes blue.)

People thought of Vishnu as being reincarnated over and over again in different forms. So Vishnu was often worshipped in the form of Krishna, which was one of his reincarnations.

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Another reincarnation of Vishnu was as the god Rama, whose story is told in the great poem, the Ramayana, written about 300 BC under the Mauryan Empire.

Shiva
Krishna
Main Hinduism page
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