The Hindu Pantheon: An Introduction Illustrated with 19th Century Indian Miniatures from the St. Petersburg Collection

This book contains a very brief introduction to the deities before allowing the painting to speak for themselves. The paintings come from two volumes in the Institute of Oriental Studies in St. Petersburg. The paintings are not Mughal minatures within a book - the books are the paintings with inscriptions on Sanskrit and Persian.The volume begins with two pictures featuring Ganesha, the elephant-head god for auspicious begins. The pictures are traditional - the god being identified with the traditional mount - for Ganesha this is a rat - and traditional attributes - for Ganesha holding a plate of sweets. The comments on the paintings provides this information - thus the book becomes a short, practical course in Hindu iconography.The book contains, in addition to Ganesha, the Hindu triad, the incarnations of Vishnu, the manifestations of Shiva and the Great Goddess, various popular dieties (Hanumanm Garuda, Varuna, Agni ...), the deities of the planets and of the signs of the zodiac.These are certainly not the best minatures of the dieties you'll ever see, but they are good and the book as a whole is an excellent introduction to the Hindu pantheon.