In
Hindu Mythology, the
Trinity usually refers to the
Trimurti: the three persons of God as Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer.
The Creator God,
Brahma, is usually portrayed mythologically as a fair man with four arms and a white beard. His wife is
Saraswati, the Goddess of
Knowledge. Both are associated with knowledge, and
Saraswati (who is more popular in devotion than
Brahma) is associated with learning, art, and music. She sits atop a swan, and plays the veena or
vina (an ancient
Indian stringed instrument; an ancestor of the
sitar. See
Ravi Shankar).
The Preserver God,
Vishnu, is often portrayed as blue with six arms. He is the focus of a large cult in Hinduism, and is believed to have come down to Earth in human form in various
avatars. The ten traditional
avatars are including:
Matsya (the
fish),
Kurma (the
turtle),
Varaha (the
boar),
Nrsimha (the man-
lion),
Vamana (the
dwarf),
Purusuram (the man with an axe),
Rama,
Krishna,
Buddha, and
Kalki.
Rama is the ideal man (as son, brother, husband, father, king, etc.) and is the focus of the
Ramayana epic.
Krishna is the focus of many legends as a child in the
Puranas (some scholar believe that the devotion of missionaries to the Infant
Jesus influenced this), and he is a central character in the
Bhagavad Gita, part of the
Mahabharata.
Buddha is famous as the founder of a new religion (as such he is not particularly important to
Hindus).
Kalki is the
avatar that has been predicted, but has not yet come. This could potentially be the focus of some apocalyptic cult, but I don't know of any.
Vishnu's wife is Lakshmi, the Goddess of Fortune and Prosperity, who sits atop a lotus. An Indian company specializing in food products is named after her, spelled Laxmi.
The Destroyer God,
Shiva (or
Siva), is also the focus of a great cult in
Hinduism. He is often the most difficult God to understand; he is portrayed as the extreme ascetic, covered in ash with matted locks, often in meditation. He is associated with snakes, and his head is the source of the
Ganges river. One of his most popular forms is the
Nataraja, in which is portrayed dancing with many hands in a
Cosmic Dance of Destruction, often standing over a vanquished demon.
Some devout believe that Shiva also came down in avatar form; the most famous example would be the saint Shankaracharya, who wrote many Hindu scriptures and was largely responsible "winning India back for Hinduism from the Buddhists."