>>19780424I don't think Rudra is a Vedic/Aryan god because they already had a lightning god, Indra (equivalent to Tyr, the real PIE Germanic sky father god), who didn't have these weird features of Rudra. Furthermore, Rudra is treated as a lesser emanation of Shiva in the Rig Veda. These weird concepts ("special eye" and "madness/ecstasy ritual") are Dravidian/Pre-Aryan. It's basically all Pangaean Snake Worshiping OOGABOOGA african tier such as the Pre-Greco-Roman Pelasgian/Aborigines cults of Saturn and Cybele. What has Aryan in this is syncretism, in the case of Indra with Rudra/Shiva. The Vedic (Aryan) religion was a religion about sacrifices, not sex magic. The Vedic gods themselves, in comparison to the sacrifice, were secondary and accessories, conceived as actors of the sacrifice and could only exercise their power thanks to the virtue of that same sacrifice, which has its origin in heaven.
Vedic religion splits into the Brahmanic tradition (Vedas and rituals are most important) which evolved into the Upanishadic commentary on the Vedas and Sramanic tradition (denial or lesser importance of the vedas, personal asceticism, moksha, samsara, nirvana, ahimsa etc.) which evolved into faiths like Jainism, Buddhism, Ajivikas, Carvakas, etc. Vedic religion fell out of favor with normal people like how Roman Paganism fell out of favor with it’s expensive rituals and lack of spiritual satisfaction for non-elites. Brahmanists looked inwards and tried to compensate for what they lacked by absorbing elements of Sramanic philosophies and beliefs (samsara, liberation, Buddha was actually Vishnu, etc.). The Bhagavad Gita is written. Cults of personal devotion to a God become more prominent (Bhakti) from whence we get the importance of Vishnu and Shiva over the Vedic gods. This is the origin of Modern Hinduism.
