The Encyclopedia of World Religions

Vishnu S 467

Nhat Hanh (b. 1926). An advocate for global peace, he is widely popular with Buddhists of North American and European ancestry.

virgin birth Birth from a woman who has never had sexual relations. It is especially important in C HRISTIANITY . Virgin birth is a special form of a very com mon myth ( see MYTH AND MYTHOLOGY ): birth from mothers who have become pregnant by supernatu ral means. Indigenous Americans tell several vir gin birth stories. For example, the Inuit tell how Raven was conceived when his virgin mother swal lowed a feather. In the Mahabharata, a Hindu epic ( see H INDUISM ), a virgin named Kunti has a son, Karna, after Surya, the sun, impregnates her and then restores her virginity. Although the B UDDHA ’s mother, M AYA , was not technically a virgin, she is said to have had no sexual relations at the time when she became pregnant with the Buddha. The virgin birth of J ESUS is a central dogma ( see DOGMA AND DOCTRINE ) for most Christians. For them Jesus’ mother, M ARY , became pregnant through the agency of the Holy Spirit. This activity is not thought of as sexual. The N EW T ESTAMENT sees the virgin birth of Jesus as fulfilling a proph ecy of I SAIAH (Matthew 1.23), but only the Greek text of Isaiah refers to a virgin. The Hebrew text simply refers to a “young woman” (Isaiah 7.14). Roman Catholics have deduced that Mary remained a virgin all of her life. Protestants gener ally reject this idea and say that Mary had children through ordinary means after Jesus was born. In the last two centuries more liberal Christians have taken the virgin birth not as a biological fact but as a metaphorical expression of the special character of Jesus. Vishnu One of the most important gods of H IN DUISM . In Hinduism, B RAHMA , Vishnu, and S IVA are thought of as the gods of creation, preservation, and destruction, respectively. The B HAGAVAD -G ITA captures Vishnu’s character well. It states that whenever DHARMA wanes and EVIL waxes, Vishnu

Vishnu from Konarak, Orissa, created in the Ganga dynasty in the 13th century (Scala/Art Resource, N.Y.)

takes form on Earth to restore order. Vishnu’s large number of worshippers are known as Vaishnavas. The name Vishnu appears as early as in the V EDA . Worshippers also call upon Vishnu under several other names, such as Narayana, Vasudeva, and Hari. Some scholars think that these names probably refer to non-Vedic gods who were once independent. Later these gods were brought into