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Hera is the Greek queen of the gods and goddess of marriage, whose myths are largely the story of a bond repeatedly broken by Zeus and repeatedly enforced by her. She is sovereignty and the cost of it, and the myth is honest about how badly she is served.

Abraxas (Abrasax) is the name at the centre of the Basilidian system reported by Irenaeus (Against Heresies 1.24): the Greek letters of Abrasax sum to 365, the number of the days of the year and of the heavens in that system, so that the name is the name of the whole year and of the power that governs it. From the second century the name crowds the Graeco-Egyptian magical gems, engraved on amulets beside a cock-headed, serpent-legged figure with a whip and shield and invoked with IAO and Sabaoth as a protective name of power. Carl Jung took Abraxas up in the Seven Sermons to the Dead (1916) as the god beyond good and evil, and through Hermann Hesse's Demian the figure entered modern occultism.

Aditi is the Vedic goddess of the boundless - sky, space, freedom - and the mother of the Adityas, the class of gods that includes Varuna, Mitra and Aryaman. One Rig Veda hymn calls her sky, air, mother, father and son at once: the whole of what is, named as one open thing. She is asked for release from constraint and for protection.

Brahma is the Hindu creator, who speaks the Vedas and shapes the worlds, and who is born from the lotus that grows from Vishnu's navel. He is the least worshipped of the great three, and the tradition itself tells a story about why: he claimed a knowledge he did not have.

Brihaspati is the Vedic lord of prayer and the teacher of the gods, who carries their petitions and gives them counsel - which they frequently ignore. He is the priest in the sense of the person who knows the words and the order they go in.

Budha is the Navagraha of Mercury in Vedic astrology, the son of Chandra (the Moon) and Tara, and the god of intellect, speech, commerce and learning. Wednesday (Budhavara) is his day, green his colour and emerald his gemstone; he is invoked for intelligence, communication and success in business.

Dyaus Pita is the Vedic sky father, the husband of Prithvi (Earth) and father of the gods, the Indian cognate of Greek Zeus, Roman Jupiter and Germanic Tiwaz. Already fading by the time of the Rigveda, he survives chiefly in the compound Dyavaprithvi ('Heaven and Earth'), invoked as the universal parents.

Eshu-Elegbara is the orisha of the crossroads, the messenger of Olodumare and the keeper of ashe, the power that makes a thing happen. He carries the ebo (offering) that a divination prescribes, and every rite salutes him first because he holds the opening; the Ifa odu and the oriki carry him. He is not Satan: the equation is a missionary and colonial misreading, and the Fon/Dahomey Legba is a cognate figure, not the same deity. In the Americas he becomes Elegua in Cuba (the child at the door, St Anthony of Padua) and Exu in Brazil, and the diaspora forms have their own emphases.

A saint of the early church whose name means 'expedite' or 'make haste', and whose legend is a late compilation: a crate marked 'expedite' is said to have contained his relics, and the name became the man. The historical core is thin, and the devotion is modern and folk.

Hindu god with elephant head, remover of obstacles. Born from Parvati, beheaded by Shiva, restored with elephant head. Guards thresholds, invoked at beginnings. Patron of arts, sciences, intellect. Rides mouse showing power over obstacles.

Garuda is the king of birds and the vahana of Vishnu, born to Kashyapa and Vinata and the eternal enemy of the nagas, whom he devours. In the Mahabharata he wins amrita from the gods to free his mother from slavery. He is a symbol of speed, strength, devotion and the solar principle, and gives his name to the Garuda Purana.

Hanuman is the monkey god, son of the wind, who leaps to Lanka, carries a mountain of herbs to save a wounded prince, and serves Rama with a devotion so complete that he tears open his own chest to show him there. He is strength in service.

Indra is the Vedic king of the gods, who splits the serpent Vritra with his thunderbolt and releases the waters. He is the storm and the rain and the drinker of soma, and in the later tradition he becomes the anxious king of a heaven that enlightenment surpasses.

Kamala is the tenth Mahavidya and the tantric form of Lakshmi: the lotus, the goddess of prosperity, purity and sovereignty, whose worship is the tantric prosperity practice with its own mantra and yantra. The Narayani Stuti of the Devi Mahatmya already praises the Devi as present in every being as Lakshmi, and the Mahavidya Kamala gives that presence a vidya and a place among the ten. She is the benign, householder-facing close of the Mahavidya series.

Kartikeya is the son of Shiva and Parvati, born to command the divine army against the demon Taraka, and he wins the war with a spear. He is youth given authority, and his mount is the peacock and his sign the spear.

Ketu is the descending lunar node, the tail of the asura Rahu and the second of the shadow planets of Vedic astrology. He is the moksha-karaka, the significator of liberation, detachment, spirituality and past-life karma, invoked for spiritual insight and for relief from the nodes' effects.

Krishna is the eighth avataar of Vishnu, raised among cowherds, who plays the flute, dances with the gopis, and finally counsels Arjuna on the field of battle in the Bhagavad Gita. He is love and duty in one figure, and the flute is the call.

Kubera is the lord of wealth and the guardian of the northern quarter, king of the yakshas and keeper of the treasures hidden in the earth. He is the half-brother of Ravana, and his city is Alaka in the Himalayas. The Ramayana and the Mahabharata both have him lend and hoard; he is the one the other gods ask when something has to be found.

Lakshmi is the Hindu goddess of fortune, beauty and abundance, who rose from the churning of the ocean and chose Vishnu as her consort. She is not a goddess of luck in the sense of accident: she attends where there is order, generosity and work already under way.

Aramaic term for wealth or riches—later personified as demon of greed and material power. Represents wealth as force, prosperity as power, strategic accumulation as skill. Left Hand Path ally for those building material sovereignty. Teaches that money is power, that financial independence enables freedom, that wealth itself is neither good nor evil but tool.

Mangala is Mars in the Hindu sky, born in some tellings from Shiva's sweat, the red planet and the lord of Tuesday, war and the owning of land. He is the fire that makes a claim and the effort of holding it.

The sister of Mary and Lazarus in the Gospel of Luke, who receives Jesus into her house and is rebuked for being busy. The medieval legend of Martha taming the Tarasque dragon is a later accretion and is the source of her folk-magic authority over unruly forces.

Matangi is the ninth Mahavidya, the tantric Saraswati: goddess of speech, music and learning who is also the outcaste (matanga, chandala) and accepts ucchishta, leftover food. In Sri Vidya she is the Mantrini, the minister and counsellor of Lalita Tripura Sundari, and her emerald-green form holds the veena and the parrot. Because her worship deliberately crosses the purity rules, she is the Mahavidya most often sanitised by modern writers and most carefully hedged by the tradition.

Mitra is one of the oldest Vedic gods, the god of friendship, contracts, oaths and the day, who with Varuna upholds rita (the cosmic order) - Varuna by night, Mitra by day. The Mitanni treaty of the 14th century BCE invokes him by name, and he is the Indian cognate of the Persian Mithra and, through the Hellenistic world, of Mithras.

Narasimha is the fourth avatara, the man-lion who bursts from a pillar to kill the asura Hiranyakashipu, who by boon could not be killed by god, man or beast, indoors or out, by day or night, on earth or in the sky. The Bhagavata Purana tells the story in Canto 7, where Narasimha protects the boy Prahlada, the asura's own son, and kills Hiranyakashipu on his lap at twilight, on the threshold of the hall. The Ahobilam hills in Andhra Pradesh preserve his nine forms, and the pacified Lakshmi-Narasimha is the householder's form.

Orunmila is the orisha of wisdom and the owner of the Ifa oracle, present at the allocation of destinies (ipin) and therefore called Eleri Ipin, the witness of destinies. He is not the giver of fate: he sees what was chosen and teaches what can be done about it, and the offering (ebo) that answers a reading is carried to Eshu. The Ifa divination system, with its 256 odu transmitted orally, was proclaimed a masterpiece of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity in 2005 and inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List in 2008. The babalawo is his priest, and the 'mano de Orula' is the Cuban initiation into his service.

Parvati is the Hindu goddess of marriage, devotion, fertility and the mountains: the daughter of the mountain king Himavan and the rebirth of Sati, who wins Shiva back through asceticism. She is the mother of Ganesha and Kartikeya and, as Mahadevi, one of the principal forms of Shakti; in her fierce aspects she is Durga and Kali. The planetary and zodiacal values here are modern Western readings, not the tradition's own.

Prithvi is the Vedic earth mother, the broad one, who is asked for permission and forgiveness in the daily rituals because she is trodden on. She is the ground as a mother who is owed an apology and rarely gets one.

Radha is the beloved of Krishna and the central figure of Radha-Krishna devotion, especially in the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition, where her selfless love (prema) is the model of the soul's relationship with God. The 12th-century Gita Govinda is her central poem, and Barsana and the Braj region are her pilgrimage sites.

Rahu is the ascending lunar node, the shadow planet (chhaya graha) of Vedic astrology: the severed head of the asura who drank the amrita and was beheaded by Vishnu. The head and tail, Rahu and Ketu, swallow the sun and moon to cause eclipses. He is invoked for relief from the nodes' effects and for ambition, foreign travel and sudden change.

Rama is the seventh avatara of Vishnu and the hero of the Ramayana: the exiled prince of Ayodhya who rescues Sita from Ravana and rules as the model of dharma. His birthday is Ramanavami, his worship is central to Vaishnavism, and Ayodhya is his great pilgrimage site.

Rati is the Hindu goddess of pleasure and desire, the consort of Kama the god of love and the daughter of Daksha. When Shiva reduces Kama to ash with his third eye, Rati's grief moves him to restore Kama as a disembodied spirit; she is the model of devoted love in the Puranas.

Shakti is the divine feminine as power itself, the energy that animates every god, and in the tantric traditions the coiled force at the base of the spine that rises to meet consciousness. She is not one goddess among others but what makes them gods.

Shukra is the Navagraha of Venus and the guru (preceptor) of the asuras, the divine teacher of the demons in the Puranas. He is the god of love, beauty, pleasure, wealth and fertility, invoked for marital happiness, prosperity and artistic success. Friday (Shukravara) is his day, white and bright colours are his, and diamond is his gemstone.

Vamana is the fifth avatara, the dwarf who asks the asura king Bali for three paces of land and then covers the three worlds with them, the act the tradition knows as Trivikrama. The Bhagavata Purana tells it in Canto 8: Bali's guru Shukra warns him, Bali grants the gift anyway, and Vishnu takes the worlds but leaves Bali the netherworld and a boon. The three strides are Vedic - the Rig Veda already praises Vishnu's three steps - and the Vamana story is the Puranic narrative built around them.

Varaha is the boar avatara who descends to lift the earth from the cosmic ocean after the asura Hiranyaksha carries her away, killing him in single combat. The Bhagavata Purana tells it in Canto 3, and the Varaha Purana expands it; the earth he lifts, Bhumi, becomes his consort and the mother of Naraka. The boar who raises the earth is older than the avatara - the Brahmanas tell it of Prajapati - and the Vaishnava telling is the later layer.

Vishnu is the preserver of the Hindu triad, who sleeps on the cosmic ocean and takes form whenever dharma collapses - fish, boar, dwarf, Rama, Krishna, and more to come. He is order maintained by repeated intervention rather than by force.

Vohu Manah ('Good Mind' or 'Good Thought') is the first of the Amesha Spentas, the bounteous immortals of the Gathas (Yasna 28-53), and in the Gathas he is the mind through which Zarathushtra receives his vision. In the later Avesta and the Pahlavi books he is the guardian of cattle, and he is the Amesha Spenta who greets the righteous soul at the Chinvat bridge. His day is Bahman, the second day of the Zoroastrian month, and the eleventh month carries his name; his opponent in the Pahlavi texts is Aka Manah, 'evil mind'.

Zhuque is the Vermilion Bird of the South, one of the four celestial animals: south its quarter, summer its season, fire its phase, red its colour. Its mansion group is the southern twenty-eight of the lunar mansions, and in Daoist cosmology it is Ling Guang, one of the four directional guardians. It is not the fenghuang, the virtuous phoenix of imperial and Confucian imagery — a conflation common in modern retellings and wrong in the classical sources.