The Hindu religion, with their constantly growing pantheon, never made sense to me.  They believe that cattle are sacred, they don't get along with Muslims (who does?) and they believe that they must go through mortality time and again before they get it right.

There is nothing that scares Indians more than cobras, so who is their biggest god?  Shiva!  They delight in life, so who else do they worship?  Kali!  So it goes.

It is an old arcane tradition, but I can't see how it got started.