Brahma, is the world-creator, Vishnu, the world maintainer, and Shiva, the world destroyer. Together they are the Trimurti or “the Hindu trinity.” In the venerable Vedic texts Bhagavad-gita and Srimad-Bhagavatam, you’ll find Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva accurately explained in the context of an exacting and comprehensive account of God and His creation, an account that is unrivaled in completeness and coherence by any other philosophical, scientific, or religious literature, and that is not only intellectually satisfying but also aesthetically captivating and spiritually fulfilling.

In Srimad-Bhagavatam you’ll encounter the important distinction between the idea of “God” and the idea of “Absolute Truth.” “God” refers to any powerful controller, while “absolute truth” designates the ultimate source of all energies. There can be many gods, many controlling departmental heads of universal affairs, but only one absolute truth. This absolute truth is ultimately a person— Krishna. From Krishna everything emanates; by Krishna everything is maintained; to Krishna everything returns at the time of dissolution. This is what is meant by “absolute truth.” Anything that exists is either Krishna or Krishna’s energy.

Krishna’s main energies are three: His internal energy is manifest as the transcendent spiritual kingdom; His external energy, as the temporary material world. His marginal energy is comprised of all living creatures, the individual animate souls. Souls are “marginal” because they can dwell either in the spiritual kingdom, serving Krishna in bliss and knowledge, or in the material world, forgetting Krishna in darkness and suffering. The Sanskrit word for the soul is jiva (“living entity”), and the marginal energy is also called jiva-tattva, the category of the jiva.