The Oldest God of India: 7 Ancient Answers to Who Was Worshipped First

Which god did India worship first? This article treats the question as an article of faith informed by evidence, and shows that the answer depends on what first means. It follows four lines of clues: the oldest sacred place, the oldest image, the oldest chanted or written name, and the oldest root in language. The Baghor triangular stone in Madhya Pradesh, read in 1983 as a shrine to the Goddess, together with the female figurines of Mehrgarh and the Indus, points to the Mother. The horned figure on Indus seal 420, called Proto-Shiva by John Marshall, offers a second face, and the pipal and animal motifs of the seals a third. Comparative linguistics yields the Sky Father, Dyaus Pita, while the Rigveda opens with Agni and praises Indra, Agni and Soma most. A Hittite and Mitanni treaty of about 1380 BCE invokes Mitra, Varuna, Indra and the Nasatyas, showing that these names were already travelling. The article then traces how Rudra became Shiva, how Vishnu merged with Vasudeva-Krishna, as the Heliodorus pillar records, and how the Devi rose to supremacy. It shows how Gram Devatas, Kul Devatas, Sarna groves and the Jagannath tradition keep the oldest layers alive, and concludes with the Nasadiya hymn that the first God of India was the One before the names.