The Hindu and Greek Gods are similar in nature, content and behaviour. Strange as it may sound, it is an obvious fact known by the Indian historians for ages. It is not the chicken and egg story, as to who came first. Undoudbtedly, Hinduism is the oldest religion in the world and the Greek religion had been formed under the profound impression and influence of it.
The advent of Greek religion had been much later than the Hindu religion in 650 AD. A mere co-incidence in the similarity between the Gods of two diverse religion is out of question. The Greeks got the opportunity to understand and study the religion of Hinduism and inculcated it in their religion. However, they took the reference and made certain alterations of names, characters, power and weapons of Hindu Gods according to their manifesto and dialect. Greeks conceptualised Hellenism in the womb of Hinduism .
Professor Sir Flinders Patrie (1853-1942) British archaeologist and Egyptologist, author of Egypt and Israel (1911) observes: " The presence of a large body of Indian troops in the Persian army in Greece in 480 B.C. shows how far west the Indian connections were carried; and the discovery of modelled heads of Indians at Memphis, of about the fifth century B.C. shows that Indians were living there for trade. Hence there is no difficulty in regarding India as the source of the entirely new ideal of asceticism in the West."
We are not in a debate as to why there is so much similarity between Greek and Indian Gods, since Greeks have never acknowledged any such influence, as quoted by Sir Henry Maine "Except the blind forces of nature, nothing moves in this world which is not originally Greek."
Nonetheless, the similarity between Hindu and Greek Gods are noteworthy:
Similarity of weapons and divine powers:
Kashyap gave birth to both (from wife Aditi) Gods and demons (from wife Diti) while in Greek mythology Cronus gave birth to demons as well as Gods.
The God Zeus is compared to the God Indra as both are Gods who control nature and weather, and both carry thunderbolts as their weapon. Zeus lives on Mount Olympus while Indra lives on Mount Kailash. Both Indra and Zeus represent Thursday of the week.
Hera and Laxmi are both Goddess of wealth and prosperity.
Again Athena and Saraswati are Gods of knowledge and wisdom.
Hades and Yama are both the messengers of death.
Poseidon and Varuna are both Gods of ocean.
Haphaestus and Vishwakarma are both great Godly architects and masons.
Ares and Kartika symbolise as warriors.
Kronos and Mahakal are Gods of time.
Similarities of names:
The beautiful wife of Brahma was called Gayatri while that of Urbanus's wife was called Gaia.
The names of Varuna and Uranus are also somewhat similar.
Similarities of incidents:
Cronus was aware of the prophecy that his children would dethrone him. So he would swallow his children. In Hindu mythology, Kans also had a similar prophecy. He was killing the sons of his sister when finally one of them, Krishna, killed him.
Achilles got the boon of immortality except the ankle bone while Krishna also was immortal except his feet.
Hindu and Greek Gods and Goddess have quite a lot of resemblances with regard to their natures of existence, their names, weapons and characters.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Greek_and_Hindu_Gods
