Indra
One of the major deities of the conquering Indo-Aryans included Indra, god of warriors and nature, the Lord of Heaven to which cows were sacrificed. His cosmic twin, a hero of strength and actually a cult in his own right, was the god Agni, god of the sacred fire in which sacrifices were made. Aditi was a female deity that symbolized boundlessness, and was associated with sky and air. Soma was characterized by hallucinogenic plants, prepared as a nectar of and for the gods, and was seen as the “source of inspiration and principle of life.” (New Larousse Encyclopedia Of Mythology, 1968:326). Varuna, associated with the sky and the still depths of the ocean, was the keeper of law and order. Yama was the gloomy god of death and presided over hell, while Kali and Durga were fearsome “she-monsters” that were in place from the existing Dravidian culture, and were associated with the cycles of Nature.
It is interesting to see how the destructive aspect of Kali, who wears a necklace of skulls, earrings of corpses, and a skirt of human arms, appears in later myths as a guise that is taken by another goddess to conquer demons. Her fierceness was powerful and venerated by the popular masses in legends of battles between the Devas (“good” gods) and Asuras (demons). These gods were to be feared, admired, and propitiated with sacrifice (hence the traditional sacredness of cows in India).