Hierarchy

Is there a hierarchy amongst the Gods and Goddesses?

yes there is. krishna is the supreme personality of godhead. brahma vishna and shiva are guna-avatars i.e. brahma - rajo guna, vishnu - satva guna and shiva - tamo guna. all other gods and goddesses are subject to the laws of material nature and get annihilated at the time of pralaya. in fact there is an interesting story how indra (king of gods) once became arrogant after a victory and asked vishwakaram (architect of gods) to build him a grand residence. vishwakarma did as directed but indra was not happy. so vishnu appeared as a branhmin boy and showed him an endless queue of ants who were previously indras. this humbled indra. kama-deva (god of love) was vaporised by shiva.

@ aghora, I agree krishna is the supreme lord of all, however vishnu is krishna's four armed form. Secondly how is it that previous indras became ants but the 5 pandavas were indras also in one of their births.

[Chrysaetos]

Originally Posted by murugan

Is there a hierarchy amongst the Gods and Goddesses?

This depends on which stream of ''Hinduism'' you refer to.

''Hinduism'' is only a recent term, one that is generalising and contains a huge amount of Indian faiths. So there isn't one answer.
The answer to your question all depends on what time, place, and stream you're interested in..

Originally Posted by numerouno

@ aghora, I agree krishna is the supreme lord of all, however vishnu is krishna's four armed form. Secondly how is it that previous indras became ants but the 5 pandavas were indras also in one of their births.

numeruno...of pandavas am aware of following stories: a rishi once cursed lord yama for awarding him punishment for being cruel to insects when he (i.e. rishi was a kid); thus was yudhishtir born. arjun was constant companion of krishna and was rishi nar who performed austerities at badrinath with narayana. am unaware of any other stories - please enlighten if you know of any other. story about indra as ant shows that even indra (the highest of gods other than trimurti) is subject to the laws of material nature and though he once attained that exalted position, he can fall to the lowest form of life based on karma. further it seeks to demonstrate the sheer enormity of time - 100 years of life of brahma is equivalent to 311 trillion earth years - satya, treta, dwapar and kali yuga form 1 mahayuga; 1000 mahayugas make 1 kalpa (day in the life of brahma, his nite being of equal duration); 360 such days comprise 1 year in his life. presently we are around 5000 years in kali yuga (total duration = 432,000 years) and in the 50th year if brahma...

Originally Posted by aghora

numeruno...of pandavas am aware of following stories: a rishi once cursed lord yama for awarding him punishment for being cruel to insects when he (i.e. rishi was a kid); thus was yudhishtir born. arjun was constant companion of krishna and was rishi nar who performed austerities at badrinath with narayana. am unaware of any other stories - please enlighten if you know of any other. story about indra as ant shows that even indra (the highest of gods other than trimurti) is subject to the laws of material nature and though he once attained that exalted position, he can fall to the lowest form of life based on karma. further it seeks to demonstrate the sheer enormity of time - 100 years of life of brahma is equivalent to 311 trillion earth years - satya, treta, dwapar and kali yuga form 1 mahayuga; 1000 mahayugas make 1 kalpa (day in the life of brahma, his nite being of equal duration); 360 such days comprise 1 year in his life. presently we are around 5000 years in kali yuga (total duration = 432,000 years) and in the 50th year if brahma...

my apologies - the episode of rishi cursing lord yama results in the latter being born as vidura (not youdhishtir)