Well, as far as i know, Hindu religion is pretty democratic (no offence to ones having different beliefs, it is about bali-pratha anyway). At the core of Hinduism- there is no god and only one dharma/ karma, the reverse of which is the sin. This is the abstract class, in OOP terms. In that abstract class, there is no god- its only some form of energy- the ॐ. A share of the AUM, in whatever proportions, dwells in every living soul and the AUM itself being the entity formed by the aggregation of all such living souls. This means, every living being has a share of god or whatever this super-being distributed in the form of soul (or vital force). This is what the Rigveda means. And the main principle or the dharma/karma or whatever is "परोपकाराय पुण्याय पापाय परपिडानाम" which implies if you hurt the next soul, it is a sin, if you make it happy, it is a dharma/karma. That's it, no more, no less. Then, you can derive to virtually any level of hierarchy from tht abstract class. One compilation believes in Trimurti or Tridev(Brahma, Bishnu, Shiva) and says that AUM is the collective power of the Trimurti. True worshippers of Brahma are rare, haven't heard abt them. followers of Bishnu are Baishnavas and Krishna pranami and alike, they never eat meat- this cult is attributed for the Gita and Yoga and so on. They also believe in the 10 Darwinism-type evolutionary incarnations. Worshippers of Shiva are pretty cool- they are called Shaivas and sometimes Sanyasis. Yeh, we like recreational POT at times but meat is always hated. Each of these cults claim their Dev is better than the other Dev (out of the Tridev). There is a pretty wide conflict between these cults in terms of faith and practice. Most of South Indian Hindus are divided this way into Vaishnavs and Shaivas. The other compilation believes in the feminine power and interpretes the AUM to be the Devi, who again has three forms or TriDevi- Mahakali, Mahalaxmi and Mahasaraswati. Particularly who worship Kali (for power) are called Shaktas - after worshippers of Shakti. However, there is no conflict in the TriDevi camp as in the Trimurti camp. Examples of Shakta are found in Bengal and Gujarat side. Based on these two main branches - the trimurti-wala and tridevi-wala, any good person can be a "devta", or whatever. Their leader is called Indra. Indra is democratically elected by a constitutional-type assembly of rishi-munis although the head-of-state and the head-of-govt at that time was termed as king. There used to be no hereditary king, per se. If anyone did a good tapasya, he would shake the indra-aasan and the then indra would do lots and lots of 'Magh 19' type of coups but still the determined would easily dethrone him. It used to be quite a republic kind of set up. A learned person inclined to knowledge used to be a rishimuni or brahmin, there was no caste barrier. The caste system is not hinduism, it is a law that was enacted by "manu" quite later in India. Equating caste system to hinduism is simply ignorance. that said, there was no royal "khalak" in sanatan hindu philosophy, yeh - never, never. For practical reasons and to make a compromise out of conflicts, some started worshipping 5 gods (Panchanga- brahma, bishnu, shiva, devi, and the sun) which is what most of the nepalese belong to. Just like the caste system, bali pratha came into being by practice, it is not included in the fundamental principles of the religion. Perhaps the ancient kings (after the Dev-Yug) wanted to show off their power, sort of traumatize or glamorize or whatever and retain their "kurchi" and thus began the bali-pratha. Keep rolling...