In the original report of the vision, the god who manifested himself was nameless, but in later versions of it Asahara identified the god as Shiva, the Hindu deity who by then had become his ultimate spiritual authority (or his guru, as he sometimes put it). It was somewhat odd for Asahara to invoke a Hindu god in the creation of an essentially Buddhist group, even if the esoteric Buddhism he drew upon stayed close to its Hindu roots. His choice of Shiva (as opposed to Vishnu or Brahma, the other great Hindu gods) probably had two important determinants. First, Shiva is specifically identified as the god of yoga. Second, while all Hindu gods have destructive as well as beneficent tendencies, Shiva is specifically associated with salvation through world destruction.
イギリスの宗教学者イアン・リーダーさんの「Religious Violence in Contemporary Japan: The Case of Aum Shinrikyo 」では、この疑問について、オウムの在家信徒から聞いた話として、「仏教はヒンドゥー教の環境の中から生まれたので、仏教の開祖ブッダとシヴァ神は縁があるのであり、また、オウムはヒンドゥーのヨーガやマントラを取り入れており、オウムが仏教団体としてシヴァ神を拝むのは、なんら矛盾しないのだ。シヴァ仏教と呼んでもらいたい。」と紹介しています。
