One common thought that arises in every mind when one thinks about Hinduism is that "How can there be millions of Gods: Shiva, Kali, Vishnu, Indra etc etc?". I was jokingly asked by one of my friend "How do you remember the names of so many Gods and worship them. Will you go to hell if you forget to worship any one of them?". A common perception of western society towards Hinduism is that it is a pagan religion with millions of Gods and deities. Let's now explore this view in this article and see up to what extent is it true.
So is Hinduism a
polytheistic religion? Well, partly yes. What do I mean by partly yes? If I worship multitude of Gods then why would I not call it a completely polytheistic religion? Well, the reason is that Hinduism is not that simple. There are many Hindus who believe in every religion and the respective Gods and would not even mind praying to them. What?? Yes, It's true. Hinduism is a
pluralistic religion i.e. there are many ways to think of One God. What does this mean now? If you look at the ancient texts, you will see a very beautiful but complex concept of that of Brahman. Brahman is described as eternal, formless and genderless being. I like to describe it mathematically in terms of zero and infinity. If you divide any number by zero, the result approaches infinity. In other words, Brahman is infinite yet it is supreme nothingness (0). Also, 0 divided by 0 is undefined. Same way, Brahman cannot be defined precisely.
So now if Brahman is supreme and infinite then who are the other Gods? Here, I would like to cite a famous verse from Isha Upanishad which roughly translates to:
"That(Brahman) is infinity, this(everything else: Gods, humans, worms, etc) is infinity. From infinity comes infinity. If you subtract infinity from infinity, what remains is infinity"
(Well I am mathematically wrong here :) But anyways..) What I mean here is that all the Gods, humans, plants, animals, worms, etc, etc; everything and everyone in this universe is nothing but a part of that Brahman. So technically there are billions, trillions or
centillions of Gods. No matter what or who you worship, you are worshiping the same being. (It is advised in the Upanishads, that one should focus on ones own soul and try to identify itself with the Brahman)
I may have written so much about the Brahman here and in my previous posts, yet even I find these concepts difficult to understand. It has been rightly pointed out by the Rishis of the Vedas that no one can ever understand the concept of Brahman completely. It was the same reason why pluralism was brought into existence. When wise men like the Rishis, who devoted their entire life in knowing this Brahman, couldn't understand it completely, then how could a layman understand and appreciate it? It was the same reason why they tried to describe these concept to laymen by giving examples of Gods and other deities. When the laymen began appreciating these concepts, due to their lack of understanding of the formless nature of this being, begun worshiping these deities. Thus came the polytheistic angle to Hinduism. You can clearly see this if you compare the Upanishads and the Puranas, the former being the philosophical texts and the latter texts explaining the concept of divine through stories)
What I find saddening is that this beautiful concept of Brahman is diminishing from the current Indian society, where a majority of people are moving from "pluralistic form of Hinduism"(which is the true form) to the "Religion of Hinduism". I would encourage the readers to explore this concept of Brahman in more detail by going through the Upanishads or even the Bhagvath Geeta.
