Myth about polytheism

(Continued from “Why do Hindus worship idols?”)

Before I start on idol worship, probably it is apt to clear some misconceptions about polytheism and monotheism. It is generally held that Hinduism is polytheistic and other major religions such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are monotheistic. 

This is a misconception at least at the conceptual level. It is true that Judaism, Christianity and Islam emphasize on single God who is the supreme.  Many people will be surprised that even Hinduism talks about single God. For example, one of the most ancient of Hindu scriptures namely the Veda has this to say

“They refer to as Indra, Varuna, and so on. But the fact is that the same one is called by different names by the clergy”.(Rig-Veda Book I, Section 164, Verse 46)

If you look at the Upanishads (parts of Veda), the God or ‘Brahma’ as he/she/it is referred to, is always talked about as a single unique entity. Unlike the other world religions, this entity is considered to be not only formless, but also beyond explicit description. That is why I have used ‘he/she/it’ to refer to this entity as is the normal practice in these Upanishads. In one of the well known Upanishads namely the Taitarïya Upanishad, God or Brahma is defined as follows

“(Brahma is) that from which all the beings came into existence, that which sustains them and that into which they finally converge”. (Taitarïya Upanishad, Section Bhriguvalli, Verse 1)

And surprisingly, almost similar definition of God can be found in Quran as well as Bible!

The assertion of formlessness of God can be found throughout the ancient Hindu scriptures. I will talk more about that in the next post.

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