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Hindu Gods & Goddesses
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- Introduction :
- The
Hindu pantheon has, in a famous example of hyperbole, over 330 million
deities. In a sense India is God-intoxicated, there is god everywhere, in
all things: within/without, above/below, in the six degrees of separation
and in the three planes of existence.
There are gods for vegetation, gods for weather, gods for nature, gods for
geographical areas, gods for villages, gods for the house, gods in the
temples, gods in running water, gods in deepest forest and in icy mountain
heights. There is no situation, environment and place that the Indian does
not have a god for. Gods inspire, gods infuse art and creativity and gods
provoke destruction too. Gods in heaven are many, for the heavens also are
many with contending claims as to which is the supreme heaven. Even hell has
a God presiding , the god of justice and death, in a pretty astute
psychological characterization about the typical fears of the afterlife.
However, it would be simplistic to think this is just chaos run riot. There
is indeed an order and structure behind this apparent endless profusion of
divinity, far more than any reasonable mind would require.
For one there, is the concept of the Ishta devta - the god you like.
As long as you have some god to worship, it does not matter very much which
one.
For another, there is the famous Vedic verse "Ekam Sat, Viprah Bahudha
Vadanti" or, "That which is the sole truth, the wise (and by
implication, the unwise) call by many names". Even the most
unsophisticated and unintellectual Hindu will tell you that all the gods are
the same Power. His version of it may be a bit more powerful, however!
Then there is a cultural acceptance of an aspect of Vedanta that also allows
these gods to comfortably exist in the imagination. If the Absolute is
Brahman and it is superior to the Personal God, if even the gods finally
merge into that Brahman, then three or three hundred million are all the
same. .
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