The God Theory in INDIA

Man came upon the earth millions of years ago. The earliest man is known to have existed on all continents. Man was there in Europe; Man existed in China; Humans dwelled in Africa; Man was there in America and he was there in India also. And everywhere he developed civilization. Man is a social animal. He needs each other to survive. Man developed society for together living. Along came the God theory. Indigenous communities everywhere developed God theory.

The most interesting and importantly most harmonious God theory was developed in India ONLY. And only in India. Nowhere else.

Lets see how.

The Pagan System

As civilization developed, man was mesmerized by Prakrithi (nature). He realized, the Prakrithi gives him the survival needs of food, water, air. Prakrithi is beautiful and challenges him to understand it better. So he grew curious. His curiousness took him to understand the world and beyond. But he was limited by his only 5 senses to know everything. So he concluded there must be some super being that must have set up this entire thing to work in beautiful harmony. His curiousness became respect and then devotion. So he worshipped that concept. And thus GOD came about in human theory.

But different communities in different places developed reverence for different forms of God. But conceiving God without form and feature became difficult. So they looked at various elements of the nature and started worshipping according to their understanding of who is superior. Sun is God. Earth is god. Mountain is God. Air is God. Fire is God. Forest is God. River is God. And so on. So different communities across the world conceived different God forms and worshipped. This is true of not only India. The Mayans, Egyptians, Greeks, aborigins & tribals across the world worshipped the nature elements as well as formless & different forms of God. This is called as Pagan system by modern day European theologists (Theology means God Theory) and early Christians.

Then came the superiority complex amongst the communities. This created conflicts amongst the communities. Conflict resolution on superiority of GOD who don’t talk, who don’t come upon calling, who don’t interact with all at once, became a complex situation for amicable resolution. So the communities fought and annihilated other community and established superiority. If community A wins over community B then the God of community A is superior over God of community B. So whoever is the political leader dictates the superiority of the God & annihilated the other community.

The Vedas, Upanishads & Puranas

But India was different. In India, great visionaries called Rishis and Maharshis understood this human tragedy well enough. They penanced. God, the Supreme Being, revealed the truth in the form of the “Vedas”.

Rishis said the social harmony is most important. Man’s duty towards another man is important. Man’s duty to Prakrithi with minimalistic living is important. Rishi’s called this as “Dharma”, the most fundamental truth for humanity. Dharma became compassion. Dharma became self-less service to the mankind and Prakrithi. Dharma was the path to Moksha – the ultimate liberation from the birth-death recycle. In western theology, obedience to one particular God is the path to Heaven. In contrast, in the Indian theology, it is the good deeds which take one to salvation irrespective of whichever God he worships.  

While Dharma became the most fundamental truth for the man, the faith in God is irreplaceable. It is natural feeling of devotion in human heart. So it was important to put theories around all different Gods for man to live in harmony. The Vedas take each god and depict as the most powerful god. All the communities believed in the Vedas as the ultimate truth. Shaiva, Vaishnava, Ganapathya, Shakthya & several other communities, all of them believe in the Vedas as the ultimate truth. The Vedas are intelligently and cryptically written for all of us to believe it says our God is the most superior of them all.

The Rishis didn’t stop at that. Because if they did, it would still result in fight for superiority. So through stories of Puranas and Upanishads, they created relation between all the Gods. So Lakshmi the Goddess of Wealth is the consort of Vishnu the Preserver of the universe; Saraswathi the goddess of knowledge is the consort of Brahma the Creater; Similarly Shiva-Parvathi; Then Ganesha-Karthikeya are sons of Shiva-Parvathi, and the list is endless.

Not only that, in various stories & ithihasa the happenings, one God worships the other. In Ramayana, Rama worships Shiva Linga in Rameswaram. In Shiva Purana, Shiva teaches Rama Nama to Parvathi in Amaranatha caves. Krishna does Vinayaka Vratha, while the worshipped Ganesha is the Scribe of the Magnum opus Mahabharatha and Bhagavatha, both being ultimate tribute to the Lord Krishna. So you will see umpteen numbers of stories where Gods interact, pay respects to each other, worship each other. It is almost as if they don’t have any qualms of superiority between them at all.

But will they not fight at all? Or will their followers not fight at all in these stories?

Narada – The Kalahapriya

Narada plays a crucial role in this harmonious set up. Interestingly he is called Kalahapriya – the trouble creator. Because, his role itself is to create conflict between Gods and their respective followers. He brings in trouble quietly in a harmonious set up. Whenever he enters you can be sure the story takes interesting turns.

There is this Kama - Desire, Krodha - Anger, Moha – Possessiveness, Mada – Superiority complex, Mathsara – Cruel Jealousy; the 5 Doshas – deformities, in every human being. And Narada brings that out even in Gods. You might argue this is silly. How can God who is above all this have such merely humane Dosha. He will not have. But through conflict the Sathya (The Truth) & Dharma (The Righteousness) is made to win ultimately. So for that God is made to fall prey momentarily to such mundane Dosha.  Ultimately, Narada says in all stories, that to bring about the Dharma consciousness amongst the people of the earth, Gods play all these Nataka (Drama)

The Spread of Hinduism

When Hinduism with these basic tenets spread around the world, it didn’t face any resistance nor was there any conflict. Because basically it believes in Polytheism (Multiple God Theory). Every community around the world which had its own indigenous God theory was easily assimilated into Hinduism. During the BC 600 and before, under Magadha kingdom and even before, Hinduism spread westward all the way to Persia and may be beyond. Around 8^th Cent CE, under Cholas, the Hinduism spread well across most of east Asia all the way till Thailand, Cambodia and may be beyond. While it retained their indigenous faiths, rituals, it enhanced their faith rather than converting their faith. Because, Hinduism had so many Gods to compare it with their indigenous Gods to align. So the Ramayana, Mahabharata travelled far east and adopted itself to the imaginations and lifestyle, environmental settings of their own land. They brought in their elemental Gods, Nature Gods, Animal Gods, Imaginary Gods & interwoven their stories and produced some of the best mythology. The best part is it was all Harmonious. It created great temples, art, artecraft, magnificent architecture which stand till date testimony to social harmony over centuries if not millenniums.

How does Hinduism treat Godification of Historical figures?

Oh yeah! This part is amazing. It so easily creates Gods everyday in India. It adopts these new Gods also to an already existing galaxy of Gods. So it doesn’t instill fear, but harmony amongst the followers.

For example, Vithoba in North Karanataka – Maharastra region was a historical figure. There was a big following of him, based on his greatness. He became God in the eyes of the people of the region. May be some Maharishi of that time, recognized Vithoba’s greatness and compared him to Sri Krishna. So instead of imposing his God Sri Krishna as superior over their faithful god Vithoba, he called Vithoba as his God Sri Krishna only. He didn’t feel any fear of loosing his own God’s superiority. By submitting himself at the great altar of Vithoba he showed grace. And this graceful gesture positively appealed to the people of the region and took to worship Sri Krishna in Vithoba.  This resulted in the flow of many further stories, songs of devotion, dance forms, art and many other things which bring harmony to the society and to an individual.

Thirumala Venkatesha, Khandoba, Mallikarjuna, Chamundeshwari and many other Gods across the length and breadth of India are arguably historical figures who are Godified by their exemplary good deeds. The great celebrations - uthsava, jaathre, kumbha mela etc., that happen at the abode of these Gods attract lakhs of devotees cutting across region, language, caste. It has brought people together every day for many milleniums.

Many people argue India is mired in casteism, hatred, discrimination. But they don’t look at these magnificent canvases of social harmony. Alas! They look with coloured glasses only at few skirmishes which happen everyday here and there in small pockets and cry out loud that India is hopeless. Of course these need to be condemned and corrected. As every healthy man gets wounds & gets healed, our society also is exposed to such wounds often and it gets healed. It generally settles over time amicably. It always does in our country. Unlike in other countries this kind of wound spreads like cancer eating away the healthy cells.

Conflict with Monotheism

Monotheism is belief in only one God. Or the God theory which believes in only one God. Christianity and Islam follow Monotheism.

How does Hinduism take in that?

Vedas say “Ekam Sat Viprah Bahuda Vadanthi”, meaning there is only one truth, but wise call it by different names. So Hinduism accept the Gods from the religions who follow Monotheism. But do they accept us? That is not possible. Lets see few examples.

Gandhiji adapted Allah into his famous hymn – ‘Eeshwara allah thero naam’. Many Hindus recite this in various religious ceremonies. It is just as easy as that.

Kabir’s Dohe make it into the holy books of Hindus and Sikhs. It makes it into our holy temples for devotional serving. He says in his Dohe Ram and Rahim are same. Our Santha Shishunala Shareepha says Allah and Allama are same. We keep these work worth of worship at the highest altar of our Godly place and recite.

Will any Masjid dare take Ram into their holy places? It is inconceivable.

Many of our Indian philosophers have paid great tributes to Yesu & depicted him with highest reverence. In fact some compare him to Sri Krishna and have composed hymns over him. There is a Hindu temple (The largest glass temple in the world) in Kaulalampur which has Yesu also in there. It is that simple.

Will any Church have a place for Sri Krishna? It is inconceivable.

Individual Christians, Individual Muslims might adapt Hindu Gods or other Gods. But the institutions will never mend.

We cannot expect that also. Because, they follow Monotheism. But the biggest conflict comes in the faith conversion. The Monotheists are hard pressed on faith conversion as a salvation path. And that I believe is the single most reason of conflict across the world in the name of GOD!

Indian God theory is certainly the most amazing & most harmonious theory of all that I have known.

God bless me for writing this blog!!!