The System of the Vedanta according to Badarayana's Brahma-Sutras and Cankara's Commentary c5.s3.t3.1

c5.s3.t3.1

One would err if one held the being of the Gods (*deva*, *devatâ*) to be incompatible with the strict monistic teaching of our system of the Brahman as the Lord (*îçvara*) the omnipresent (*sarvagata*), the one without a second (*ekam eva advitîyam*). On the contrary, they are as real as the rest of the world: the phenomenal existence which the latter has, they also have, and the Gods of the Indian popular creed (whose retention was besides already necessitated by the recognition of the *Karma-kâṇḍa* and the *Karma-mîmânsâ* cf. above p. [18 ff.]), are as little denied by the Vedânta as the Gods of Greece were by Plato or Epicurus, even if, as in the latter case, they play no particular rôle, and the ideas of them which are occasionally found cannot very well be made to agree.