Indian Philosophy v1.c8.s3: Monotheistic Tendencies
Indian Philosophy v1.c8.s3
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Monotheistic Tendencies
v1.c8.s3.1
As we shall see in our discussion of the Atharva-Veda, mythical conceptions from beyond the limits of the Aryan world belonging to a different order of thought entered into the Vedic pantheon. All this crowding of gods and goddesses proved a weariness to the intellect. So a tendency showed itself very early to identify one god with another or throw all the gods together. The attempts at classification reduced the gods to the three spheres of the earth, the air and the sky. Sometimes these gods are said to be 333, or other combinations of three in number.¹ The gods are also invoked in pairs when they fulfil identical functions. They are sometimes thrown together in one large concept of a Viśve devāḥ, or pantheon. This tendency at systematisation had its natural end in monotheism, which is simpler and more logical than the anarchy of a crowd of gods and goddesses thwarting each other.
v1.c8.s3.2
¹ See R.V., iii. 9. 9.
v1.c8.s3.3
Monotheism is inevitable with any true conception of God. The Supreme can only be one. We cannot have two supreme and unlimited beings. Everywhere the question was asked whether a god was himself the creation of another. A created god is no God at all. With the growing insight into the workings of the world and the nature of godhead the many gods tended to melt into one. The perception of unity realised in the idea of Ṛta worked in support of monotheism. If the varied phenomena of nature demand many gods, should not the unity of nature require a single god who embraces all things that are? Trust in natural law means faith in one God. The advance of this conception implies the paralysis of superstition. An orderly system of nature has no room for miraculous interferences in which alone superstition and confused thought find the signs of polytheism. In the worship of Varuṇa we have the nearest approach to monotheism. Attributes moral and spiritual, such as justice, beneficence, righteousness, and even pity were ascribed to him. There has been a growing emphasis on the higher and more idealistic side to the suppression or comparative neglect of the gross or material side. Varuṇa is the god to whom man and nature, this world and the other all belong. He cares not only for external conduct but also for inner purity of life. The implicit demand of the religious consciousness for one supreme God made itself manifest in what is characterised as the henotheism of the Vedas. It is, according to Max Müller, who coined the term, the worshipping of each divinity in turn, as if it were the greatest and even the only god. But the whole position is a logical contradiction, where the heart showed the right path of progress and belief contradicted it. We cannot have a plurality of gods, for religious consciousness is against it. Henotheism is an unconscious groping towards monotheism. The weak mind of man is yet seeking for its object. The Vedic Aryan felt keenly the mystery of the ultimate and the inadequacy of the prevailing conceptions. The gods worshipped as supreme stand side by side, though for the moment only one holds the highest position. The one god is not the denial of the other gods. Even minor gods sometimes assume the highest rank. It all depends upon the devotion of the poet and the special object he has in view. "Varuṇa is the heaven, Varuṇa the earth, Varuṇa the air, Varuṇa is the universe and all besides." Sometimes Agni is all the gods. Sometimes Indra is greater than all gods. For the moment each god seems to become a composite photograph of all others. Self-surrender of man to God, the central fact of religious experience, is possible only with one God. Thus henotheism seems to be the result of the logic of religion. It is not, as Bloomfield suggests, "polytheism grown cold in service, and unnice in its distinctions, leading to an opportunist monotheism, in which every god takes hold of the sceptre and none keeps it."¹
v1.c8.s3.4
¹ The Religion of the Veda, p. 199.
v1.c8.s3.5
When each god is looked upon as the creator and granted the attributes of Viśvakarman, maker of the world, Prajāpati, lord of creatures, it is easy to drop the personal peculiarities and make a god of the common functions, especially when the several gods are only cloudy and confused concepts and not real persons.
v1.c8.s3.6
The gradual idealisation of the conception of God as revealed in the cult of Varuṇa, the logic of religion which tended to make the gods flow into one another, the henotheism which had its face set in the direction of monotheism, the conception of Ṛta or the unity of nature, and the systematising impulse of the human mind—all helped towards the displacement of a polytheistic anthropomorphism by a spiritual monotheism. The Vedic seers at this period were interested in discovering a single creative cause of the universe, itself uncreated and imperishable. The only logical way of establishing such a monotheism was by subordinating the gods under one higher being, or controlling spirit, which could regulate the workings of the lower gods. This process satisfied the craving for one god and yet allowed them to keep up the continuity with the past. Indian thought, however daring and sincere, was never hard and rude. It did not usually care to become unpopular, and so generally made compromises; but pitiless logic, which is such a jealous master, had its vengeance, with the result that to-day Hinduism, on account of its accommodating spirit, has come to mean a heterogeneous mass of philosophies, religions, mythologies and magics. The many gods were looked upon as the different embodiments of the universal spirit. They were ruling in their own respective spheres under the suzerainty of the supreme. Their powers were delegated and their lordship was only a viceroyalty, but not a sovereignty. The capricious gods of a confused nature-worship became the cosmic energies whose actions were regulated in a harmonious system. Even Indra and Varuṇa become departmental deities. The highest position in the later part of the Ṛg-Veda is granted to Viśvakarman.¹ He is the all-seeing god who has on every side eyes, faces, arms, feet, who produces heaven and earth through the exercise of his arms and wings, who knows all the worlds, but is beyond the comprehension of mortals. Bṛhaspati has also his claims for the supreme rank.² In many places it is Prajāpati, the lord of creatures.³ Hiraṇyagarbha, the golden god, occurs as the name of the Supreme, described as the one Lord of all that exists.⁴
v1.c8.s3.7
¹ See x. 81. 82.
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² See x. 72.
v1.c8.s3.9
³ See x. 85. 43; x. 189. 4; x. 184. 4; Śatapatha Brāh., vi. 6. 8 1-14; x. 1. 3. 1.
v1.c8.s3.10
⁴ x. 121.
Cites (2)
- Ṛgvedasaṃhitā — Sanskrit
- Śatapathabrāhmaṇa — Yājñavalkya & Śāṇḍilya (Vedic teacher), Sanskrit