Rig Vedas only one God?

[Karachi]

I got this from another website so I am not sure 100% but it seems Rig Vedas the earliest (Vedic) texts mentions only one God and not to make any idols/images

"There is only One God, worship Him."
[Rig Veda: 6,45:16]

"...Of that God you cannot make any images."
[Yajur Veda 3:32]


These days hindus worship over 300 Gods if I am not mistaken

[Karachi]

I personally think that the earliest Vedic religion was probably very similar to Zoroastrianism, they also believe in one God. With time as Vedic/Hindusim spread eastwards in to India, they incorporated a lot of pagan Dravidian beliefs and formed what is Modern Hinduism today

[Apollyon]

The hymns about 1000 are attributed to specific deities.

The concept of Monotheism, God has no partners, in traditional hinduism god was not "Omnipotent" so it invalidates the oneness of God.

[asad71]

I got this from another website so I am not sure 100% but it seems Rig Vedas the earliest (Vedic) texts mentions only one God and not to make any idols/images

"There is only One God, worship Him."
[Rig Veda: 6,45:16]

"...Of that God you cannot make any images."
[Yajur Veda 3:32]


These days hindus worship over 300 Gods if I am not mistaken

You are wrong. There are many more than 300. These are not limited to idols/images only. Animals, trees, rivers, mountains,etc are in theendless list.

[Toramana]

[asad71]

1.That's fine on the palacard or when declared by leaders, etc, but what is the reality? Even the Sikhs suffer from class differences - which is totally against the teachings of Guru Nanak. The Arabs consider others sub-human - which is against trhe teachings of the Holy Quo'ran or the Holy Prophet pbuh.

2. It will take generations but adhearence to the true Message of Islam would remove differences owing to tribal identity, ethnic origin, language, color, etc.

[Karachi]

1.That's fine on the palacard or when declared by leaders, etc, but what is the reality? Even the Sikhs suffer from class differences - which is totally against the teachings of Guru Nanak. The Arabs consider others sub-human - which is against trhe teachings of the Holy Quo'ran or the Holy Prophet pbuh.

2. It will take generations but adhearence to the true Message of Islam would remove differences owing to tribal identity, ethnic origin, language, color, etc.

the only time that happened was when the prophet was alive, after that muslims went back to their old ways, I think it may take a thousands years to fix the hatred among muslims themselves

[badmash_khel]

From what I have read, Hindus do belive in one God called Brahman. He is the supreme being, the creator of everything in the universe and beyond. This logically means that Hindus belive in one God. Brahma (creator), Vishnu (sustainer) and Siva (Destroyer) are the so called Trimurti (Trinity) which are just essentially represent the essence or attributes of the one God Brahman. Avatars such as krishna is the physical manifestation of Vishnu on earth. The Avatars are basically like prophets, saints, sages etc...

Having said that Hinduism has evolved greatly since the early vedic era, so its quite common to consider them polytheists in the modern era.

[Valeri Petrofsky]

From what I have read, Hindus do belive in one God called Brahman. He is the supreme being, the creator of everything in the universe and beyond. This logically means that Hindus belive in one God. Brahma (creator), Vishnu (sustainer) and Siva (Destroyer) are the so called Trimurti (Trinity) which are just essentially represent the essence or attributes of the one God Brahman. Avatars such as krishna is the physical manifestation of Vishnu on earth. The Avatars are basically like prophets, saints, sages etc...

Having said that Hinduism has evolved greatly since the early vedic era, so its quite common to consider them polytheists in the modern era.

Thank you badmash_khel, for the brief, yet very informative post.

Since I have barely seen any other Indian in the forum (leave alone a Hindu), I feel compelled to clarify some myths about Hinduism that has been propagated by none other than Hindus themselves.

First of all, there are two basic schools of philosophy, where one advocates that entire Universe in itself with no concept of centrality is God. Which means, everything that exists is entirety of the Universe, and is same as entire Universe, and is God. In simple terms, it means that even the smallest matter particle taken as an individual renders the entire Universe meaningless, thus everything is equal and equally important, including the matter that is, and the matter that contains it.

It is not very easy to comprehend and since our knowledge of language puts some limits on the explanations, so it can be considered open to different interpretations.

Here's the best effort on defining Brahman in Sanskrit:

Poornamedah, Poornamedam,
Poornaat Poornamadachyate.
Poornasya Poornamaadaaya,
Poornameva Vashishyate.

The rough translation would be,

That is complete (whole), This is complete (whole);
From That complete (whole) comes This complete (whole).

When This complete (whole) is taken out of That complete (whole);
The complete (whole) remains complete (whole).

I capitalized the 'T' of each "That" and "This" because they refer to the concept of difference that humans have learned - A part of the Universe/Brahman is equivalent to Brahman in its entirety.

This came from the Advaita philosophy which stated that we are all one, and we are part of what we consider God, and thus everything is God. Just as a drop of water taken out of ocean is as true a form of water, as is the entire ocean.

Then came the Dvaita philosophy that stated that we have a free will, and we are different from God. There are rules that God too shall abide by, such as rewarding the fruits of labor to any entity, ex. when a person works hard and diligently, God cannot devoid her/him of all she/he deserves.

The latter one, Dvaita philosophy, came to be greatly accepted, for the sole reason (in my opinion) that it was much easier to comprehend, and allowed people to think of their ownselves as individuals with distinct identity independent of God/rest of the Universe.

At that time, there was no concept of religion in India. Anyone who followed the path of spirituality could easily be equated with the other one doing the same, albeit in a different way, and it gave birth to the philosophy that anyone who reaches out to God irrespective of his ways, is doing the right thing. Hence, if I, as a Hindu, would think that my conversion to Islam is the only way to reach God, it will be considered the very right path per that philosophy.

While it sounds like a nice way of thinking to me, it was that time when the problems began.

People could not comprehend the philosophies easily. Majority of the people wanted a simple life that did not require of them to go through all the deep thinking to carry on with their lives. And the scarcity of resources in the coming eras restricted their leisure time to think of philosophies, as most of their time was spent in procuring food and security for their families.

So those who did understand the philosophies, as well as the plight of the general populace, gave them manifestations of Gods. The people in general were told that they could find figure, and base their entire lifestyle on that. And of course, there were as many different lifestyles, as there were people, as there were figures to emulate from.

Thence came the number of Gods that we see today.

But the problem lies within the Hindu of today, who has gotten so paranoid and defensive of his identity, that he won't lose a breath in supporting any pseudo Hindu organization anywhere in the world. ISKCON, VHP, Shiv Sena etc. have already hijacked the religion and I am yet to find any sane voices that come out to counter their contrarian and violent actions.