mirrored file at http://SaturnianCosmology.Org/ 
For complete access to all the files of this collection
	see http://SaturnianCosmology.org/search.php 
==========================================================
_________________________________________________________________

The Devotionalistic
Gods in Hinduism
_________________________________________________________________

While the old gods of the Vedas (Indra, Agni, Dyaus, Mitra, Varuna,
etc.) eventually were demoted by Hinduism to a position inferior to
the Vedas themselves, in the Upanis.ads Brahman came to be conceived
as the Supreme Being, or just Being -- the One. According to the
Dvaita Vedānta interpretation of the Upanis.ads, Brahman is a personal
God, distinct from individual souls (atmans) and from matter.[[1]1]
Such a personal Brahman, whether formulated philosophically or not,
comes to be identified in popular religion with either Vis.n.u or
Shiva. Since different gods are thus proposed as the One God, Hinduism
is an unusual kind of monotheism:  it contains virtual sub-religions
consisting of the devotees of Vis.n.u, the Vaishnavites, and the
devotees of Shiva, the Shaivites. It is best to see this as an
instance of the "[2]multiplicity of explanations."

On the other hand, the earlier (and perhaps more faithful)
interpretation of the Upanis.ads is found in the Advaita Vedānta of
Shankara [[3]2], where Brahman is identical with the Ātman and is an
impersonal Absolute beyond any devotionalistic Gods.[[4]3] Since the
personal Gods could all be seen on the same footing in relation to an
impersonal Brahman, an attempt was made, we know not by whom, to tidy
up things through the doctrine of the Trimūrti:

Brahmā (the masculine form of Brahman), was a creator God in the Vedas
(more or less identifiable with Prajapati), but he is actually not an
important devotionalistic God. One story about Vis.n.u is that as he
sleeps, dreaming the universe, a lotus grows from his navel and opens
to reveal Brahmā, who then creates worlds as he blinks his eyes.
Brahmā is awake for a kalpa, or a Day of Brahmā, which is either 12
million years or 4 billion years. He then sleeps for another kalpa, a
Night of Brahmā, while all karma sleeps within him. After 36,000 Days
and Nights, called the Life of Brahmā (859 billion or 309 trillion
years), Brahmā dies, and all karma is annihilated. But then a new
lotus grows from Vis.n.u's navel, and another Brahmā is born.[[5]4]

The most important feature of the cult of Vis.n.u is the belief that
he periodically causes himself to be born as a being in the world. He
does this out of compassion, and this is probably responsible for his
epithet as the "Preserver." As Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita
(Chapter 4, Juan Mascaró translation, Penguin, 1962):

[7] Although I am unborn, everlasting, and I am the Lord of all, I
come to my realm of nature and through my wondrous power I am born.

[8] When righteousness is weak and faints and unrighteousness
exults in pride, then my Spirit arises on earth.

[9] For the salvation of those who are good, for the destruction of
evil in men, for the fulfillment of the kingdom of righteousness, I
come to this world in the ages that pass.

In the cycle of time within which we live, called a Mahāyuga (either
12 thousand or 4.3 million years), there are supposed to be ten
Incarnations (or Avatars) of Vis.n.u. Nine have come already:  1) as
the Fish, 2) the Tortoise, 3) the Boar, 4) the Man-Lion, 5) the Dwarf,
6) Parashurāma, 7) Rāma (of the Rāmāyāna), 8) Kr.s.n.a (Krishna, of
the Mahābhārata), and 9) the Buddha. As the Buddha, however, Vis.n.u
is supposed to have taught a deliberately false doctrine (which is how
Hinduism always sees Buddhism), to destroy demons. The tenth Avatar,
Kalkin, will usher in the end of the world (or the end of the
Mahāyuga).

The most important feature of the cult of Shiva is perhaps his sexual
complexity. This may come in answer to a difficulty that the chart of
the Trimūrti may suggest. Each of the Gods is married, but the
presence of a wife is a little awkward if the deity is to be
considered the Supreme Being -- there is no Mrs. God in the Old
Testament. The solution is that the goddesses are really the female
aspect of the God, not separate beings. Thus Shiva as a whole may be
divided into male and female sides. This can be artistically
represented either by showing Shiva as half male and half female, or
by showing Shiva and Pārvatī locked together in intercourse. Much the
same thing is shown through the union of the Shaivite fetish objects,
the linga cone and the yoni ring or table.

This sets off a chain reaction of belief. The male side of the God is
contrasted, as remote and detached, with the female side, which comes
to be seen as the shakti, the active power and energy of the God. Then
all goddesses are seen as active, powerful, and creative, and finally
assimilated, more or less, into a sense of One Goddess, Shakti, who
contains all power. This effectively eliminates the need for a creator
Brahmā, and gives rise to, virtually, a third sub-religion:  Shākta,
or Tantrism (named after its texts, the Tantras). The Trimūrti thus
might be refigured this way (though, evidently, it hasn't been so
far):

On the other hand, there are goddesses and there are goddesses. Some
goddesses, like Pārvatī herself, are basically positive, protective,
and reassuring; others and basically destructive, terrifying, and
spooky. Kālī is the most famous in that respect (thanks in part to the
Hollywood exaggerations in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom).
Shiva as a whole might be divided, not just into male and female
sides, but with the female side divided into peaceful and terrible
sides:

The most fearful manifestation of the cult of Kālī was the murderous
secret society of her followers, the Thugs (pronounce the "th" like a
"t"; there is no "th" sound, as in "thin," in Indian languages).
Thugee was the practice of murder and robbery by the Thugs, who
strangled travelers in their sleep. They saw these murders as
offerings to Kālī. The British decided this should not be tolerated,
so they actually infiltrated the society and stamped it out.

A very nice statement of the complex of the devotionalistic Gods can
be found by George Michell, in The Hindu Temple, An Introduction to
its Meaning and Forms [University of Chicago Press, 1977, 1988]:

Innumerable gods and goddesses are found throughout the mythology
and art of Hinduism, but the history of this religion at its
highest devotional level is mostly bound up with the simultaneous
development of two major cults -- those of the male gods Shiva and
Vishnu. A third cult is also of importance -- that of the Mother or
the Goddess -- but is rarely seen in isolation, as the Goddess is
essentially the consort of Shiva. These cults are synthetic in
character owing to their evolution as amalgamations of many
different minor deities. Shiva, Vishnu, and the Goddess are
compound creations with a wide range of divine powers and richly
paradoxical personalities. The majority of Hindus ally their
beliefs with one or other of these cults, worshipping Shiva,
Vishnu, or the Goddess as the highest principle. In devoting
themselves to one of these three deities Hindus do not deny the
existence of the other two, who are regarded as minor expressions
of the divine power. Thus in the cult of Shiva, Vishnu is
considered an unimportant aspect, whereas in the cult of Vishnu,
Shiva is reduced to a secondary emanation. To the worshipper of the
Goddess, the male gods are mostly passive and shadowy figures.

In general, the cults of Hinduism developed peacefully together and
only rarely is there any evidence of friction or religion
persecution. The reason for this mutual co-existence is to be found
in the belief that the ultimate godhead lies beyond the divisions
of cult and that the worship of Shiva, Vishnu or the Goddess leads
inevitably to the same same goal. [p.23]

As I have noted, however, this latter is not quite right, only holding
true for the School of "unqualified" Advaita Vedānta, not for
"qualified" Advaita Vedānta or Dvaita Vedānta, where the "ultimate
godhead," Brahman, is a personal Deity identified with a
devotionalistic God. Michell may have gotten the wrong impression
because the "unqualified" doctrine is both more intriguing to Western
investigators, already familiar with personal Monotheism, and more to
the taste of most recent Indian philosophers. The real reason for the
co-existence of the cults may just be that they do identify each
other's Gods with aspects of their own.
_________________________________________________________________

[6]Excerpt from the Bhavis.ya Purān.a

[7]History of Philosophy

[8]Philosophy of Religion

[9]Home Page

Copyright (c) 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2004, 2005 [10]Kelley L. Ross,
Ph.D. All Rights Reserved
_________________________________________________________________

The Devotionalistic Gods in Hinduism, Note 1
_________________________________________________________________

In Indian philosophy, the doctrine of a personal God who is distinct
from matter and souls is usally associated with Madhva, who lived in
the 13th century AD. Madhva was a Vaishnavite.

[11]Return to text
_________________________________________________________________

The Devotionalistic Gods in Hinduism, Note 2
_________________________________________________________________

7th century AD. This is about as early as Vedānta occurs, and some
speculate that its development was occasioned by the advent of Islām.

[12]Return to text
_________________________________________________________________

The Devotionalistic Gods in Hinduism, Note 3
_________________________________________________________________

In the 11th century a personal Advaita Vedānta was proposed by
Rāmānuja, who denied that Māyā was illusion and made it, with multiple
ātmans, part of Brahman, whom he identified with Vis.n.u
(ontologically, this is essentially the docrine of the Jewish
philosopher [13]Baruch Spinoza, although his God is still impersonal).

[14]Return to text
_________________________________________________________________

The Devotionalistic Gods in Hinduism, Note 4
_________________________________________________________________

Cosmic time is infinite and cyclical in India. The world we are
familiar with is that of our Mahāyuga, or ęon. This divided into the
Kr.tayuga of 4800 years, the Tretāyuga, of 3600 years, the
Dvāparayuga, of 2400 years, and the Kaliyuga, of 1200 years. These
decline is quality as well as in length, and can be characterized as
the golden, the silver, the bronze, and the iron ages, respectively.
We are in the Kaliyuga, which is supposed to have begun around 900 BC,
at the time of the climactic battle in the [15]Mahābhārata. However,
it has now obviously been much more than 1200 years since then, so the
reckoning now is that the 12,000 years of the Mahāyuga are not
ordinary human years, but "years of the gods," which are 360 human
years. Thus, the Mahāyuga is 4,320,000 years long, and the Kaliyuga
432,000. In those terms, the Kaliyuga is supposed to have begun, still
with the battle in the Mahābhārata, on 18 February 3102 BC (identified
by the Arab historian al-Bīrūnī [973-1048]).

The Kaliyuga is an age of decline and decadence, with the Pān.d.avas
preserving as much good as they could from the previous yuga. This is
rather like Tolkien's sense, in The Lord of the Rings, that great
things are passing away (like the Elves), but as much good is
preserved as possible. At the end of the Mahāyuga will be some sort of
Apocalypse, either destroying the world or renewing it in some less
catastrophic sense.

Seventy-one mahāyugas make a manvantara. This will be either 852,000
years or, with the years of the gods, 306,720,000 years. Fourteen
manvantaras make a kalpa. The kalpa, as described in the text, is thus
11,928,000 or, with the years of the gods, 4,294,080,000 years. A Day
and the Night of Brahmā, each a kalpa, are multiplied by 360 to give a
Year of Brahma (8,588,160,000 or 3,091,737,600,000 years); and 100
years of Brahmā make the Life of Brahmā (858,816,000,000 or
309,173,760,000,000 years).

The kalpa is also a basic unit of [16]Buddhist cosmology, although
there are different versions of it. Thus a Buddhist kalpa can be
15,998,000 years long, comparable to the shorter version of the Hindu
kalpa, or it can be "incalculable" in length. Eighty such kalpas make
a mahākalpa, "Great Kalpa," but even this is a fraction of the
asam.khya kalpa, which is a multiple of 10^59 kalpas (of one kind or
another). Three asam.khya kalpas are necessary for someone to become a
Buddha. This is discussed in detail by Akira Sadakata in Buddhist
Cosmology [Kōsei Publshing Co., Tokyo, 1997, pp.96-97]. The Hindu
periods are explained by A.L. Basham, in The Wonder That Was India
[Rupa & Co., Calcutta, Allahabad, Bombay, Delhi, 1954, 1967, 1981,
1989, p.323].

[17]Return to text
_________________________________________________________________

Excerpt from the Bhavis.ya Purān.a
_________________________________________________________________

This story is an example of how ordinary human beings can be morally
and spiritually superior to the gods, even the great Sectarian Gods of
Hinduism, and how the philosophical side of the Hindu tradition can
regard devotionalistic religion, and the Gods themselves, with
contempt. This is a characteristic of Indian religion, absolutely
dominant in Jainism and [18]Buddhism, but co-existing with
devotionalistic [19]theism in Hinduism. It is a characteristic of the
philosophical side of Hinduism but is also to be found in
non-philosophical literature, such as this Purān.a.

The text is based on the translation by Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty in
Hindu Myths [Penguin Books, 1975, pp.53-55]. Doniger uses it as an
example of the "Degradation of Brahmā," but all three devotionalistic
Gods are degraded in the same way.

One day, the lord Atri was practicing asceticism

i.e. fasting, meditating, etc.

on the banks of the Ganges, together with his wife Anasūyā, and he
was meditating intently upon Brahman. The eternal ones, Brahmā,
Hari

Alternative name for Vis.n.u. Another name used here for him is
Vāsudeva.

and Shambhu,

Alternative name for Shiva. Other names used for him here are Rudra
and Hara.

approached him, each mounted on his own vehicle,

The sacred animals of the Gods:  the bull Nandi for Shiva, the eagle
Garud.a for Vis.n.u, and a goose (!) for Brahmā. There is a more
dignified vehicle for Brahmā, however, the lotus. Note that the
national airline of predominately Muslim Indonesia is named "Garuda."
This is probably because much of Indonesian tourism goes to the Island
of Bali, which is still Hindu in religion.

and told him to choose a boon.

The Gods are respectful and reverential towards Atri for his spiritual
attainments. Also, the fact that all three Gods show up indicates that
this is not a Shaivite or Vais.n.avite devotionalistic document, for
in that case there would only be one God.

The sage, who was the son of the Self-created Prajāpti,

A Creator who sometimes is even identified with Brahmā.

heard their speech but did not say anything in reply, for he was
firmly immersed in the highest Self.

i.e. the ātman.

Observing his emotion, the three eternal Gods went to his wife
Anasūyā and spoke to her. Rudra himself had a linga

The linga or lingam is the sacred phallus of Shiva, usually a stone
cone found on a table that represents the yoni or female organ of his
wife Pārvatī. Here, however, what Shiva is holding may be more
personal.

in his hand; Vis.n.u was exhilarated with desire for her; Brahmā's
godhead was annulled by lust, and he was entirely in the power of
Kāma.

Pleasure, here personified as a goddess, or The Goddess (Mahādevī), to
whom there is reference later.

He said, "Grant me sexual pleasure, or I will abandon my life's
breath, for you have caused me to whirl about drunk with passion."
When Anasūyā, who was true to her vow to her husband, heard their
improper speech she did not say anything in reply, for she feared
the anger of the Gods. But the Gods, out of their minds, grabbed
her by force and prepared to rape her, for they were deluded by the
Goddess's magic power.

Then the sage's beloved and faithful wife became angry and cursed
them, saying, "You will be my sons, for you have been infatuated by
desire. The linga of the great god, the great head of Brahmā here,

Brahmā's head has faces on front, back, and sides.

and the two feet of Vāsudeva

Vis.n.u, in his fifth incarnation as the Dwarf, paced off the size of
the world in three strides, rendering his feet holy.

will always be worshipped by men, and so the supreme Gods will be
the supreme laughing-stock." When they heard this terrible speech,
they bowed to the sage's beloved wife, bent low with reverence, and
praised her with Vedic verses as recited by the gods. Then Anasūyā
said, "When you are my little sons, you will be freed from my curse
and you will be content." Then Brahmā became Candramas, Hari became
Dattātreya, and the lord Hara became incarnate as Durvāsas. And
they all became yogis in order to dispel that evil.
_________________________________________________________________

[20]History of Philosophy

[21]Home Page

Copyright (c) 1996, 1998, 2000, 2004 [22]Kelley L. Ross, Ph.D. All Rights
Reserved
_________________________________________________________________

References

1. file://localhost/www/saturnian/files/fries/gods.htm#note-1
2. http://www.friesian.com/greek.htm
3. file://localhost/www/saturnian/files/fries/gods.htm#note-2
4. file://localhost/www/saturnian/files/fries/gods.htm#note-3
5. file://localhost/www/saturnian/files/fries/gods.htm#note-4
6. file://localhost/www/saturnian/files/fries/gods.htm#gods
7. http://www.friesian.com/history.htm#india
8. http://www.friesian.com/religion.htm
9. http://www.friesian.com/#contents
10. http://www.friesian.com/ross/
11. file://localhost/www/saturnian/files/fries/gods.htm#text-1
12. file://localhost/www/saturnian/files/fries/gods.htm#text-2
13. http://www.friesian.com/spinoza.htm
14. file://localhost/www/saturnian/files/fries/gods.htm#text-2
15. http://www.friesian.com/gita.htm#bharat
16. http://www.friesian.com/buddhism.htm
17. file://localhost/www/saturnian/files/fries/gods.htm#text-4
18. http://www.friesian.com/buddhism.htm
19. file://localhost/www/saturnian/files/fries/gods.htm
20. http://www.friesian.com/history.htm#india
21. http://www.friesian.com/#contents
22. http://www.friesian.com/ross/