Hinduism is Monotheistic!

[Protector]

Chandogya Upanishad 6:2:1 says, "He is one only without a second."
Svetasvatara Upanishad 6:9 says, "Oh him there are neither parents or lord"
Svetasvatara Upanishad 4:19 says, "there is no likeness of him"
Yajurveda 32:3 says, "There is no image of him"
Yajurveda 40:8 says, "He is bodyless and pure"
Yajurveda 40:9 says, "They enter darkness, those who worship the natural elements" (Air, Water, Fire, etc.). "They sink deeper in darkness, those who worship sambhuti."
Sambhuti means created things like a table, idol, etc.
Rigveda 1:164:46 says, "Sages (learned Priests) call ONE God by many names."
Yajurveda 32:3 says, "There is no image of him"
Rigveda 8:1:! says, "O friends, do not worship ANYBODY BUT HIM, the divine one, praise him ALONE"
The Brahma Sutra of Hinduism is
"There is only one God, not the second; not at ALL, NOT AT ALL, not in the least bit"

So...Hinduism says only one God!

 

[Sunstone]

Hinduism is many things. Some elements of Hinduism are monotheistic. Some are not. It is mistaken to try to shoe horn all Hinduism into monotheism.

 

[Wandered Off]

The "one God, many faces" is distinctly Hindu. It is a strength of their faith because it fosters tolerance of other faiths, which is sadly lacking from the exclusivist beliefs.

 

[Protector]

But the books of Hinduism says there are NO images of God...

 

[Willamena]

But the books of Hinduism says there are NO images of God...

Does it rather say "God is without image," or something to that effect? That has a slightly different slant than what you claimed, and would, in my opinion, be true.

 

[ChristineES]

I was always told that Hinduism was poly-theistic, but I found out that they were a form of Pantheism. I am still not too sure what they believe because also learned that their "main" God (for lack of a better term) was Brahman- One God with three parts.
Frankly, I am still confused about all of this. I say nothing about it because of that fact.

 

[Don Penguinoini]

Hinduism is polytheistic, monothestic, its want you want it to be.

They are guidelines, hinduism offers flexibility, unlike islam...do this or suffer forever. It says, do this, in whatever way is comfartable fore you.

 

[Don Penguinoini]

There is Parmatma, it becomes Ishwar, the holy trinity, and the ishwar take avatars on earth to restore the good/bad balance of our land.

 

[Popeyesays]

Hinduism is many things. Some elements of Hinduism are monotheistic. Some are not. It is mistaken to try to shoe horn all Hinduism into monotheism.

Not some elements of Hinduism, but rather some Hindus are monotheistic. Most, in all honesty.

Scripturally, it is obvious that Krshna's teachings are monotheistic.

Regards,
Scott

 

[Valjean]

Hinduism is polytheistic, monotheistic and atheistic, depending on what level you're looking at and how you define things.
Hinduism is a philosophy of different levels of reality/perception. At some levels one perceives gods, at another, God. Ultimately one perceives only Unity-without-qualities.

 

[Gary Sheldrake]

While I would agree that Hinduism is monotheistic, I would offer that it is also pantheistic, wherein there is one God who is the inmost self of all beings. So while, there may be many gods in Hinduism, they are simply permutations of the one god like anything else is a permutation of the one God.

 

[paarsurrey]

Yes, in the origin Hinduism is monotheist.
Regards

 

[Servant_of_the_One1]

So Hinduism is a house where monotheistic thoughts/religions and polytheistic religions/thoughts lives??

 

[SomeRandom]

So Hinduism is a house where monotheistic thoughts/religions and polytheistic religions/thoughts lives??

Yeah more or less

 

[Desert Snake]

So Hinduism is a house where monotheistic thoughts/religions and polytheistic religions/thoughts lives??

These ideas essentially oppose each other, in real theology. Monotheism has to be believed in a framework that prohibits the worship of other deities, hence, they cannot be ''in the same house'', in reality. There are groups of people in the Indic paradigm who are monotheists, and some are polytheists. These are not the same religion.

 

[SomeRandom]

These ideas essentially oppose each other, in real theology. Monotheism has to be believed in a framework that prohibits the worship of other deities, hence, they cannot be ''in the same house'', in reality. There are groups of people in the Indic paradigm who are monotheists, and some are polytheists. These are not the same religion.

Why?

In Hinduism if one believes in God then there is a prevent belief that there exists one God alone but that God being outside of human comprehension cannot be named cannot be given a shape and cannot be truly fathomable. Thus to mortals appears in a form that can be comprehended by humans. And can appear in many different forms because there are many different types of people.
There is the godhead in Hinduism and the rest are incarnations of that same godhead not separate deities in and of themselves. Those with polytheistic proclivities include other pantheons in that interpretation. So there are actually monotheistic Hindus who also hold somewhat polytheistic beliefs.

Of course not all Hindus approach belief in God this way (if they believe in God at all, not all do.)
I have found that Hindus more or less do their own thing without much concern for what is "proper" so to speak.

 

[Valjean]

Wasn't "Hinduism" invented by the British raj as a convenient catch-all for the dozens of cultures and traditions they encountered on the sub continent?
I don't think Hinduism has ever been a discrete or homogenous religion. There are pantheistic, panentheistic, polytheistic, henotheistic, monotheistic and atheistic 'Hindus.' To confuse matters further there is the tradition of levels of reality, wherein what's true at one level of consciousness is untrue at another, so a given apologist can argue both polytheism or monotheism, depending on the level of reality being addressed.

 

[Riverwolf]

Wasn't "Hinduism" invented by the British raj as a convenient catch-all for the dozens of cultures and traditions they encountered on the sub continent?
I don't think Hinduism has ever been a discrete or homogenous religion. There are pantheistic, panentheistic, polytheistic, henotheistic, monotheistic and atheistic 'Hindus.' To confuse matters further there is the tradition of levels of reality, wherein what's true at one level of consciousness is untrue at another, so a given apologist can argue both polytheism or monotheism, depending on the level of reality being addressed.

Pretty much that.

Hinduism isn't any one single type of theism, because it's not really a single religion in the first place. One thing that really stands out in hindsight is that none of them can really be viewed accurately when using Abrahamic religions as the standard for comparison.

 

[Satyamavejayanti]

"Valjean, post: 4374368, member: 57767"]Wasn't "Hinduism" invented by the British raj as a convenient catch-all for the dozens of cultures and traditions they encountered on the sub continent?

Namaste,

Not really, I think they appropriated a older label (originally from the Mughals, i think the word was Indu??) for the "Astikas", differentiating them from the "Nastikas", which Indian philosophy was already doing on its own, then termed it "Hinduism",. But the tradition/religion/culture/philosophy that contemporary Hinduism represents is a continuation of the Astika systems.

I don't think Hinduism has ever been a discrete or homogenous religion. There are pantheistic, panentheistic, polytheistic, henotheistic, monotheistic and atheistic 'Hindus.' To confuse matters further there is the tradition of levels of reality, wherein what's true at one level of consciousness is untrue at another, so a given apologist can argue both polytheism or monotheism, depending on the level of reality being addressed.

Maybe, but remember all this "ism" and "istic" adages came later, much later in the History of what we call Hinduism today.

Dhanyavad.

 

[paarsurrey]

Hinduism is Monotheistic!

"Absolute monists see one unity, with all personal forms of God as different aspects of one Supreme Being, like a single beam of light separated into colors by a prism."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_views_on_monotheism
Regards