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        ONE AND MANY GODS OF HINDUISM    

What is a god for a Hindu?  What does the film demonstrate about the way Hindus perceive their deities?  

        Hindu reality thrives on its many gods and goddesses.  With the boundaries between eastern and western civilization coming closer and closer together, the representatives of various nations have been making generally well-intentioned attempts to arrive at the better comprehension of this phenomenon.  Ronald Eyre, the author of the movie “330 Million Gods” has offered his viewers his understanding of the Indian pantheon.  However, his study of the gods turned in this movie into the pursuit of one God with gods emerging “merely” as Its (?) phenomenal aspects.  This essay will argue that while it is true that the gods of Indian mythology represent the manifestations of One Supreme Being, there appear several other dimensions of considering them that Eyre chose not to acknowledge.  Hindus may view gods as universal cosmic forces or aspects of Nature.  Gods may belong to the hierarchy of factual spiritual beings inhabiting higher or lower realms.  A more advanced Hindu Yogic might refer to the essence of gods as the element of his or her own inner psyche.  Finally, gods find their still different expression in villages where they have not much in common with the higher forces of the cosmos at all.  Eyre did not present Indian gods through any of these perspectives but mainly through the attempt to centralize the Indian pantheon and bring it into One Supreme Reality.  True as it might be, it does not, nevertheless, represent a sufficient approach.

        Firstly, Hindus perceive their gods as the agents, symbols, or representations of the transcendental reality.  Like many religions, Hindu spirituality presupposes the existence of the divine realm beyond the sphere of the physical senses and human knowledge.  This Divinity, Danielou states, “cannot be grasped nor understood, for it begins where understanding fails, yet it can be approached from many sides,…, through a “near approach”, and Upa-nisad.” [1]   In this sense, gods represent, what Eyre attempts to ascertain, different approaches through which the Transcendent Reality is reached.

        Hindus refer to this form of transcendence as Brahman.  It is One and Supreme essence, ungraspable and beyond any description, non-dual, shapeless and formless, the realm of absolute stillness, the source and the sustainer of all that exists.  According to Hindu mythology, at the beginning Brahman has manifested Consciousness (Ishvara), with both female and male aspects, and Cosmic Energy (Sakti).  From Ishvara outward there came into existence Brahma-creator, Visnu-preserver, and Siva-destroyer, [2] three main Hindu deities worshipped through a large number of forms.  In this sense Hindus view their respective gods as manifestations of One Supreme   Reality, Brahman.  It is mainly this facet of the Hindu religion that Eyre stressed and brought to his viewers’ attention.

        To Eyre’s merit, it must be stated that gods do indeed generally represent to Hindus phenomenal forms of one spiritual reality and he succeeded in expressing this point well.  A mortal mind is incapable of grasping the infinite sphere of the unreachable Beyond, the ultimate Brahman.  Hence, it attempts to access it through the infinite and ever changing number of forms that Brahman can assume.  As Upanisad sage declared, “the gods…number three hundred and three, and three thousand and three…The gods are six, the gods are three,…, the gods are one and a half, and the gods are one.” [3]   Danielou goes as far as to state that “the more insights we can get, the more aspects of the Divine we can perceive.” [4]   Truly, Hindus find it difficult to love and worship Brahman, a formless substance with no beginning and end but through the manifestations, names, images, utterances, gestures, and symbols that It can express Its magnificence.  Paradoxically, the Supreme One rarely receives any direct worship although every Hindu strives to finally merge with it. [5]

        However, as a Hindu writer himself clarifies, all Hindus including the most common ones are taught that, despite their diversity, personal gods serve merely as a “halfway house” on the path to the Divine Reality. [6]   Old Rigveda mantras expressed this idea: “They call Him Indra, Mitra, Varuna, Agni, and even…Garuda.  The One Reality, the learned speak of in many ways”. [7]   Hindu poets, Bharati among others, inspirationally wrote about One Brahman as well. [8]   Gods do indeed represent to Hindus aspects of One Supreme Reality and Eyre pointed it out correctly. 

        Nevertheless, this form of approach to the phenomenon of the Hindu pantheon does not exhaust all the potential ways in which this subject could be investigated.  Eyre did not choose to venture into other dimensions of what Hindu gods might represent. This created the impression that the sole reason of his Indian exploration was to establish some form of connection with what he himself as the representative of the western culture understands by the term God, which is One Supreme Being.

        As stated above, there emerge several other ways to perceive the nature of Hindu gods.  None of them really deny the consideration of gods as aspects of One Divinity.  However, a different angle of the phenomenon of gods is in this way brought out; an angle not stressed enough or at all by Eyre. 

        First of all, Hindus may perceive their gods as cosmic principles or forces of Nature, a Goddess itself.  Siva symbolizes a great power of destruction and recreation, and Visnu stands for the universal energy of preservation as well as salvation [9] permeating the entire creation.  Gods’ essence, Hindus believe, resides in all the elements of the phenomenal world.  The whole human existence participates in one great “cosmic symphony.” [10]   Hence, all life is perceived as one sacred ritual where all aspects of the physical reality cooperate harmoniously with the spiritual one.  Hindus worship animals, birds, trees, stones, mountains, and rivers, [11] all as carriers of the gods’ force.

       Secondly, gods could be “simply” perceived as the factual inhabitants of the spiritual realms.  A large amount of esoteric information circulates throughout India that points to the fact of the actual existence of the variety of superhuman dimensions, or spiritual planes.  According to the Vedic mythology, all beings exist within three worlds: Earth occupied by humans, Space inhabited by spirits, and Sky as a residence of deities.  The gods represent the entities that rule each of these spheres and they generally number in thirty-three. [12]   The more modern than Vedas Theosophical Society, related substantially to the Indian land, offers similar beliefs in the factual existence of the supernatural beings.  Much as it is doubtful that a common Hindu possesses the awareness of the advanced metaphysical knowledge of the occult teachings, a great number of Hindus might nevertheless believe that gods, up “in the sky” do actually exist.  To acknowledge this in the movie, however, would obviously undermine Eyre’s goal to present the Hindu pantheon as a manifestation of One Supreme Being.

Furthermore, some Hindus and non-Hindus interpret gods as the inner elements of the human mind, or aspects of one Supreme Self. [13]   As Danielou put it, “our perception of an external world is but a projection of our inner world.  Hence the whole pantheon is also a picture of man’s inner life.” [14]   Obviously, average Hindu worshippers probably do not express much awareness of this fact.  However, more advanced spiritually Hindus believe that the gods reside within them as so-called “Inner Controllers” [15] and that the human essential self and gods are ultimately one. [16]   Needless to say, this form of approach did not find its realization in Eyre’s movie either.

Finally, gods take on a quite different character in small villages of the rural India.  In the south of India, 80% of Hindus relate to their local deities, grama-devatas, [17] not as to the forces of the universe but simply as to the facets of their everyday life.  Gods simply participate in villagers’ life sustaining them with health, weather, and food. [18]   The rural Hindus do not offer them adoration, or love that Siva or Visnu would otherwise receive.  Locally, it is rather a religion of fear.  Villagers do not resort to their deities until calamities strike and even then the communication consists in averting the gods’ wrath and not in offering them any kind of worship. [19]   When life goes well, Hindu say, “let sleeping dogs lie” expressing that it seems safer to leave gods alone. [20]   Since, as stated above, as much as 80% of the rural south India perceives their gods this way, it should have been relevant to mention this form of gods’ character in the movie.

From this brief study of the Indian pantheon, the relationship that Hindus establish with their gods appears multidimensional.  Gods may assume a variety of roles and change their character.  Naturally, considering from a single perspective they do represent manifestations of One Supreme Reality.  However, as illustrated above, they can be viewed from a number of various angles.  Ronald Eyre, on the contrary, set out to penetrate the Hindu reality with the already made up mind about gods as “pointers” to One God.  The scene where the tourist guide, M. K. Sharma, reveals that all “fingers point to one place”, the image of throwing the statue of a goddess into the pond as if to confirm the author’s idea of “disposability” and inferiority of lesser than Brahman (=lesser than western God) gods, the Mahatma’s illustration of God as a powerhouse with gods as bulbs, the author’s suggestion to replace the term “gods” with “saints”, his determination to stick to the suit and the tie style as if refusing to adapt to the loose clothing fashion of all those around him, etc., all give the impression that the core theme of the movie was a desperate pursuit of the common link not, as Eyre claimed, behind the Hindu spirituality, but between the Indian and Western civilizations themselves.  After all, there would be not much wrong with this kind of approach if Eyre acknowledged it.  He chose not to admit that, however, and this makes the movie lose its authenticity, objectivity, and the open, unbiased flavour.   

Bibliography:

G. Bailey, The Mythology of Brahma, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1938

Ed. by Basu, B. D., The Sacred Books of the Hindus; A Catechism of Hindu Dharma, Sudhindra Natha Vasu, Allahabad, 1919

Ed. by Basu, B. D., The Sacred Books of the Hindus; Devata, The Panini Office, Allahabad, 1917

Brockington, J. L., The Sacred Thread; Hinduism in its Continuity and Diversity, University Press, Edinburgh, 1996

Danielou, A., Hindu Polytheism, Pantheon Books, New York, 1964

Haigh, H., Some Leading Ideas of Hinduism, Charles H. Kelly, London, 1903    

Ed. by Hinnells, J. R. and Sharpe, E. J., Hinduism, Oriel Press, Newcastle, 1927

Hopkins, T. J., The Hindu Religious Tradition, Dickenson Publishing Company, Inc., Encino, 1971

Knipe, D. M., Hinduism, HarperSanFransisco, New York, 1991

Martin, E. O., The Gods of India; Their History, Character & Worship, Indological Book House, Delhi, 1972

Ed. by Morgan, K. W., The Religion of the Hindus; Interpreted by Hindus, The Ronald Press Company, New York, 1953

Sebastian, J., God as Feminine; A Dialogue, Peter Lang, Frankfurt, 1995

Thomas, P., Hindu Religion , Customs and Manners, D. B. Taraporevala Sons & Co. Private Ltd., Bombay, 1956

Whitehead, H., The Village Gods of South India, Sumit Publications, Delhi, 1976

Media sources:

“330 Million Gods”, ABC, Sydney, 1992

Internet sources:

        Hindu Universe, http://www.hindunet.org/god/outline/index.htm,

      HinduNet Inc., 1994-2003, (accessed 12 October 20040