The Hindu Gods and God

Conventionally, Buddhism and Jainism are characterised as ‘atheistic’. We have seen how misleading such an attribute can be, since our concept ‘athe­ism’ denotes not merely the absence of a God-figure, but also a conscious rejection of anything transcendental.

We have seen that the religious status of the Vedic devas is relatively undefined. The late Vedic period more consciously and systematically pursued the quest towards some overall, single principle behind the rich array of del'd-figures. But for reasons unknown to us a dual discontinuity occurred. First, as already discussed, the renouncer traditions brought their devastating critique to bear on the whole range ofdevas. Now they are unequivocally defined as members of the natural order, beings that like ourselves move in the realm of space, time and matter. A second discontinuity occurred which has not yet attracted the same attention. What has previously been discussed as the epic-puranic traditions certainly knows of devas. But strangely enough, figures appear here about which the Vedas have either nothing, or extremely little to say (Narayana, Krsna, Rama, Visnu, Siva). The central devas of the Vedas, that is Agni, Soma, Indra, do not appear at all, or in an insignificant role (Indra). Glimpses of local folk religion, which the Buddhist and Jain canonical literature offers us, point at a god figure Brahma. As to the religious status of these epic-puranic devas, the contexts in which we hear about them is in most cases so unspecific that we cannot comment on this. Yet in certain instances the evidence suggests beyond any doubt that something novel has happened: the concept of a single, all-powerful, eternal, personal and loving God has emerged. This is the concept of‘Bhagavan’. And to the extent that secondary implications of the Christian concept of‘God’ can be ignored (e.g. creation out of nothing), it is indeed appropriate to translate Bhagavan with ‘God’, without giving rise to too many confusions.

But who is this Hindu Bhagavan? At least to us as the outside observers he is not one, but many. Siva, Visrju, Krsna, Rama, Karttikeya and Ganesa may be mentioned as the most important Bhagavan- figures. But to speak of many Bhagavans has nothing to do with ‘polythe­ism’, for in terms of Indian society, different groups of people have their one and only Bhagavan. That means, the concept itself is an empty slot, to be filled by concrete characteristics which then make up a specific Bhagavan- figure who serves as (the one and only) God to a given group of people. To describe this with any precision would require the methods of sociology, and not of theology. Theologically speaking, there cannot be anything over and above Bhagavan. Sociologically speaking, a society—particularly as vari­egated as India—can know of many such figures.

It would be extremely interesting to know the answers to two interrelated historical questions: how did the concept of Bha­gavan arise, and what are the sources from which the concrete characterisa­tions were derived? Unfortunately, our known textual documents do not offer us much information on this. The two crucial texts that so far have come to our attention suggest somewhat different answers, and that really only about our second question. The Svetds'vatara-Upanisad and the Bhagavadgita are the seminal expressions of true monotheism in India. The latter intro­duces us to a Bhagavan-figure, Krsna, totally unknown in earlier, Vedic literature. Thus both the concept and its visualisation in specific form make a sudden, inexplicable appearance. The Svetdsvatara-Upani$ad, on the other hand, draws very heavily on those Vedic hymns in which a deva Rudra is addressed. This Rudra is called ‘siva’, which means ‘benevolent’, and this attribute was subsequently used increasingly as this Bhagavan’s proper name. But even if we allowed for a direct continuity between the Vedic deva Rudra and Bhagavan Siva, no such conceptual continuity for the concept of ‘Bhagavan’ itself can be derived from this.

A considerable amount of scholarship has concerned itself with the problem of the historical continuity between the Vedas and subsequent religion. This has obscured another process, of equal importance: the artificial recourse to Vedic material at a much later date. A well-known textual example is the famous Bhdgavata-Purana (ninth or early tenth century ce). Its language is not the Sanskrit of the other Epics and Puranas, but an artificial recreation of the Vedic (namely pre-classical Sanskrit) language. Here is a work that by sounding Vedic claims to be Vedic in its teaching. This recourse to the Vedas for the purpose of legitimisation is already apparent in the case of the Bhagavadgita. The text itself throws out many references back to Vedic ideas and figures, including a very minor one to the Vedic deva Visnu. Since the rest o£the Mahabharata, an ocean in which the Bhagavadgita is no more than a tiny drop, focuses on Visnu, amongst other things as a Bhagavan-figure, subsequent ages sought to identify this Visnu with Krsna. It is at least possible to ask whether in the case of the Svetdsvatara-Upanisad such a process also underlies (some of) the seeming Vedic continuity.

This is clearly an extremely important aspect of the Hindu traditions, and throws considerable light on the role the Vedas have played in their history. But it must not obscure another important process: the constant recourse to folk-religious (and even tribal) material. In a sense it is precisely because the Hindu traditions were constantly involved in drawing on non-Vedic sources, that the need for Vedic legitimisation arose. We have already encountered one illustration of this process, the Harivamsa. Krsna plays an extremely important role in the whole of the Mahabharata as a prince and primary initiator of action, and naturally as Bhagavan in the Bhagavad­gita.

Another well-known illustration is the figure of Skanda. When we consult the earlier standard Sanskrit texts, we are told that Skanda is the son of Siva and his wife Parvati. Siva was known to be such a dedicated ascetic that a demon ventured to ask that his death be at the hands of Siva's son. Somehow the devas, with the primary help of Parvati, managed to have Siva break his ascetic vows and procreate a son, Skanda or Karttikeya. As initially totally separate from all this we find in the ancient Tamil-speaking south a god Murukan: handsome, vigorous, fighting demons and wooing girls. This Murukan now became identified with Skanda, and the two mythologies fused to a new, composite whole.

A third illustration is less well known and modem, so that we can still observe the actual process at work. In Maharastra we find a regional god, Khandoba. Evidence suggests that we are dealing here with an originally autonomous god-figure belonging to a regional and independent religious system. But when the evidence we possess about the iconography, mythology and devotion associated with Khandoba is projected on to the time-scale, we notice that this god is increasingly brought into the proximity of Siva and turned into a secondary manifestation of him. Yet this process is by no means complete even today.

A final example takes us back to Rama, the hero of the Rdmdyana. Already in south India during the first millennium ce, this prince ofa ‘secular’ epic began to enjoy a directly religious attention (particu­larly through his association with Visnu, for which see below). But it was in north India, during the later sixteenth century, that a cult of Rama as Bhagavan found its textual expression in the Rdmcaritmdnas of Tulsidas.

These four examples are no more than illustrations of a process that has been taking place on a very large scale. Naturally it was broken up into innumerable smaller events, in different regions and different social milieux. Moreover, this process of‘integration’ also involved modes in which man related to these Bhagavan-figures.

Earlier epic-puranic and even Vedic devas are still relatively few in number. The number of deva -figures known in tribal, folk and regional religions, all over the vast expanse of the Indian sub-continent, is practically unlimited. Such a range is staggering not just for us as the outside observers, but has always been so for the more observant Indian. It has been rather underestimated as to what extent Indian reflection itself has been at work to bring some order into, and to conceptualise, this complex situation. Some examples may illustrate this.

The approximation of Krsna and Visnu in the Mahabharata has been mentioned above. One particular way of envisaging this relationship proved extremely useful and prolific. This is the concept of the ‘avatara’. It denotes a ‘descent’ of Visnu into the realm of space, time and matter, entirely due to his own free will (and not, for example, due to the laws of karma), and involves on the whole a full life cycle, from (normal) conception and birth to (natural) death. Historically (and that means around the beginning of the first millennium ce) the first avatara thus to be envisaged was Krsna. But soon it was felt that a number of other figures of religious importance could be accommodated successfully too. The history of this incorporation is complex and certainly not monolinear, nor did it ever achieve a final completion. Thus when conventionally ten such avatdras of Visnu are mentioned, it can be regarded as no more than one, particularly successful, schema. As such it deserves a few more comments. The obvious point to note here is the plurality of such avatdras. We are not dealing with a single, unique event in the history of the cosmos when God incarnates himself on earth; he does so time and again. Secondly, many of these avatdras are not recognisably human (like the Fish, Turtle, Boar, Man-Lion). Then we notice an attempt to structure the pattern of the ten in a kind of ‘evolu­tionary’ manner: from the ocean (Fish) we gradually move to the dry land (even the Boar still jumps into the ocean). Then the movement is from not-yet-human (Man-Lion, Dwarf) to fully human (Krsna, Rama, Parasu- or Bala-Rama). Finally, with Kalki, we reach the end of time, or better, of a cosmic cycle. That this pattern is intended as a means of integrating existing religious cults is made clear not just from the fact that many of the myths told about the Boar or the Turtle are actually fully fledged creation myths, but also that in some versions the Buddha appears as an avatdra.

The so-called Hindu Trinity is a further illustration. Certainly, through reference to Visnu and Siva, a religious system could not just differentiate itself from the systems in which Visnu or Siva was Bhaga­van, but also impose itself on to them, at least claiming, if not always succeeding in this claim, that it is their fulfilment. Better known cases are religions in which Rama or Krsna or the Goddess (on whom see below), or even Rudra, appear as the single, ultimate Bhagavan over and above the three devas of the ‘Trinity’. To apply to such cases what has been learnt about the relationship between Siva and Rudra, or Visnu and Krsna, for other contexts makes no sense, since those relationships have never been defined with universal relevance.

Perhaps because it had, historically, a ‘Visnuite’ flavour, the concept of avatdra was used rather hesitantly by non-Visnuite religious traditions. Yet we find many illustrations of a wider appeal, particu­larly in vernacular contexts which are less concerned with such subtleties. Here, for example, Khandoba may be seen as an avatdra of Siva, or various goddess-figures as avatdras of the Goddess.

Another mode of bringing some order into the vast array of available gods reminds us of the way the ancient Greek organised their pantheon, namely through family relationships. This approach is thoroughly puranic, which means that it merely served as a method and not a pattern which could claim pan-Indian relevance. A particularly charming example is that of the south Indian popular god-figure Aiyappan. Here in the south the worshippers of Visnu and Siva socially constitute a particularly strongly demarcated binary opposition. To link Aiyappan with either Siva or Visnu would have meant a definite decision in favour of one side or the other. So the following ingenious solution was proposed: he is the son of both Siva and Visnu! The story takes us back to the time when the devas and theasuras (demons) had churned the milk-ocean and recovered the drink of immortal­ity. The devas felt loath to let the asuras have their legitimate share, and Visnu changed himself into an extremely attractive woman, to entice the asuras and take the nectar from them. Somehow Siva was unaware of this, and when he saw the transformed Visnu, he lusted after her.

How is all this perceived through the eyes of an individual member of Indian society? The conceptual distinction between deva and Bhagavan is less useful than it appears at first sight. For in most cases a particular Bhagavan-figure may look the same as a deva. By ‘looking the same’ is meant here: possessing the same external characteristics (including name) and having the same or very similar stories told about his mythical deeds. From this follows that the individual (or, in practice, far more often, the group to which he belongs, and this more frequently by birth than choice) makes a decision as to how to regard such a figure. To take Visnu as an example: Visnu could thus be the Bhagavan for some people, a minor manifestation of Siva for others, a godling for a third group, possibly an evil demonic being for a fourth and Isvara (the personal, but ultimately illusory, creator) for a fifth. But this does not mean that every single religious indi­vidual in India ends up with a Bhagavan. As we have seen already it is quite possible to be religious and not be theistic.

There is another complication here. An individual may belong to a given religious system which in terms of its own normative premisses cannot acknowledge a given figure to be Bhagavan. Yet when looking into the religious life of that individual, it might well be possible that it differs from what the norm says. Sometimes this is conceptualised in the idea that every Hindu has his own ‘i$fa-devatd’, his personally chosen deity. There may be a kernel of truth in this, to the extent that we do find a fair amount of flexibility in some milieux. But on the whole there are consider­able constraints at work as to the range of such choices. One such constraint is implicitly ideological. It has been mentioned that traditional Hinduism evolved its own ways of ordering the vast mass of god-figures available in society. Both here and when it comes to making a decision as to whether or not a given figure is Bhagavan, by no means everything available is perceived to be on an equal level. One can isolate a whole scale of values, according to which devas are judged. Any kind of Vedic association would be most prestigious, and below that, a role in the Epics and earlier Puranas. Figures outside this range acquire respectability only by subterfuge, that means, as illustrated above, by becoming ‘identified’ with Vedic or puranic gods, or acquiring a, naturally relatively late, Sanskrit Purana that deals with them. Otherwise, such deities will be regarded as socially ‘low’ by the Hindu ‘mainstream’. ‘Tell me who your deva is and I will tell you who you are’ could well paraphrase the situation.

How all this comes to life in the devotion and actual ‘ religion’ of real people will be shown in the following section.Yet surprising though it may seem, a major chunk of material relevant under the present heading has not yet been discussed. This concerns the divine in feminine form.

The more observant reader will have noticed that on the whole the devas and Bhagavan figures discussed are male. Whilst from the viewpoint of the Semitic traditions this may not appear remarkable, from the point of view of the Indian religions this would be only half the story. The devis and Bhagavan, the corresponding feminine forms of devas and Bhaga­van, still require discussion. For two reasons, this material is mentioned only at this stage. First, there is the state of scholarship which till very recently has ignored this type of religion. But, secondly, that itself is actually due to the way the divine feminine was perceived in India. For on the whole, religion involving devis or Bhagavan is not quite the same as the types knowing devas or Bhagavan. The difference is basically social and ideological. That means dept-religion must be envisaged as belonging to a ‘lower’ stratum of society, although, as we shall see, occasional inroads were indeed made into the ‘mainstream’.

The middle of the first millennium ce marks the culmination and end of what could be called ‘classical’ Hinduism. Yet import­ant new phenomena now begin to make their appearance in Sanskrit literary works. For a variety of reasons it looks plausible that we are not dealing here with ‘new’ phenomena as such, but with facets of the religious heritage which due to social and political upheaval succeeded in attracting the attention of literati. One such facet (on another, see the section on the esoteric traditions) is the emergence of a novel, and in various ways revolutionary, concept of a personal absolute deity: God as woman.

The crucial text is the Devimdhdtmya, ‘the glori­fication of the Goddess’. This short work, ofc. 550 couplets, found its way into one of the oldest Puranas, the Mdrkandeya-Purdtia, and this position secured its preservation and popularity. The nature of this Goddess is demon­strated here through three stories, which were taken up by later writers in endless variations and transformations and which also found visual expres­sion in a large number of sculptures. In the first of these, an older creation myth about Visnu has been transformed to show that the Goddess allows for Visnu to create the world, for Brahma to reveal the Vedas, and for all demonic obstacles to be removed. The remaining two myths refer to two instances when demons have ousted the devas. They are unable to fight their enemies, and it is the Goddess (variously called Ambika, Candika, Durga, Gauri) and various gruesome secondary manifestations of her (such as Kali and Camunda) who by their supreme power demonstrate what puny god- lings they are. The second story involves a demon in the shape of a water­buffalo (Mahisa), whose slaughter by the Goddess has been a particularly favourite theme in Indian art. The third myth tells us about two demon brothers, Sumbha and Nisumbha, the former of whom was passionately in love with the Goddess, but suffered cruel death through her because of his arrogant advances. On all three occasions, the text makes it clear that we are dealing with earthly manifestations of an eternal, immanent and transcendent

The Classical Religions of India deity, to be venerated and lauded by all beings on earth. And indeed various hymns are sung by the (male) gods, to ask her for help or to sing her praise after her victories.

A surprising number of prominent post-Gupta Sanskrit court poets produced poetic masterpieces in honour of the Goddess. Mention may be made here of two of them, Bana (who composed the Candlsataka, in the seventh century) and Anandavardhana (who wrote the Devisataka in Kashmir, in the ninth century). Bana fuses in his poem the mythical incident of the Goddess thrusting her foot down on Mahisa’s head with an amorous situation found in conventional Sanskrit court poetry: the lover attempting to placate his beloved who is furious at some unfaithfulness of his. Through this ingenious device the whole becomes transparent for the human situation generally, in which earthly happiness and liberation from samsara are found through submission to the Goddess, ritually expressed through placing one’s head on her feet. By this logic, the demon Mahisa also found his salvation! Similarly Anandavardhana envisages the Goddess, ulti­mately, as the apex of wisdom, mental clarity and Vedic revelation—nothing here about the theory that the feminine equals unreflecting nature! Every facet of Hindu religion is in one way or other connected here with the Goddess as its ultimate rationale and motivation.

Documents from later periods reveal to us that the triumph of the Goddess, as celebrated in the above mentioned myths and texts, had its parallel in the religious history of India, or at least, certain regions. In north-eastern India in particular, during the earlier part of the second millennium, a whole range of new Puranas was produced which promulgated a religion of the Goddess as infinitely superior to the traditional male gods. On the whole, no new myths evolved; instead, the vast classical repertoire was reinterpreted, in order to make transparent the final agent in them. Wherever we find greed, delusion, ignorance, violence and wherever we encounter goodness, search for truth and salvation, these are instances where the presence of the Goddess can be felt. We are dealing here with a grandiose and daring attempt to encompass everything that is an object of human experience, with all its contradictions and dynamics, within the ultimate ground of being, the Goddess. The instincts as much as the desire for more controlled and conscious actions, cruelty and kindness, which any­body can easily identify within himself, along with the variegated nature of the external reality—famine and rich harvest, poverty and affluence, war and peace, illness and health—all this derives from, and converges in, the Goddess. The final culmination of this vision was reached in Ram- prasad Sen (1718-75), a poet who composed in the vernacular Bengali moving songs of altercation and submission, accusation and devotion addressed to the Goddess (variously called Kali, Durga, etc.). In turn, Ramprasad inspired a whole crowd of later poets to continue the genre he had created.

Two important questions deserve closer attention: how can we explain the rise of this religion of the Goddess, and what reactions did it provoke in other circles?

In a general way it seems possible to reflect on the historicity of religious symbols and their social concatenation. Given the major upheaval caused by the collapse of the Gupta empire, it could be argued that this external disintegration of a dominant culture allowed religious symbols—already perceived as far more significant and comprehensive in relation to the concrete human situation—to emerge from subcultures which could now replace symbols which had become outdated, elitist and too limited in their range of application. This general reflection can be linked with a more specific one. The study of rural, village, or folk religion (however one may want to style it), reveals that in these milieux cults ofdevis, ‘goddesses’, are widespread, if not to say, dominant. Moreover, it is possible to recon­struct regional cults which at one time may well have centred around autono­mous Goddesses. The figures of Manasa (in north-east India) and Yellamma (in the Deccan) are candidates for this. To the extent that it is possible to extrapolate from this relatively recent evidence, we may infer that already in works like the Devimdhdtmya popular religion has found literary expression, within the genre and the conventions of hallowed tradition. In a typically Indian fashion, such regional figures are integrated by subsuming them, as her ‘manifestations’, in the great Goddess.

Less speculative is the question of the reaction pro­voked. Here a well-known contrast between ‘grassroot’ and elite refigion and religious value-systems can be perceived to apply. Thus much more typical of the puranic attitude is the dominant role of the male devas or of Bhagavan, who acquiredevis as their wives. In that subordinate role, such adept may be associated with some activity secondary to his divine nature. She may then be called his sakti, ‘power’, ‘Saktism’ is the term used in the Indian conceptual­isation of Goddess-religion (and it has been adopted uncritically by Western scholars). It should be clear from what has been said above that such a concept does not accurately describe the nature of Bhagavati.