This goes here, since the subtitle to the thread is called "theories".
[a] There seem to be a lot of articles by one Vijaya Rajiva and possibly others on (1) "Hinduism being Polytheism onlee" and (2) "not monotheism at all".
(2) is absolutely true, both because Hindus most certainly have more than 1 "god" and because there most certainly exist multiple Gods in the world even if you don't count a single one of the Hindu Gods in the list. (E.g. there's several millions of Shinto Kamis just in Japan.)
However, claiming polytheism is a problem in itself.
Hindus don't understand words used in English. But European reconstructionists - who consider themselves "pagans" or something - will tell you that Hindus, while certainly not monotheists, are NOT polytheists either. They call Hindus soft-polytheists. And they will say this as if it's an insult, or that you are some lesser species of heathen.
Despite it being used connotatively - the way christians derided Hindus etc as "polytheists" - the "soft polytheism" accusation is true: because the reconstructionists' definition appears to be that Hindoos' Gods can (as they do) join as multiGods-in-n-forms, which is something the neo-pagans/reconstructionists (or whatever they call themselves) insist their Gods do not do.
It's a fact that Hindu Gods do come in forms where two or or more Gods appear in one manifestations. These are ALSO the natural/own forms of these Hindu Gods. E.g. Ardhanaareeshwara (Shiva and Shakti in one) and Indraagni who is one of the Nakshatra Devas (well, in TN/thereabouts at least) who is considered literally a combination of Indra and Agni in the region, etc. Indeed, even any one of Hindus' pan-Hindu Gods can be seen as vouching for the presence of all the Gods.
So we're not really polytheists, because Polytheists - the vocalists who have already reserved the word for themselves - insist that the true polytheism is "hard polytheism": one that does not know of nor allow for merged Gods. But Hindus cannot help that their Gods do merge in various forms, even into entire vishvaroopas (different Hindu Gods display vishvaroopas).
Ironically, while European reconstructionists playing at being heathens today choose to belittle the Hindus as being nothing more than "soft polytheists" and are fortunately avoiding association, one notes that other arch-heathens who still exist in unbroken and unsubverted heathen succession are JUST what we are, whatever it is we are. I'll mention only the Daoists as the example here.
There you have it: traditional Daoists AND Hindus are "soft polytheists onleeeeee and hence not serious polytheists at all", not fit to be counted among the high-handed hard-polytheists.
But let's put the question the way it should be asked: would Hindoos rather have the company of such other arch-heathens like Daoists whose traditionalists since ancient times still see their Gods too, or would Hindoos rather be in the company of the "reconstructionists"?
Repeat: Hindus are NOT monopolytheists.
Hindus are closest to that which the reconstructionists accuse them of: "soft polytheists".
Hindus have Many (very real) Gods, who are all of that undivided nature of the Hindu Divine (of which it is said all the Kosmos partakes)*. Yet some forms of our Gods exist eternally in multi-form manifestation. Ardhanareeshwara is an eternal manifestation, just as Shiva and his wife Uma are eternal manifestations in their own right of the very same Gods who also manifest as merged in Ardhanarishwara.
It's just the way it is, for whatever reason. But Hindus do not need to grovel in front of the "hard polytheists" to crave inclusion in their elitist clique, the way Hindus overseas grovelled "we're monotheists onlee" such as in America or in some Hindu-Jewish summit. For the simplest and most valid of all reasons: neither terms apply. You're just disqualified from both.
If Hindus are not familiar with these definitions, it's not their fault. This isn't Hindoos' language. But when Hindus use words of self-description, they need to know what these words mean before they try to use them:
- Hindus CANNOT be "monotheist", because by definition - part implicit, part explicit - it actually particularly means your "gawd" is jeebusjehovallah (the non-existent "one troo gawd", none other is allowed as the definition of monotheism, this is the implicit part) AND that all other Gods are false. But you don't have one "god". You have many Gods. In particular, your Gods do not include the non-existent invisible jeebusjehovallah, which is something you moreover don't believe in. And how could you believe in it, when it doesn't even exist?
Plus Hindoos would not deny the Gods of other heathens.
- Hindus are simply not (strict) polytheists. Not only because the strict/hard polytheists won't allow Hindoos in their exclusive "polytheist" party, but because their very objection to your inclusion is valid, regardless of how you feel about it: Hindoos do recognise merged forms of Hindoo Gods as existing, as being as much the own forms of their Gods.
* The line with "Hindu" replaced by e.g. "Daoist" applies in equal measure.
In fact, even "soft-polytheists" is a wholly unnecessary word, and is unwelcome too. But if Hindus are going to claim one of these words, they ought to know why monotheism is absolutely not the one, and why polytheism is off-limits and why you're stuck with a sort of "qualified-polytheism" that others (whose opinions Hindoos need not care about**) have condescendingly tattoed you with.
[** Compare with how Daoists and Shintos eagerly choose to identify with Hindoos. (I've seen Native American sites - not just Shinto ones - that explain their religions using similarities with Hindoos' religion. But they're all welcome. Feeling's mutual.) That stupid dialogue of whether Julian was a "monopolytheist" is also unending. Headache.]
But to be forever named by others...? Why not stop all this passivity?
I know it's better to sign up as a polytheist - since it's certainly closer than monotheist ever was, and am very relieved people are aggressively rejecting the monotheist label, which definitely never fit - but Hindus' religion is not the only heathen religion that posits a relation between the numberless Divine (hence often described as "one" for ease of conceptualisation since it is a unity) and the Many Gods. But, as Hindus know, this is very different from what christoislamism means with its "one" - which is an angry and jealous, male, bearded entity invented specifically in contrast and antagonism to other Gods who are recognised to be the Gods of Others as per the OT, before these real Other Gods are then demoted to "false gods" etc.
Actually here again are the experts saying things in an English that even one as dense as myself can sort of comprehend (and they can safely claim themselves to be polytheists since it is THEIR own word and they know exactly what they mean and are allowed to mean it):
http://ysee.gr/index-eng.php?type=english&f=faq
And the Hellenes provide a qualification to the word they use:
I know I keep pasting these bits over and over and over again, but there's a reason the FAQ of ysee.org is so important. English may or may not be like a first language for the Hellenes who wrote the above, but does it matter when their use of the language is so excellent?
Okay we need slightly different words (ours is not exactly the same religion) but in general it can be applied, as it's similar enough.
[a] There seem to be a lot of articles by one Vijaya Rajiva and possibly others on (1) "Hinduism being Polytheism onlee" and (2) "not monotheism at all".
(2) is absolutely true, both because Hindus most certainly have more than 1 "god" and because there most certainly exist multiple Gods in the world even if you don't count a single one of the Hindu Gods in the list. (E.g. there's several millions of Shinto Kamis just in Japan.)
However, claiming polytheism is a problem in itself.
Hindus don't understand words used in English. But European reconstructionists - who consider themselves "pagans" or something - will tell you that Hindus, while certainly not monotheists, are NOT polytheists either. They call Hindus soft-polytheists. And they will say this as if it's an insult, or that you are some lesser species of heathen.
Despite it being used connotatively - the way christians derided Hindus etc as "polytheists" - the "soft polytheism" accusation is true: because the reconstructionists' definition appears to be that Hindoos' Gods can (as they do) join as multiGods-in-n-forms, which is something the neo-pagans/reconstructionists (or whatever they call themselves) insist their Gods do not do.
It's a fact that Hindu Gods do come in forms where two or or more Gods appear in one manifestations. These are ALSO the natural/own forms of these Hindu Gods. E.g. Ardhanaareeshwara (Shiva and Shakti in one) and Indraagni who is one of the Nakshatra Devas (well, in TN/thereabouts at least) who is considered literally a combination of Indra and Agni in the region, etc. Indeed, even any one of Hindus' pan-Hindu Gods can be seen as vouching for the presence of all the Gods.
So we're not really polytheists, because Polytheists - the vocalists who have already reserved the word for themselves - insist that the true polytheism is "hard polytheism": one that does not know of nor allow for merged Gods. But Hindus cannot help that their Gods do merge in various forms, even into entire vishvaroopas (different Hindu Gods display vishvaroopas).
Ironically, while European reconstructionists playing at being heathens today choose to belittle the Hindus as being nothing more than "soft polytheists" and are fortunately avoiding association, one notes that other arch-heathens who still exist in unbroken and unsubverted heathen succession are JUST what we are, whatever it is we are. I'll mention only the Daoists as the example here.
There you have it: traditional Daoists AND Hindus are "soft polytheists onleeeeee and hence not serious polytheists at all", not fit to be counted among the high-handed hard-polytheists.
But let's put the question the way it should be asked: would Hindoos rather have the company of such other arch-heathens like Daoists whose traditionalists since ancient times still see their Gods too, or would Hindoos rather be in the company of the "reconstructionists"?
Repeat: Hindus are NOT monopolytheists.
Hindus are closest to that which the reconstructionists accuse them of: "soft polytheists".
Hindus have Many (very real) Gods, who are all of that undivided nature of the Hindu Divine (of which it is said all the Kosmos partakes)*. Yet some forms of our Gods exist eternally in multi-form manifestation. Ardhanareeshwara is an eternal manifestation, just as Shiva and his wife Uma are eternal manifestations in their own right of the very same Gods who also manifest as merged in Ardhanarishwara.
It's just the way it is, for whatever reason. But Hindus do not need to grovel in front of the "hard polytheists" to crave inclusion in their elitist clique, the way Hindus overseas grovelled "we're monotheists onlee" such as in America or in some Hindu-Jewish summit. For the simplest and most valid of all reasons: neither terms apply. You're just disqualified from both.
If Hindus are not familiar with these definitions, it's not their fault. This isn't Hindoos' language. But when Hindus use words of self-description, they need to know what these words mean before they try to use them:
- Hindus CANNOT be "monotheist", because by definition - part implicit, part explicit - it actually particularly means your "gawd" is jeebusjehovallah (the non-existent "one troo gawd", none other is allowed as the definition of monotheism, this is the implicit part) AND that all other Gods are false. But you don't have one "god". You have many Gods. In particular, your Gods do not include the non-existent invisible jeebusjehovallah, which is something you moreover don't believe in. And how could you believe in it, when it doesn't even exist?
Plus Hindoos would not deny the Gods of other heathens.
- Hindus are simply not (strict) polytheists. Not only because the strict/hard polytheists won't allow Hindoos in their exclusive "polytheist" party, but because their very objection to your inclusion is valid, regardless of how you feel about it: Hindoos do recognise merged forms of Hindoo Gods as existing, as being as much the own forms of their Gods.
* The line with "Hindu" replaced by e.g. "Daoist" applies in equal measure.
In fact, even "soft-polytheists" is a wholly unnecessary word, and is unwelcome too. But if Hindus are going to claim one of these words, they ought to know why monotheism is absolutely not the one, and why polytheism is off-limits and why you're stuck with a sort of "qualified-polytheism" that others (whose opinions Hindoos need not care about**) have condescendingly tattoed you with.
[** Compare with how Daoists and Shintos eagerly choose to identify with Hindoos. (I've seen Native American sites - not just Shinto ones - that explain their religions using similarities with Hindoos' religion. But they're all welcome. Feeling's mutual.) That stupid dialogue of whether Julian was a "monopolytheist" is also unending. Headache.]
But to be forever named by others...? Why not stop all this passivity?
I know it's better to sign up as a polytheist - since it's certainly closer than monotheist ever was, and am very relieved people are aggressively rejecting the monotheist label, which definitely never fit - but Hindus' religion is not the only heathen religion that posits a relation between the numberless Divine (hence often described as "one" for ease of conceptualisation since it is a unity) and the Many Gods. But, as Hindus know, this is very different from what christoislamism means with its "one" - which is an angry and jealous, male, bearded entity invented specifically in contrast and antagonism to other Gods who are recognised to be the Gods of Others as per the OT, before these real Other Gods are then demoted to "false gods" etc.
Actually here again are the experts saying things in an English that even one as dense as myself can sort of comprehend (and they can safely claim themselves to be polytheists since it is THEIR own word and they know exactly what they mean and are allowed to mean it):
http://ysee.gr/index-eng.php?type=english&f=faq
Quote:How many Gods do you have, twelve?The manifest Gods are many.
[color="#0000FF"]The Gods as infinite expressions of Unity are naturally multiple and most certainly exceed twelve in number.[/color]
[...][color="#800080"]
(Then goes on to explain why they have 12 in particular. IIRC Platonists include Dion in Zeus, as per his own name?)[/color]
And the Hellenes provide a qualification to the word they use:
Quote:Are you therefore Polytheists?
We can answer in the affirmative, but should first reiterate that the terms 'monotheism', 'polytheism' etc are used only as conventions, as in reality the monotheists invented these terms to distinguish themselves from normal humanity. Since humanity never doubted the multiplicity of the Universe, we use 'polytheism' simply to contrast ourselves from the so-called 'monotheists'.
Unity cannot exist without the presupposition of the 'many'.
I know I keep pasting these bits over and over and over again, but there's a reason the FAQ of ysee.org is so important. English may or may not be like a first language for the Hellenes who wrote the above, but does it matter when their use of the language is so excellent?
Okay we need slightly different words (ours is not exactly the same religion) but in general it can be applied, as it's similar enough.