<!--QuoteBegin-Pandyan+Jun 8 2008, 02:19 PM-->QUOTE(Pandyan @ Jun 8 2008, 02:19 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Julian was a great man indeed. What makes him even greater was that he was raised an Xtian, but found his way out of that darkness by himself through study of the Classics. Like a true polytheist, he sacrificed to Hermes, Sybille, Ares, Zeus, Helios. He unabashedly declared his faithfulness to a multitude of gods, unlike many weak, modern Hindus who willfully ascertain that Hindus are indeed Monotheist. As if it's going to make them appear any less criminal in the eyes of the Abrahamics.[right][snapback]82499[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->I agree with most of what you say. The only difference is in the phrasing though. We're not actually monopolytheists - that is, we've never been either/any of monotheists or polytheists. Our ancestors wouldn't even understand what that christodialogue entails. But because we have been exposed to christoislamism for so long, we not only understand what all that means, we even start looking at our beliefs and try to squash our traditions into that restrictive box.
But in reality, we don't declare we have "One God And Not Many" or "Many Gods But Not One". As Hindus, we may conceive of God as One or we may conceive of our Gods as Many or we may at times choose to swap from one frame of mind into another. The underlying reality does not change.
This has always been the Hindu view: many of us view Gods as Many while many others view say Vishnu or Shiva as Everything. The Lingayats and some other Shaiva traditions view Shakthi as an emanation of Shiva. At the same time, still according to Hindu traditions, from the Goddess emanated all the Devas and Asuras. Some other equally traditional Hindu communities have <i>n</i> somewhat distinct Major Gods who can all be considered Brahman (in TN some list this as Shiva, Devi, Vishnu, Lakshmi, Ganapathi, Murugan, Suryan - am I forgetting anyone) and an infinite number of <i>m</i> other Gods who are more specific manifestations of the same. But that is Hinduism for you. All of these and more are all very traditional beliefs, but which confused the christoBritish so much that they could not but help class each as this sect or that sect, this or that school of thought. In reality, as we know, we are part of the same Hindu Dharma. Whether we choose to abstract our Gods into Infinity, One or any other convenient Number in between is at our discretion.
We are not alone in this. The traditional Hellenes (see the awesome FAQ at ysee.gr) don't fixate on mono- or polytheism either. IIRC the Ysee.gr says that they view Divinity in their sacred number of 12: 6 Gods + 6 Goddesses, that their infinite Kosmos is represented by 12. But Kosmos is infinite and one as well, and so they could have more or less. And they do have a greater number of Gods depending on which Gods they count as the major ones. Off the top of my head I can think of some more where my calc comes to 6 Goddesses and 9 Gods (Zeus, Hera, Athena, Dionysus, Apollo, Artemis, Helios, Hermes, Hades, Persephone, Pan, Demeter, Aphrodite, Vulcanus whose Greek name escapes me now, Eros/Cupid). Yet at the same time, Zeus has also been considered the origin of all, the One.
Anyways, I will paste the answer of the knowledgeable Hellenes at ysee.gr:
http://www.ysee.gr/index-eng.php?type=english&f=faq#18
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>How many Gods do you have, twelve?</b>
The Gods as infinite expressions of Unity are naturally multiple and most certainly exceed twelve in number. However, our religion confines itself to a complete and harmonious symbolic Pantheon of six Gods and six Goddesses. This Pantheon expresses a perfect, divine quintessence (the number 12 symbolizes completeness and perfection) that fulfils and bonds the Cosmos. It is also symbolized by the 'most perfect' of the famous Pythagorean canonical polyhedral, the dodecahedron.
<b>Are you therefore Polytheists?</b>
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'. The term is misleading because it has nothing to do with the number of Gods per se, but rather the placing of the Creative Cause outside the Cosmos, which in turn implies its creation from naught (a completely unscientific thesis). Monotheists believe that the laws governing the Universe emanate from the only external, eternal being. This justifies the 'Creator's' right to act autocratically towards 'his' own creation, which has a beginning and will die at some time, as per 'his' desire.
In contrast, the ethnic polytheistic religions assert that the living Cosmos has emanated from within itself and is eternal. There is no external 'Cause' that created all from nothing. The Gods are self-reliant and conscious forces, who are multiple expressions of Unity, emanate from within it and serve its perpetual path.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->I thoroughly admire these Greeks, they obviously know about and care for their ancient traditions. They are not blinkered by christian dialogues on monopolytheism.
Going by the excerpts in my #14 and your post #15, Julian seems to have seen the many Greco-Roman Gods (and Persian Mithra) as manifestations of his Ishtadevam Helios and also as distinct manifestations. As Hindus we immediately understand what this means, but christos won't get it and will immediately be trying to squeeze him into one of the Mono or Poly boxes.
Like us and the Hellenes of ysee.gr above, Japan also does not seem to fix a number either. They have infinite Gods - Kamis - (and also a great many spiritual entities) and yet also view the same Divinity as one KamiSama.
The traditional Asatruar of Iceland - where there has been an unbroken tradition of their beliefs - do have many Gods. At least, I don't think the traditional followers ever thought of their religion as having one sole God, even though their individuals would choose an Ishtadevam or two.
<i>Modern</i> followers who have returned to Asatru (that is, individuals who don't have an unbroken tradition passed down by their ancestors to them, but have started afresh after leaving christianism) or modern followers of other "polytheistic" religions however seem to want to distinguish between mono and polytheists. They even have started distinguishing between the types of polytheists: they describe Hindus as "soft polytheists" and "not real polytheists" (apparently because we can contract our Gods to One God) and themselves as "hard polytheists". At other times some even say that Hindus are undecided as to whether we have many or one or that we have changed over time or something. To make all these distinctions is sad and unnecessary really as it is only perpetuating the weird dialogue of christianism.
But I don't think these terms (hard/soft polytheists or monotheists) actually make any sense for Natural Traditions at all. Hindus are not confused as to what we are. We are just not uniform: either when comparing between two Hindu individuals or comparing the same individual in different times of his/her life.
Also, what about Zoroastrians? They have one prime God. What will the proud polytheists say of them? Or about the beliefs of the Yoruba in Africa (who have One God) or of the native Americans of NA and their Great Spirit?
It is meaningless from the Hindu POV to have discussions on whether polytheism is better than monotheism or monotheism is better than polytheism, or whether one is true and the other false. This is an alien topic that is actually unintelligible and irrelevant in the Hindu view of the world.
Personally, I like to view the Gods as many and distinct, because I appreciate the many individual aspects each God has manifested in the Hindu world. That is why there are the many different ancient temples built in places where the Gods appeared in their different forms to do various great things for humanity. I find that this diversity makes me very happy and of course I like how Divinity in our ancient Hindu Tradition is represented as a family as well. I also like knowing that the same Gods at times appeared in combined manifestations as well (ShankaraNarayanan, Sri Ardhanareeshwarar, Gayatri, Dattatreyar, Trimurthi, etcetera).
But in reality, we don't declare we have "One God And Not Many" or "Many Gods But Not One". As Hindus, we may conceive of God as One or we may conceive of our Gods as Many or we may at times choose to swap from one frame of mind into another. The underlying reality does not change.
This has always been the Hindu view: many of us view Gods as Many while many others view say Vishnu or Shiva as Everything. The Lingayats and some other Shaiva traditions view Shakthi as an emanation of Shiva. At the same time, still according to Hindu traditions, from the Goddess emanated all the Devas and Asuras. Some other equally traditional Hindu communities have <i>n</i> somewhat distinct Major Gods who can all be considered Brahman (in TN some list this as Shiva, Devi, Vishnu, Lakshmi, Ganapathi, Murugan, Suryan - am I forgetting anyone) and an infinite number of <i>m</i> other Gods who are more specific manifestations of the same. But that is Hinduism for you. All of these and more are all very traditional beliefs, but which confused the christoBritish so much that they could not but help class each as this sect or that sect, this or that school of thought. In reality, as we know, we are part of the same Hindu Dharma. Whether we choose to abstract our Gods into Infinity, One or any other convenient Number in between is at our discretion.
We are not alone in this. The traditional Hellenes (see the awesome FAQ at ysee.gr) don't fixate on mono- or polytheism either. IIRC the Ysee.gr says that they view Divinity in their sacred number of 12: 6 Gods + 6 Goddesses, that their infinite Kosmos is represented by 12. But Kosmos is infinite and one as well, and so they could have more or less. And they do have a greater number of Gods depending on which Gods they count as the major ones. Off the top of my head I can think of some more where my calc comes to 6 Goddesses and 9 Gods (Zeus, Hera, Athena, Dionysus, Apollo, Artemis, Helios, Hermes, Hades, Persephone, Pan, Demeter, Aphrodite, Vulcanus whose Greek name escapes me now, Eros/Cupid). Yet at the same time, Zeus has also been considered the origin of all, the One.
Anyways, I will paste the answer of the knowledgeable Hellenes at ysee.gr:
http://www.ysee.gr/index-eng.php?type=english&f=faq#18
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>How many Gods do you have, twelve?</b>
The Gods as infinite expressions of Unity are naturally multiple and most certainly exceed twelve in number. However, our religion confines itself to a complete and harmonious symbolic Pantheon of six Gods and six Goddesses. This Pantheon expresses a perfect, divine quintessence (the number 12 symbolizes completeness and perfection) that fulfils and bonds the Cosmos. It is also symbolized by the 'most perfect' of the famous Pythagorean canonical polyhedral, the dodecahedron.
<b>Are you therefore Polytheists?</b>
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'. The term is misleading because it has nothing to do with the number of Gods per se, but rather the placing of the Creative Cause outside the Cosmos, which in turn implies its creation from naught (a completely unscientific thesis). Monotheists believe that the laws governing the Universe emanate from the only external, eternal being. This justifies the 'Creator's' right to act autocratically towards 'his' own creation, which has a beginning and will die at some time, as per 'his' desire.
In contrast, the ethnic polytheistic religions assert that the living Cosmos has emanated from within itself and is eternal. There is no external 'Cause' that created all from nothing. The Gods are self-reliant and conscious forces, who are multiple expressions of Unity, emanate from within it and serve its perpetual path.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->I thoroughly admire these Greeks, they obviously know about and care for their ancient traditions. They are not blinkered by christian dialogues on monopolytheism.
Going by the excerpts in my #14 and your post #15, Julian seems to have seen the many Greco-Roman Gods (and Persian Mithra) as manifestations of his Ishtadevam Helios and also as distinct manifestations. As Hindus we immediately understand what this means, but christos won't get it and will immediately be trying to squeeze him into one of the Mono or Poly boxes.
Like us and the Hellenes of ysee.gr above, Japan also does not seem to fix a number either. They have infinite Gods - Kamis - (and also a great many spiritual entities) and yet also view the same Divinity as one KamiSama.
The traditional Asatruar of Iceland - where there has been an unbroken tradition of their beliefs - do have many Gods. At least, I don't think the traditional followers ever thought of their religion as having one sole God, even though their individuals would choose an Ishtadevam or two.
<i>Modern</i> followers who have returned to Asatru (that is, individuals who don't have an unbroken tradition passed down by their ancestors to them, but have started afresh after leaving christianism) or modern followers of other "polytheistic" religions however seem to want to distinguish between mono and polytheists. They even have started distinguishing between the types of polytheists: they describe Hindus as "soft polytheists" and "not real polytheists" (apparently because we can contract our Gods to One God) and themselves as "hard polytheists". At other times some even say that Hindus are undecided as to whether we have many or one or that we have changed over time or something. To make all these distinctions is sad and unnecessary really as it is only perpetuating the weird dialogue of christianism.
But I don't think these terms (hard/soft polytheists or monotheists) actually make any sense for Natural Traditions at all. Hindus are not confused as to what we are. We are just not uniform: either when comparing between two Hindu individuals or comparing the same individual in different times of his/her life.
Also, what about Zoroastrians? They have one prime God. What will the proud polytheists say of them? Or about the beliefs of the Yoruba in Africa (who have One God) or of the native Americans of NA and their Great Spirit?
It is meaningless from the Hindu POV to have discussions on whether polytheism is better than monotheism or monotheism is better than polytheism, or whether one is true and the other false. This is an alien topic that is actually unintelligible and irrelevant in the Hindu view of the world.
Personally, I like to view the Gods as many and distinct, because I appreciate the many individual aspects each God has manifested in the Hindu world. That is why there are the many different ancient temples built in places where the Gods appeared in their different forms to do various great things for humanity. I find that this diversity makes me very happy and of course I like how Divinity in our ancient Hindu Tradition is represented as a family as well. I also like knowing that the same Gods at times appeared in combined manifestations as well (ShankaraNarayanan, Sri Ardhanareeshwarar, Gayatri, Dattatreyar, Trimurthi, etcetera).