Letters

When God is one, why does the Vedic tradition teach polytheism, the worship of many gods?

The Vedic tradition is conclusively monotheistic. It seems polytheistic because it teaches not only exclusive monotheism, as in the Abrahamic traditions, but also progressive, multilevel monotheism.

The Biblical tradition tells the story of the Prodigal Son, wherein a rebellious prince leaves his father’s home and kingdom, squanders away his inheritance, suffers ignominy, and returns home to be welcomed with open arms by his royal father. This story, while illustrating how the soul, due to rebelliousness, leaves the Divine Father, suffers, and eventually returns, underscores God’s immense love in readily accepting the errant soul.

The Vedic tradition carries this thread forward: even during the soul’s self-imposed exile, God arranges for the soul’s care and gradual return. Carrying the Prodigal Son analogy further, suppose the son is fed up with serving an exploitative boss outside his father’s kingdom, but is not yet ready to return to his father’s palace. The father arranges for one of his ministers to offer him a job. When the son accepts this offer, he comes back to his father’s kingdom and thus his father’s indirect care. Eventually, when the son fully recovers his good sense, he returns to his father’s eager, joyful embrace.

The many gods of the Vedic tradition are like the minister of the above story. These gods (or demigods, to be more precise) are administrative assistants of the Supreme God, who double as temporary, transitional surrogate objects of worship for the souls who have left God’s loving service and are not yet ready to return to it. Lord Krishna describes this extraordinary system in the Bhagavad-gita (7.20–23):

“Those whose intelligence has been stolen by material desires surrender unto demigods and follow the particular rules and regulations of worship according to their own natures.

As soon as one desires to worship some demigod, I make his faith steady so that he can devote himself to that particular deity. Endowed with such a faith, he endeavors to worship a particular demigod and obtains his desires. But in actuality these benefits are bestowed by Me alone.”

In contrast to the Abrahamic tradition, which depicts a jealous God who condemns the worship of other gods as infidelity, the Gita reveals God to be magnanimous, for He facilitates the worship of other gods as a transitional arrangement for the gradual elevation of estranged souls. Of course, for souls who are ready to rise from the transition to the summit, the Gita reveals the ultimate object of worship, the Supreme God, glorifying Him with epithets strikingly similar to those used for Yahweh in the Bible and Allah in the Koran.

Thus the Vedic tradition teaches not naive polytheism, but profound, multilevel monotheism.

Why do you consider Krishna to be God?

The Vedic scriptures give us an objective description of God as the person possessing fully the six opulences (excellences) whose fractional presence makes their possessor attractive for everyone. These six opulences are wealth, strength, wisdom, beauty, fame, and renunciation. For example, people are attracted to Bill Gates due to wealth, to Superman due to strength, to Emerson due to wisdom, to (put your favorite movie star’s name) due to beauty, to Alexander due to fame, and to Gandhi due to renunciation. After listing these objective opulences that distinguish God, the Vedic scriptures describe a personality who fully possesses them. Krishna is wealthier than Gates, stronger than Superman, wiser than Emerson, more beautiful than the most beautiful movie star, more famous than Alexander, and more renounced than Gandhi. No wonder that Krishna is celebrated in the Vedic tradition as God in His highest manifestation, as the epitome of all-attractiveness. This all-attractiveness is also the import of the name Krishna, which means “one who has the opulences that can attract everyone.”

Yes, God is all-powerful and allmerciful, as indicated by names like Allah and Jehovah, but His infinite power and mercy contribute to making Him all-attractive. And His all-attractiveness includes all other divine attributes, such as infinite power and mercy. Thus God’s name Krishna conveys all that is conveyed by all other names and also conveys what is not conveyed by any other name.

Still, some may consider Krishna a sectarian god worshiped by a particular tradition. However, in principle the Vedic revelation of God as Krishna doesn’t contradict the revelations of God in other religious traditions. And in details it supplements these revelations. For example, none of the great theistic religions would deny that God possesses the six opulences. Significantly, these traditions don’t reveal any personality who possesses these opulences.

That’s why, for the open-minded, the Vedic revelation of God as Krishna is a spiritual bonanza. They see the particulars about God revealed therein – His charming threefoldbending pose, His unforgettably mesmerizing bluish-black complexion, His heart-captivating flute music, His endearingly pastoral peacock feather – not as signs of sectarianism, but as signs of the culmination of the revelation of the divine given in various religious traditions.