EXPLAINING DIVINITY IN HINDUISM (LECTURETTE 1-4) Lord Venkateshvara with consorts Symbol for the sacred syllable OM Goddess Durga with her lion vahana (mount)

Waiting for the Ganga-arati at Haridwar

ENCOUNTERING GODS IN HARIDWAR

Why start with gods? The hardest part for non-Hindus to understand! The God of Abraham and Abrahamic Religions The Bible and the Quran: Abraham hears the call of the "One God" Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity, Islam Oneness ≈ invisibility (?) Images and idols as compromises to God's oneness and otherness

The Challenge of Hinduism to the Abrahamic model The European response to "monstrous, barbaric" visual gods "Contradictions": Many gods, yet they call themselves monotheists Three main deities related to as "God," yet not related to each other Devotion to images as embodiment of gods, yet understand that the image is not the same as the god Not a Hindu problem, but a western problem

Tailoring explanations to the West? (1) Example: the "Hindu Trinity" (Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva: the Trimurti) Historically obscure, never really caught on But westerners noticed and liked the parallel with the Christian Trinity; colonial era "Hindu explainers" obliged them! Problem: the real "great gods" are Vishnu, Shiva, and the Goddess For devotees, each is all-in-all "We are monotheists" The problem of the monotheism/polytheism binary A functional monotheism in a polytheistic setting (henotheism)

Tailoring explanations to the West? (2) Absorbing the "false" explanations, so they become "real" Happens even more in the Diaspora, because of being in the minority But also, genuine dialogue and "encounter with the other" changes who you are: Reshaping Hinduism in the Diaspora Diaspora explanations and dialogues reimported into the homeland Syndicated Hinduism? (like franchises)

Tools for dealing with a multitude of explanations for divinity 330 Million Gods Acknowledging complexity; resisting easy answers Keeping an open mind Absorb, absorb, absorb Know your terms: Monotheism Monism Polytheism: understanding the "Great Gods" and the other gods Henotheism The "ishta devata" What about "the image"? A huge topic we haven't dealt with in this lecturette! 330 Million Gods AND Diana Eck's Darshan.