| The Hindu
polytheism |
 severino_1988
(M/Poznań, Poland) |
9/1/00 10:59
am |
Pankaj, I am very grateful to you for answering my questions.
My mom said that your messages were marked by that kind and mysterious
Indian nature. Your mention on Krishna incited me to ask you some more
questions. In that Polish translation of Martin Handford's magazine for
children "Where's Wally? characters" ('Ostateczna rzeczywistość duchowa'
8/24/00 4:09 am, severino_1988) I've read about many Hindu gods. They published
that the most important of them were Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva. Examining
Hindu, I've also read in my favorite encyclopedia these two sentences:
"There are many gods. Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva are the greatest." (The
Golden Book Encyclopedia. Volume VII -- GHOSTS TO HOUSE PLANTS. New York,
Golden Press, 1960, p. 644).
However, my sister glancing down her new history handbook met the sentence:
"Hinduizm - główna religia Indii, charakteryzująca się wiarą w jednego
Boga przejawiającego się w wielu postaciach" (Katarzyna Zielińska, Zofia
T. Kozłowska. U źródeł współczesności. Czasy nowożytne. Podręcznik do drugiej
klasy gimnazjum. Warszawa, Wydawnictwa Szkolne i Pedagogiczne Spółka Akcyjna,
2000, s. 80). This phrase "Different Forms of God" she also found at
http://www.btinternet.com/~vivekananda/schools1s2.htm
. What's more, on that Web page Vivekananda Center from London also placed
such phrases as "God without form but with qualities," "God with and without
form," and "God beyond form and quality."
My sister and I searching for Krishna in our Webster's Dictionary found:
"Krishna -- an important Hindu god, an incarnation of Vishnu, second god
of the Hindu trinity" and "Vishnu -- in Hindu theology, the second member
of the trinity (Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva), called 'the Preserver': he is
popularly believed to have had several human incarnations, most important
of which is Krishna" (College Edition Webster's New World Dictionary of
the American Language. The World Publishing Company, Cleveland and New
York, 1962, p. 811, 1630). At
http://www.btinternet.com/~vivekananda/centre.htm
we found a symptomatic fragment: "Our latest play 'Sri Ramakrishna' was
well received. This play is more like the nativity play of the Christian
tradition."
Therefore, we have a bunch of questions. Is Hindu polytheism or monotheism?
Alternatively, maybe like in the case of Christian religion we ought to
tell about many divisions: the polytheistic Hindu divisions and the monotheistic
Hindu divisions. Last but not least, can we say that contemporary religions
successfully penetrate each other?
Seweryn |
|