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Devas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Ian Watson-Kesarcodi
Ian Watson-Kesarcodi
Affiliation:
Lecturer in Philosophy, La Trobe University, Australia
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Extract

I want to say a few words to dispel certain silly mistakes made about the Hindu notion of devās by Westerners not of this tradition. It is common for Westerners, and especially for certain tendentious devotees of Semitic traditions – most notably the Christian one – to accuse Hinduism of ‘polytheism’, meaning by this the nonsense that enlightened Hindus believe there to be a multitude of ‘gods’, all equivalent to the single Semitic one. But this is simply false. The Hindu equivalent, so far as there is one, to Christianity's ‘God, the Father, Supreme Being or Person’, is Brahman, manifest as Īśvara, and sometimes called ‘Purusottama’ (lit. ‘Supreme Personl’: see Bhagavad Gītā, 15: 15–18), and of which there is only one.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 12 , Issue 4 , December 1976 , pp. 467 - 472
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1976

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References

page 467 note 1 Zaehner is wrong to consider the Bhagavadgītā a predominantly Bhaktic work, as he does in his otherwise excellent Oxford University Press translation. The Gītā, which is a Yoga-Śastra, is none the less too wise to allow any single yoga to dominate. Though, if any did, it would be Karma-Yoga, and not Bhakti. Despite this, Zaehner's translation is perhaps the best available to earnest readers ignorant of Sanskrit.

page 468 note 1 Many will certainly find ‘thusly’ an ugly construction. I do not; and it is anyway the only way to convey the original Sanskrit without adding words to make it English. Rather than ‘thusly’ one might, for instance, put – ‘in a similar way, namely, as “I am Brahman”’ – to make it English; or alter the punctuation, as Radhakrishnan does, and turn the single Sanskrit phrase into several sentences. But ‘thusly’ is simpler, more direct, more accurate, and more faithful to the original stresses, than all such circumlocutions. It is also more poetic.

page 469 note 1 Hindu Orthodoxy allows Devās occasionally to descend to the world of men and take on a body; and this is the doctrine of ‘avatāras’, or Divine Incarnations. But when they do, they are adopting something which is foreign to their intrinsic nature. On the other hand, it is not uncommon to find in the literature quite fabulous elaboration upon the nature of the deva-loka, occasionally even sub-dividing it which should be no surprise – to accommodate lesser gods, thought to have bodies of a subtle nature, and higher gods, thought to have none. This suggestion, more common among the Jains and Buddhists than in Hindu literature, where it occurs occasionally – occasionally as a serious metaphysical suggestion, that is, for it often is found in the Puranas and other mythic works – is altogether orthodox. For the devās, being closer to enlightenment, and a total grasp of Brahma-vidyā, than mundane creatures, are only closer, and hence not there altogether. Accordingly, they are still on the Way, so must be of a nature consistent with this. And for reasons it is not appropriate to enter here, the modicum ‘nature’ is at least certain aspects of the linga-sarira, at least, that is, a certain rudimentary subtle body. To be explicit, at least a mind (plus Buddhi).

Occasionally, however, this orthodoxy crumbles into the heterdox blunder of affording the devās a gross, or physical, body. This it is obviously only appropriate to talk of in the world of gross manifestation, or that of man; hence, not in the deva-loka. And whilst this blunder is again more common among Jains and Buddhists, it isn't entirely absent from Hindu philosophy. Even the great Śankara seems to me guilty of it, in his anxiety to ensure the possibility of moksa open even for devās. See, for instance, his bhaśya on Brahma-Sūtra, 26.

For a succinct summary of various views about this, see Glassenap, H., Immortality and Salvation in Indian Religions (Sunil Gupta, India, 1963), pp. 40–49.Google Scholar

page 470 note 1 Whilst Śiva is always associated with, or depicted as, tamas, or tamas-expressing, there is dispute about which deva it is appropriate to associate with, or depict as, which other guna Alain Danielou, in his classic Hindu Polytheism, for instance, reverses my rendering of this association. ‘All that goes towards preservation, maintenance, devotion, purity, has cohesion (sattva) for its nature. All creative impulses spring from the revolving tendency (rajas)’ (op. cit. p. 28). Now this depends largely upon one's interpretation of guna-rajas, which is often – correctly, whether wholly adequately – rendered, ‘action or movement-initiating’ principle.

But, (i) because one is then forced to give guna-sattva a somewhat artificial meaning – Danielou uses the wholly debateable rendering ‘cohesion’ – I prefer the at least correct interpretation ‘equilibrium-maintaining’ principle for rajas, which then enables the equally at least correct rendering ‘upward-tending, light principle’ for sattva, and hence, the wholly unproblematical ‘guna-deva’ association I have given. (ii) The word ‘Visnu’ very likely comes from the root ‘vis’, meaning ‘action’: hence, the highly likely association ‘rajas’.

But discussion of the gunas is peripheral, and cannot be taken further here. The dispute is anyway a nominalist one, and not, therefore, substantial.

page 472 note 1 See the works of Vladimir Lossky, especially his Mystical Theology of the Orthodox Church, and his Dogmatic Theology, translated by my wife and I, and hopefully to appear shortly. Also, the excellent works on Sufism by Frithjof Schuon, Martin Lings and Titus Burckhardt.