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JAINISM: A THEISTIC PHILOSOPHY "GOD IN JAINISM”
that the gods are regarded as mere manifestation of the Supreme God so that when any god was praised, he was not praised in his individual capacity, but merely as the manifestation of the supreme God. The gods are praised; yet not the gods, but God is praised through them. Hence there is no development from polytheism through monotheism to monism, but only monism from the first mantra portion to the last Upanișadic portion. Hence Vedic Aryan felt keenly the mystery of the ultimate, true conception of God. The Supreme Being can be only one.
Vedic seers, to establish, monotheism introduced system of subordinating gods under one higher being; or controlling spirit, which could regulate the working of lower gods, as such satisfied the craving for one God, and yet allowed them to keep up the continuity with the past.
This resulted in today's Hinduism a heterogeneous mass of philosophies, religious mythologies and magic.
Many gods were looked upon as the different embodiments of the universal spirit. They were ruling in their own respective spheres under the suzerainty of the supreme. Even Indra and Varuņa become departmental deities. The highest position in the later part of Rgveda is granted to Viśvakarmā." Max Muller says: Whatever is the age when the collection of our Rgveda-saṁhitā was finished, it was before that age that the conviction had been formed that there is but One, One Being, neither male nor female, a Being raised high above all the conditions and limitations of personality and human nature and nevertheless the Being that was really meant by all such names as Indra, Agni, Mātriśvan, nay, even by the name of Prajāpati, Lord of creatures.'
"Rgveda, X. 81.82; 87.2; X.170.4 31 Dr. Radhakrishnan, “Indian Philosophy, Vol. I, P-96
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