Journal of Gyansagar Science Foundation 2013 04 01

Author(s): Sanjeev Sogani, Vimal Jain
Publisher: Gyansagar Science Foundation

Page 107

Er. Piyush Jain, Volume 1 Issue 1 April 2013
Rigveda Book II hymn 1 verse 3: "Brahma means 'The Creator'. He has four heads witheach head having a crown. Vishnu means 'The Sustainer'. He has four arms, with one of the right arms holding the Chakra, one of the left arms holding a Shankh, He rides a bird and reclines on a snake couch." Yajurveda: "Na tasya Pratima asti" - "There is no image of Him." [Yajurveda 32:3] The Brahm Sutra of Hinduism is: "Ekam Brahm, dvitiya naste neh na naste kinchan" - "There is only one God, not the second; not at all, not at all, not in the least bit." Bhagavad Gita (7:20): "Those whose intelligence has been stolen by materialdesires surrender unto demigods." Upanishads (Chandogya Upanishad 6:2:1]: "Ekam evadvitiyam." - "He is one only without a second."
Monotheism - When a large army of gods became practically difficult to worship and the highest authority (God) was already in place, people subtracted a few of them and uphold the ultimate One. Why waste time, energy and money for a lesser being when the final authority can take care of everything? A. Judaism - Historically, both Islam and Christianity are its offshoots or derivatives. Judaism revolves around thirteen principles of faith all of which advocate unquestioned faith in the Creator. Their monotheism is more ethical and social than philosophical. This skygod concept made Gore Vidal, an American essayist and political activist to comment, "The patriarchal Omnipotent father and His earthly male delegates have loathed women for 2000 years in those countries afflicted by the sky-god concept". However, Jewish philosophers often debate whether God is transcendent, and whether people have free will or their lives are determined? B. Islam - There is a subtle difference between the Hindu and the Islamic monotheism - while the former says 'everything is God', the latter believes 'everything is God's'. Islam, the very word means submission, and the one and only God named Allah means 'the strong', 'the powerful'. Islamic prayer categorically states that there is no God but Allah and Muhammed is His prophet. As its predecessor, Islam too is a law unto itself rather than a philosophy. As the interpretations vary from region to region and from person to person, ideological differences are abundant within Islam too.
Besides these beliefs, there are other popular concepts of Advaita, Vishishtadvaita and Dvaita, just to name a few. All these, and many more ideologies, belong to Hinduism. Which one of these has come from divine source; I leave it to your prudence. B. Christianity - Unlike Hinduism which started with polytheism and ended up with monotheism, Christian faith, an offshoot of Judaism, started with monotheism and ended in limited polytheism of Trinity - God the father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Catholic Encyclopedia unpacks the doctrine as follows -
The idea that there is One God, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit means:
There is exactly one God • The Father is God
The Son is God The Holy Spirit is God The Father is not the Son The Son is not the Holy Spirit
Muslims regard the Qur'an as the literal word of God, as revealed by the Angel Gabriel to the Prophet Muhammad. However, critics allege that Muhammad wrote the Qur'an from Christian and Jewish sources. Islam is also charged, with regular recurrence, for oppression of women, extremism, intolerance and jihad. Though Muslims deny all these charges vehemently and attribute it to twisted interpretation of Qur'anic verses by the vested interests, one question remains - if it was God's revelation through Angel, how its verses remained ambiguous to be interpreted in a free-wheeling manner? Non-theism -
• The Father is not the Holy Spirit Again, I leave it to your prudence to decipher it; wether one God splits in three parts or three parts join to make one. A hair-splitting puzzle! The Trinity is a controversial doctrine; many Christians admit they don't understand it, while many more Christians don't understand it but think they do.
Initially, when polytheism became unmanageable, a few gods were subtracted and replaced with a trinity. They further trimmed it to one. Now, subtract the remaining one as well and you are left with either non-theism or atheism. While the non-theists believe that individual godliness (not in terms of omnipotence) can be attained, atheists treat life as a one-time affair - from default to death.
A. Jainism - It is worth mentioning here that in Western
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